Google Maps has lost the compass

Are you sure it's Piazza Anfiteatro in Lucca?

How buggy is iOS 6?

I've upgraded my iPad to iOS 6 a couple of days ago.
It seems a mess to me.
The new maps have a long way to go to be on par with Google's.
My iPad doesn't lock anymore when I close the cover.
The podcast app is both installing and installed.

Safari's bookmarks sometimes vanish.

Hacking QNX CAR-based Toyota Touch&Go

While I'm waiting for my new Yaris HSD to arrive, I've gathered some info on its infotainment system, the Touch&Go audio and navigation system.

It's based on the QNX CAR platform, and it allows downloading of apps from the Toyota website.
It's a system that just begs to be hacked.

There's a nice quickstart guide on the QNX website: it guides you to install a fully functional develpment environment.

http://www.qnx.com/download/feature.html?programid=20982

It's even available a VMware VM with a full QNX environment where you can test the SDK.

650SP1-VM.tar

The SDK itself is available as an evaluation at http://www.qnx.com/products/evaluation/ (windows and linux flavours).

Here is a little hello world to try:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    printf("Welcome to the QNX Momentics IDE\n");
    system("sleep 60");
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

After the build, the executable is available in

C:\ide-4.7-workspace\my_first_project\x86\o

I shared that directory and mounted it from inside the QNX VM:

mkdir /mnt
fs-cifs //hostname:192.168.237.1:/qnx /mnt user password

Note the redundancy of specifying both the host name and the ip address.
From the /mnt directory it's possible to run the sample on the VM.

Recompiling with arm target should produce an executable suitable for the real platform.
I will continue my experiments when I'll have the real car at hand.

UPDATE:
I've finally got my car.
It seems that the Touch system comes in two flavors:

1. Touch: which performs audio and trip information (energy management and mileage history)
2. Touch&Go: which add navigation and apps to the above.

There's indeed an additional hardware component (the GPS module), but the base system is the same.
I only have the base Touch system, and I'm not going to buy the additional module, because it's simply not worth the price for me.
I don't understand why apps should run only when the GPS module is present and maybe there's a chance to run them even without it.

Is there any volunteer, with a Touch&Go system, that has already downloaded some sample apps like Glass of Water, willing to send me a dump of his USB media?
A simple

dd if=/dev/sdc | bzip2 >usb.dump.bz2

would do (make sure your USB key is /dev/sdc).

Plane in flight on Google Maps

A small plane flying over.
Two ghost images forego the plane itself.

https://maps.google.it/?ll=44.957375,8.637421&spn=0.001608,0.003109&t=h&z=19

Google is a liar!

Want a faster Google Docs? Get Chrome

Sure, I would like to be able to properly edit my spreadsheets on my iPad.

So I downloaded Chrome for iPad, but this is what I've got.

 

IBM's epic fail

Not quite the same as Nokia's, but still a good laugh.
I'm a subscriber of the IBM AIX newsletter (just for work, not for pleasure :-).
Here is the latest issue, available at http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/aix/administrator/security/shell_easy/

Sure it's easy, it's a Mac!
Here is the keyboard at the Apple store:

There's a subtle irony in the fact the Mac platform abandoned the PowerPC platform several years ago...

LG vs Samsung

I have two LCD TVs, an LG and a Samsung. Both do their work quite well, but there's one feature of the LG that I can't really stand: when turned back on from standby, it tunes on the last channel it was when turned off, and you have to wait a handful of seconds before being allowed to change.
The Samsung TV instead, can be turned on tuned on a specific channel just by pressing the channel number on the remote.
This saves some time and some frustration too.