Consumer Electronics Examiner: Garmin to update Oregon series GPS with camera; Geotaggers rejoice

Update to the post yesterday on the new Garmin Oregon Models


Consumer Electronics Examiner: Garmin to update Oregon series GPS with camera; Geotaggers rejoice

Posted using ShareThis

New Garmin Oregon Models?

Received this link via Twitter this evening. It appears Garmin will introduce two new models of the Oregon GPSr model. The new features will include a built in digital camera to allow geotagging of photos. We will update as additional ifor comes out.

March 2009 12 of 12

Here is my submission for the March 2009 12 of 12. This month, I did a theme of Coffee shops in Downtown Denver.

The Social Side of Geocaching

This is a post on two examples of the social side of geocaching.

Yesterday, we attended the third annual Geocaching Colorado Geochat. This was a opportunity for geocachers throughout Colorado to meet the new Board of Directors, fun and fellowship. We played a icebreaker game of Geo-Bingo. One of the squares was to find a cacher who had found a Project A.P.E cache. Luckily, we had one there, but the price of having him sign the square was to wear a pair of Groucho glasses that was a travel bug. You can see our suave look above. I recommend events as a way to meet fellow geocachers and learn more about the sport we all love. Besides, you may win a raffle item like a new unactivated geocoin! Yea, us.

This morning, I happened to be looking at the Facebook application on my IPod Touch. Listed was a request from Cliff Ravenscraft a podcaster from gspn.tv asking "I NEED HELP! Family wants to go GEOCACHING for the1st time. How Do I Do It?" I quickly fired up my computer, and I a few minutes I was live with him providing advice on how to get started. He wanted to use the 3G features of his Iphone, and recommended that he start with the Geocaching.com application, a low cost barrier to entry at $9.99. I gave him a few suggestions, pick a larger, traditional cache, with a low difficulty and terrain rating. I look forward to hearing his experiences in his podcast "My Crazy Life" show #373. It always amazes me the social media tools that are now an integral part of the day to day networking I experience. This meetup and short discussion on geocaching would not have been possible a few years ago.

Groundspeak site updates

Groundspeak.com published updates to the geocaching.com and waymarking.com websites on February 11,2008

You can read about the geocaching.com updates here

and

You can read about the waymarking.com updates here

We will have this as a show topic on the next podcast.

Geocaching Heroes

On April 25th 2009, the Denver Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America will hold their annual Scout Show. Cub Scout Packs, Boy Scout Troops and Venturing Crews, get together and show off what they do best.

This years theme is "A Hero's Adventure". Our Venture Crew has come up with the idea of featuring photographs in a mosaic of Heroes who also geocache.

If you know a geocacher who is also a hero (Military, Law Enforcement, Emergency Services, and Teachers), we would like to feature their photograph. You may submit a photograph in jpeg format, along with their geocaching name to the show e-mail . We will feature photographs of the mosaic in the show Flickr set. We are also planning to record a episode of the podcast at the Scout Show. If you plan on attending, be sure to stop by and say hello.

Reflections on Chuck in 3-D

Last night, the latest gimmick from NBC was unveiled on a unsuspecting public. A episode of the show "Chuck" was aired in 'glorious 3-D'. This show is on my TV viewing rotation, so I would have watched it anyway.

Chuck (Zachary Levi) is a show of a computer tech worker at a 'big box' electronic store, who by a comic set of circumstances, ends up with the entire NSA database stored in his head. he is protected by two NSA agents (Adam Baldwin, Yvonne Strahovski). There is also a weekly subplot revolving around Chuck's co-workers at the big box store.

What didn't work: The 3-d effects. It appears that the technology has not changed much since the technology debuted in the 1950's. It appears that using the glasses , along with the red/blue hue in the program, forced the viewing experience to be fuzzy. The 3-d effect came out when my eyes attempted to focus on images. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I attribute this to two possible factors. First, I wear eyeglasses with a glare reflective coating. Second, our main television is a RCA 26 inch TV purchased in 1985. I'm not sure if the viewing experience was better on a larger screen. I would be interested to receive feedback on this.

Missed opportunity to cross promote with Facebook. Chuck references a Facebook group in this episode. When I accessed my Facebook account, I could not find the group. TV show have not figured how to cross promote with Social Networking sites.

This show should also partner with Best Buy, they could offer the 'Chuck product of the week".

What did work: Story, story, story. The ability to mix the weekly main spy story with the sub-story in the big box store. The ability to keep me laughing for the hour. This is what Hollywood forgets, it always comes back to the story. What do you think?