There's a company called Rosum who has been working on this technology for a while, and is finally getting some headway. Their goal is to help devices that spend all or most of the time indoors enjoy the benefits of global positioning. They're currently focused on integrating their TV-assisted geo-location into femtocells—without a GPS lock, these internet-connected cellular repeaters are useless, even though they're totally meant for use indoors.

By locking onto the timecode embedded in TV signals from known locations, they can get a fix. As you probably know, wi-fi networks mapped by Skyhook use this same basic concept. Rosum likes TV signal because it's especially strong, it penetrates walls, and "it's roughly 12,000 miles closer" than GPS.

Anyway, it's all a heady business, so head over to Ars if you want the 202. The point is, everything can be used to get a fix on your location, and in the future, everything will. [Ars Technica]

It uses Skyhook, the same Wi-Fi location tech used by the iPhone to triangulate your position against Wi-Fi access points. Convenient, since we're not quite at the stage where laptops have built-in GPS for lojacking (though it's probably not too far off).

Unfortunately, for now it only works on Windows computers (booo), but if you have a habit of losing your laptop, $50 is pretty cheap for a chance to find out where it lands.

wareness Technologies Upgrades Laptop Cop with Skyhook Wireless Real-time Geo-Location

Wi-Fi Positioning Enhances Security of Laptop Theft Recovery Software

LOS ANGELES, CA and BOSTON, MA – December 3, 2008 - Awareness Technologies and Skyhook Wireless announced today the release of Laptop Cop with real-time geo-location. The Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) from Skyhook Wireless adds a powerful new set of features to Laptop Cop, making it the most comprehensive and effective laptop protection software in the industry.

"We deliver real laptop protection, not just ping for an IP address like our competitor," emphasized Peter Fuhrman, a founder of Awareness Technologies. "We give laptop owners the valuable features they've long wanted, of being able to remotely retrieve or delete files, monitor and control what a thief does with the stolen laptop, and now, thanks to our partnership with Skyhook Wireless, find out in real-time where the laptop is located, with a higher degree of accuracy than GPS. This is a game-changer in the software market."

"Adding WPS to Laptop Cop will provide owners with fast, accurate information on the location of the stolen device, even when it's inside or in an urban area. It works like a true homing beacon that helps locate stolen laptops and get them back to their rightful owners," said Michael Shean, vice president of business development at Skyhook Wireless.

Laptop Cop works on any Windows laptop, whether newly-bought, or already in use. It is available now through Dell Computer's main website, or direct from Awareness Technologies, at www.laptopcopsoftware.com. The software operates in an undetectable stealth mode, activating only when a laptop is lost or stolen. Its multi-layered functions, including geo-location and remote file-retrieval, go beyond encryption and IP-pinging so owners can truly protect their laptops, and all the contents.

Skyhook Wireless has pioneered the development of WPS, the Wi-Fi positioning system. WPS uses Wi-Fi to determine precise location of laptops and mobile devices, regardless of environment, in order to support always-available and always-accurate positioning. Skyhook's technology is deployed on tens of millions of devices and applications.

"More and more people are switching to laptops, both for business and home use," explained Awareness Technologies' Fuhrman. "Increased mobility and convenience, however, brings with it increased risk of laptop theft or loss. Laptop Cop is a must-have for anyone with a laptop or contents worth protecting."

[Laptop Cop, Skyhook]

Obviously, this opens up all kinds of location-based hotness that was oddly sorta restricted to phones—on your notebook in Harbucks and wanna find some nearby Japanese food, or a coffee place that doesn't burn their beans? Or just find out what's going on within your immediate area with super-local news.

If you've got some weird privacy sniggles (and they were would be weird if use a phone with geo-location stuff since guess what?) Gears doesn't record user location, though the site you're visiting very well might. So the Goog recommends sticking with sites you trust. But you might as well get over it—location-based services are the very near future. [Google via Ars]

The potential benefits of accessing space by crawling up a cable versus launching rockets are mind boggling...especially when you realize it could be 100 times cheaper to get there than using a Space Shuttle. But building a more than 36,000km-long carbon rope (or more likely a series of parallel ropes) to connect an Earth-based "launch pad" with a geostationary-orbiting elevator hub still seems a lot like science fiction. Yet it turns out that development of carbon nanotube technology has seen a more than 100 times increase in the fiber strength in the last five years: four times more strength certainly seems possible.

The Space Elevator Association's director also thinks technology similar to the Bullet train's could be used to build the elevator cars, since nanotubes can be used as electrical conductors. Lets hope his vision that "just like travelling abroad, anyone will be able to ride the elevator into space" comes true: my savings fund for going aloft in Virgin Galactic is going to take waaaay to long to fill up. [Timesonline]
Picture: HighLift Systems.

As you can see, the eight-engine aircraft has four vertical rotors to lift its neutrally buoyant body, plus four directional propellers under each rotor to direct it. Boeing says that it will be very popular in the energy, mining, and logging industries. Their pitch to environmentalists is that the JHL-40 has a very reduced carbon footprint, and it doesn't require to disturb remote lands with roads or other destructive transport methods (that way, the aforementioned industries will be able to properly disturb remote lands only by mining and logging, as it should be.) [Boeing]

• Robotic critters, from the insectothopter of the 1970s to the robofish of today

• Cigars developed to kill, confuse or humiliate Fidel Castro—not surprisingly, one would have made his beard fall out.

• The beloved skyhook—yes, the thing that yanks people from the ground up into airplanes. Learn of its origins, early animal test runs and its one successful on-record mission.

• The Soviet's most amazing spy gadget, dubbed "The Thing" by befuddled CIA agents who didn't know how on earth it worked. It was built by Theremin, inventor of that wacky musical thingy, himself a part-time Soviet agent and researcher.

• Spies, spying and spy talk. Yes, the book may be focused on hardware, but man it's full of crazy stories about spies. The most interesting tales are about the Russians who were leaking info to the US, often upon pain of death. Stories of American traitors are pretty familiar, but you rarely get to hear about what went on over on the other side of the Curtain.

Meanwhile, here's a recap of what I did cover, in case you missed it:
• My interview with the authors
• Blow-up Sex Toys as In-Car Decoys
• A Speedboat Disguised as a Junk
• Hide and Seek, CIA Style
• The Inflatable Rescue Plane
• Animal Agents, Live and Dead
• A Gallery of CIA Spy Cameras

Anyway, I enjoyed the book and the authors, and I highly recommend it for a Father's Day gift. Needless to say, I've not received anything in return for this endorsement except a copy of the book itself, which they can have back when they pry it from my cold dead hands. [CIA Spycraft; Amazon Sales Page]