Sony sure loves their little time-stamping whozemawatchits. I remember a few years back, they had a little device, about the same size as this one, called the Emarker. You could use it to find out the name of any song playing on your local radio stations. It was a great idea, that came crashing down to earth in a massive ball of eye-burning flames. Here's hoping this one's got a longer life span.

With so many GPS receivers about (from vendors like Garmin etc), many of which have decent battery life and will store 'track logs, theres an opportunity here for generic software to to this that can exploit the track logs from thise devices in the same way...

Nice idea. Useful for those camping trips to the back of beyond whose location you cease to remember. Does this click on to all cameras, all Sony cameras or just some models?

I really like the idea of a GPS unit to go with a camera. I have a Nikon D200 which is compatable with some GPS units, allowing you to add the lat, long, and universal time directly to the metadata of the picture.

The only problem is, in addition to needing a GPS unit that has a serial output (gross), you also have to buy a propriatary Nikon cable for $99 to hook that GPS unit up to the camera (which is out of stock everywhere on the internet anyway).

The system is not exactly made for portability (just think about having a GPS unit with it's 4' parallel cable, and then another 3' cable attached to that going into the camera.

Anyway, I wonder how much they will be selling this little guy for.

Can we get some more info on this thing? or similar thingies.

I'm searching for good solution to GPS stamp info to pictures taken with my Canon 350D. Got any hints?

Its a great idea, hopefully this will be integrated into future cameras. A camera/phone/gps/pda unit? That would be useful. Who needs 20 devices hanging off your belt?!

Brilliant idea. When will someone hack together a mac client?

For you Mac guys. A little howto.

http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/06/15/gps_photo...

This is just awesome. Here's to Sony building this thing in their next cybershot. Then I'll have yet another reason to throw my canon out the window. Come on Sony, you're due for something that works. :)

Great idea, but I'm sure that the Sony software will suck hard ass and just piss off the user until he doesn't use it anymore.

Hopefully the software is compatible with multple GPSr's and digicams. Tracking down and entering coordinates manually for my photomap is a pain. (http://www.valrik.net/photomap/)

I've seen something similar done with Google Maps on an outdoor site, while it does not have the thumbnail pop up it does show the location an photo details.
http://alavigne.net/newHomePage/Miscellaneous/google_map_p...

I thought of their eMarker as well... that disappeared rather quickly. I wonder how long it will take for this one to vanish.

A little more info:

"...Sony also came out with a new GPS receiver that can be used with both their cameras and camcorders. The GPS-CS1 weighs just 2 ounces and attaches to the USB connector on your camera. As you take photos, the GPS stores the location in its memory. Once you get back to your PC the included software puts everything together so you can see where you took your photos. The GPS-CS1 will ship next month for $150."

Friggin' Sony put a damn proprietary dock connecter instead of USB on my digital camera.

This thing clips on, rather than connects to the camera right? So you could use this as a GPS tracking device assuming you could get the data off of all the points recorded. Slip it in the glovebox of someone you want to keep an eye on and pick it up the next day to see where they've been.

So if this thing is not connected to the camera then it must be logging locations at some set interval. Either this thing has a serious chunk of memory or it is not very accurate.

Works well like on the screenshot positioning a photo in a dirty great big area but how about locating images in a much smaller area? The interval will become more relevant.

So with todays prices of flash memory I recon this baby has heaps and heaps of memory. A 512 MB internal memory would be able to store 2 - 3 year worth of data every second!

Forget using it for photo's, you can track just about anything with this device. Keep an eye on where your kid took your car on the weekend for example and extrapolate the speeds. Or of course you slip one in your wife's purse and find out why it takes 5 hours to do grocery shopping on Saturday.

Right on to this device. It'll be good for more than just photo tagging, like Dinther said. YAY!

NeuroticLymbo, Have you seen the HP6915? PDA/GPS/Phone/Camera... only 1.3 megapixel though... :(

So this thing DOES work with other cameras? I dont see why not as it doesnt directly connect to the camera, but instead to the computer and add the gps into the exif data... can anyone confirm before I make the plunge and get one? Thanks!

I just got my GPS-CS1 and it works with my Sony DSC-N1. It should work with any camera that produces EXIF 2.1 JPGs. The unit comes with a Windows utility that updates your JPGs with the GPS data. I was able to upload my photos to Flickr and the location was automatically mapped. :-)

you can get the software for free all what you need is a Bluetooth enabled mobile phone and a Bluetooth GPS unit....

http://domino.lancs.ac.uk/info/lunews.nsf/I/C4545A634E8AF4...

This unit (attempts to) record GPS data every 15 seconds and timestamps it.
THEN you connect it to your *computer* and download the GPS data to it.
Two assumptions, which are not evident with Sony, and need to be verified:
1- the connection between the unit and the computer is done via standard USB and mounts like any USB memory stick type device, and
2- the GPS data is stored in an accessible flat text file.

if this is the case, folks, we have all we need.

oh and this:
http://oregonstate.edu/~earlyj/gpsphotolinker/

on the "GPS built in to your phone/mobile device" thing: it's definitly here alredy, but let's keep in mind battery draw ;)

Same can be done with a regular GPS device and a very good piece of software called RoboGEO (http://www.robogeo.com/home). This solution is much more flexible than the device by Sony, although a regular GPS is somewhat heavier & bulkier than this mini gadget.
RoboGEO allows you to stamp the locations into your image, create a kmz-file (google earth), export all images into a google map or as a shapefile, export to flickr (geotagged) and offers many more options.
Check out http://kiwitracks.blogspot.com example of how the output can be used.

To make it work with Nikon NEF format, since most applications don't support raw file writing. I have to write a application by myself. Similar functions with SONY's GPS image traker

http://www.nikonfans.org/index.php/2007/05/04/296/