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GPS Map Viewer for PSP Released

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thu Aug 17, 2006 09:41 PM
from the gta2-without-guns dept.
Handhelds Hardware
DCEmu writes "Deniska has released a GPS Map Viewer for the PSP. The program uses imagery from Google Maps, which currently has pretty good coverage of North America, Western Europe, Australia, Japan. There's also a video on YouTube." According to the post, map data can be retrieved via WiFi or an external GPS receiver. This story selected and edited by LinuxWorld editor for the day Saied Pinto.
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  • Now, you see (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FireballX301 (766274) on Thursday August 17 2006, @09:46PM (#15932061) Journal
    This is why I like the PSP platform - versatility.

    None of the games that came out for it are worth their cost and the cost of upgrading my 1.5 firmware. No thanks, I like being able to do awesome stuff like this on a high res handheld. Music, video, emulation, and all the homebrew you can ever imagine.

    Now, Sony, if you pulled your face out of your ass and stopped trying to screw the homebrew community over, maybe the PSP could have sold more units.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Abcd1234 (188840)
      Now, Sony, if you pulled your face out of your ass and stopped trying to screw the homebrew community over, maybe the PSP could have sold more units.

      So people can buy what is ostensibly a portable video game device that (as you point out) has no decent video games, leaving them to settle for hobbyist software? Oddly, I really doubt that's going to convince your average consumer to drop the dough for one of these things...
    • I'm almost psyched for the Xbox360 Dev kit that's supposed to come out in a few months and only cost $100. I have so many ideas for simple, but fun, MMOGs. The problem with PC is someone can hack your game in a day. Now when it comes to hacking a console, theres more work involved and the hack doesn't spread like the plague.

    • None of the games that came out for it are worth their cost and the cost of upgrading my 1.5 firmware. No thanks, I like being able to do awesome stuff like this on a high res handheld. Music, video, emulation, and all the homebrew you can ever imagine.

      For curiosity's sake, what make the PSP better than the Nokia 770 for hi-res homebrew? It's got higher res and Maemo to help with the homebrew. Is it a cost thing? Does the PSP have a stronger processor for multimedia?

    • 1.5 is a great firmware in the PSP, so keep it at that version.

      If you feel the need to run software requiring a newer version (up till 2.71 ATM) 1.5 allows you to run http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devhook [wikipedia.org] which lets you load firmware from the MS without touching the firmware in the PSP itself.

      It also lets you run UMD images from MS.
    • So go support (buy) GP2X if you want hackable portable hardware that's open. Do you really think Sony is the company for that?
      • Hmmm. "while on the road" seems fairly limited as that requires wifi access. When I'm thinking "on the road", I know wifi access is not available to me. Perhaps if I'm driving around down town, or as I transit from one city to another, I might find a spot of support...heck, some cities provide free wifi..but that means spotty access unless I stay within that city. In other words, I see very limited value. On the other hand, if they supports wifi AND EDGE or other "G"-type technologies, then we have a r
          • But that doesn't really change anything...which was my point. When I need to go, I need to go...I often don't have time to delay my trip so I can load crap on a stick/card/whatever. The point stands and has zero to do with reading TFA. Like I said...real value will exist when it can do both WiFI and highspeed data connections with cellular networks.

  • Why a GPS enabled PSP? (Score:5, Funny)

    by crazyjeremy (857410) * on Thursday August 17 2006, @09:55PM (#15932097) Homepage Journal
    Aww, yes... for that large "handheld gaming/gps self-positioning" demographic. Glad that group is good with serial ports, cause they're going to need to fall back on that to get active GPS data to the device.

    • Re:Why a GPS enabled PSP? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Abcd1234 (188840) on Thursday August 17 2006, @09:59PM (#15932109) Homepage
      Aww, yes... for that large "handheld gaming/gps self-positioning" demographic.

      It is an excellent demonstration of how confused I think people are regarding what, precisely, the PSP is intended to be. Is it a video game device? A movie player? A music player? Honestly, I don't know! The movies are crazy expensive, so it's not terribly good for that. As a music player, it's mediocre at best. And we've heard time and again how lack-lustre the game lineup is. So... what is this thing? Frankly, I doubt even Sony really knows the answer to that question...

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I don't care what Sony or anyone else for that matter thinks it is. The kids and I share it. We use it to play official games, browse the internet from the national Linksys network or I use my iPass or Tmobile wifi credentials supplied by my employer, watch movies and shows that I convert to its native format (automated tools make that conversion easy), listen to music, and for a temporary file carrier (well, that is really only a function of the memory card). I was doing home brew for a while but since

      • Is it a video game device? A movie player? A music player?

        You left out "personal intimate massage unit" and "spinach stuck between teeth removal device"

        I doubt even Sony really knows the answer to that question...

        I think Sony thought it would be a Nintendo DS (or Nintendo DS Lite) kille, and would injur or maim the iPod. They must have decided that giving it the ability to do everything would cause it to dominate the market. Unfortunately, they ended up producing the handheld version of the Bradley tank (

    • This could be great for those Real Life games, someone could write a homebrew GUI that gives people clues or whatever and they need to find different places, or like the RL Pac-man or assassination game. I think it would be great. GW
    • Why a GPS enabled PSP?

      So I can justify having my office buy me one?

  • I know exactly where we are! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ackthpt (218170) * on Thursday August 17 2006, @09:58PM (#15932107) Homepage Journal

    We're halfway between a bunch of mushrooms with a plumber jumping around on them and a checkered landscape full of gold rings a hedgehog is running around trying to collect.

    Well, maybe some kids will take a break from playing games to do some GeoCaching.

    • Ok, I admit that I live in Texas, where every thing really is bigger. What? You don't beleive me. Well, look at this [metroplextbc.org]. Yeah, it's nearly 60 miles...

      Now that we've settled that, you'd be surprised what isn't covered by Google earth here. We've been shopping for property and most of Texas, outside the major metropolitan areas isn't included in any detail. When Google finally decides that it's worth covering, maybe I'll spring for the app. Till then, I'll stick to my old school Mapscos. They're much

    • Ahhh, but you must have never played Lumines...
      *absent minded drooling*

      Pretty lights...
      Flashing lights...
      Pulsating Music...
      must...pay...Sony...more...money...and install...root-kit...willingly...
      *drool*
      brains....

      Ah yes... Lumines... legal crack for the Y-Generation. -- This post brought to you by Sony Mind Control(tm).
  • I feel sorry for the PSP after all the crap that goes in its way. On paper, it was a great thing. You can play videos, music, games, and it looks cool (is the white version available elsewhere outside of japan?). But it didn't have that killer must-have game it needs to compete with the DS. Sad, so sad. Too bad it has to resort to hobbyist software (which isn't enough) and other niche stuff to be noticed.
  • There exists a J2ME mapping software - and I've seen it being tried on a GPS receiver paired with a Bluetooth-enabled Blackberry - map is retrieved from the network much like Google maps, and looks pretty cool...
    • link please?
    • My Sprint phone came with a trial version of this Rand McNally [randmcnally.com] application. It was really cool while it lasted. Had a little 'locate me' feature that would pop up a map of my exact location. I played with it while the trial version lasted but refuse to pay Sprint 5 bucks a month to keep using it. I really wish the new Google Maps [google.com] mobile app supported GPS.
  • This reminds me of Maemo Mapper [maemo.org] for the Nokia 770.
  • No guns? It said North America support didn't it?

  • But is it LEGAL though? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Posting anon on this one..

    Going by Google's TOS.. uses of google imagery/maps like this are a huge no-no in their books. Funny thing though, there are a lot of sites out there that use GE imagery in a TOS breaking way.

    Wonder what will happen when Google finnaly decides it has to put it's foot down globally and stop the "It is ok for you, but NOT ok for you" game.
  • The article, supposedly written by the developer, says you can hook up a GPS through the PSP's serial port. Last time I checked, the PSP doesn't have a serial port...
  • Give me more games, not more wierd shit. While I love Valkyrie Profile, can I have some good games that are not Playstation ports? Gamers by game systems to play games, so game makers should focus on giving us games to play.
  • Natrium42 [natrium42.com] made the exact same thing [natrium42.com] a year ago, and I don't recall this being mentioned on SlashDot [slashdot.org] before..
  • With global positioning, a mapping tool, and wi-fi all on the PSP we can get an accurate real-time map of every landfill in the United States.

    • Re:GPS reciver? (Score:5, Informative)

      by FireballX301 (766274) on Thursday August 17 2006, @09:48PM (#15932074) Journal
      Quoted:

      - GPS support: ability to read and interpret NMEA sentences from a GPS receiver communicating through PSP's serial port. Rather simple DYI hook up with GPSlim 236 receiver from Holux is explained in following thread: http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t= 30035 [dcemu.co.uk]

      RTFA.
    • I have not RTFA, but how does a GPS reciever transfer Google Maps map data to the PSP? That smells suspiciously like bullshit.

      Maybe you should try RTFA since it tells you it's through the serial port. It's a nice piece of coding. Nice to call bullshit without even looking at the guy's work. Oh wait, this is slashdot...

      • So how exactly does the GPS receiver get the Google maps data?
        • Quoth the article:

          "- WIFI map retrieval: ability to acquire and store map data to memory stick over WIFI
          - Linux/Cygwin script is also provided to generate a map of given size and detail for a given location."

          Ostensibly, I'd say this means that, first of all, the program can connect to google maps directly from WiFi, download maps and handle the rest on the fly, this might be good if you had cellphone internet service. Secondly, it appears that there's a script that can download maps from Google's server, a

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by DruidFyr (24430)
      The summary does not have it quite right...

      Wifi is used to get map graphics from google (cached on memory stick)
      The article notes there is a script to "preload" maps for a given area.

      The GPS is used for position data to show where you are on the maps.

      Two different functions. Hope this clears up your confusion. %-)
    • I have not RTFA

      Then why are you posting?

      Are you one of those obnoxious kids who couldn't wait for the teacher to finish saying something before yelling out what you thought would be the answer?

      Are you still so socially stunted?

      Have you considered medication to help control this compulsion? Some sort of course in effective communication? Learning to sit on your hands?

      Seriously, shut up. Go away. You're not contributing signal, you're noise.

      Is this a troll? No, it's communicating to the too-quick-to-post asshats to actually skim (at least!) the damn article so they don't continually burp up inanities. It might be off-topic, but then anything that begins with "I have not RTFA" was pretty much assured to be that to begin with...

      • No need to! Other people will just say it when people post ignorant comments.
      • Are you teaching the root poster a lesson by embarrassing and insulting him? How many people reply on the Slashdot forums and don't read the articles but just want to talk and interact? At least someone was upfront enough to admit it! The ease of connectivity swings both ways.
        • How many people reply on the Slashdot forums and don't read the articles but just want to talk and interact?

          Yes dear, they're called "boors [google.com]": Folks who can't be bothered to make the least effort to inform themselves before imposing on others to do so for them.

          They're self-indulgant parasites, taking up space but contributing little of value, indeed actively degrading the quality of conversation. They're why moderation systems are now so popular, and why unmoderated environments like usenet are now largely wastelands.

          "Talk & interact" is an admirable, if limited, goal for a child's playgroup.

          However adults have a higher expectation for interaction, it is called "conversation", and to engage in such one must have a clue as to what one is talking about. To excuse posters from this minimal level of competence, to indulge their social dysfunction, neither benefits the community or those unable to meet this requirement.

          Instead setting expectations, giving public feedback, both provides incentive towards socially sucessful interaction and dissuades antisocial "I want to make noise" masturbation. Hopefully Atlantis-Rising [slashdot.org] and others who are disinclined to RTFA but insist on posting inanities will learn from this and adopt age-appropriate communication strategies.

          Or perhaps this will be the wake-up-call they need to look into medication to control a disorder, develop better skills, simply learn when to not speak unless they have something useful to say.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by IANAAC (692242)
            "Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people"

            - Elenor Roosevelt, among others.

            • The fact that you stuck "Elenor Roosevelt" there means you're discussing people too.
              • Nice try, but that is just citing a reference (which is always the polite thing to do!). I think the quote stands well on it's own.

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