GPS Tracking Controls The Weather

Well how about it all my brethren still stuck back there in the USA, Canada or Europe, are you heartily sick of winter, yet. Did you ever look up in the top left of the screen on this blog and see the little time and temperature widget? That’s up to the minute (0858 local time on 5 March) here in delightful Bulacan, Republic of the Philippines. My dear wife, the Unofficial Cook likes to depress me each morning by looking back at the traffic cams in Colorado Springs … I can’t believe how many years I lived in that mess … but I don’t now.

Maybe you can’t retire yet, but you can get a break. When I was a boy I watched the great passenger liners disappear, one by one. But what a renaissance there has been in cruise ships instead! Wow the numbers and choices are just astounding. If you were a cruse ship operator or travel agent what would you use to entice customers to choose your line of product over all your competitors?

Knowing me if it took you longer than 10 seconds to say GPS Tracking then you are obviously reading the wrong blog. GPS tracking on its own, though isn’t much of a tool at the consumer level. How could we capitalize on it and get it out to the masses … or potential customers? Enter, of course, one of my other favorite topics, Google. Specifically, Google earth and Google maps.

If you are a Google Earth fan as I am, and if you’re stuck in a boring office waiting for snow call so you can go home, or stuck at home waiting for the snow call to come, you need do no more that click to be instantly transported to warmer, more luxurious environs (Note, absolutely safe for work, but not safe for modems, if you don’t have Google Earth, see below) (Link courtesy of our good friends at the Google Earth Blog, highly recommended).

The .KML file link above should open Google Earth and get you a view like this. The symbols on the map are various cruise ships on the seas, inhabited by mere mortals like you and I, just mortals who take better care of themselves and focus on the enjoyable things in life instead of shoveling out the car.

Now simply click on any symbol and you get this:

Details of the ship, its departure, destination, ETA, and even views from web cams on the ship, such as this one, taken early this morning … or yesterday morning for those back on the other side of the dateline. If you look close you can see a gentleman viewing the waves who looks as if he’s enjoyed waaaayy too much of the excellent free chow on board but hey, he’s happier than when his car was stuck in the snow, isn’t he?

If you don’t have Google Earth or a fast connection handy, just go to www.seascanner.com and you’ll see the list of ships they market. Click on any ship and there should be a link at the top of the ship’s info to view current position. This will take you right to Google maps and show you where those lucky folks are cruising at the moment.

GPS Tracking, Google, Return On Investment (ROI), you just have to love them all.