What do you get when you combine the number one Google Android phone maker and the world’s most famous cycling race? You get one of the coolest ways to track the racers via GPS and HTC Android handsets. Team HTC Columbia is using the My Tracks program on HTC Legend devices to provide real-time location data to followers. Their system is also working with other partners to provide speed, power, cadence, and heart rate data. This is an awesome use of technology and may be a way to get more smartphone enthusiasts to follow The Tour de France.
You can read the Google blog post on the origination of the My Tracks gadget and application. As the post states, they are using a special version of the app that tracks their physical details. You can add a widget for this to your iGoogle page too. Google says that this project was the work of employees conducted during their 20% time.
Matthew Miller started using a Pilot 1000 in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since.
Disclosure
Matthew Miller
Matthew is a professional naval architect by day and a mobile gadget freak at all other times. He purchases his own devices and then sells them on eBay or Craigslist to buy more. Many other devices are sent for review on a 30-day loaner basis and then returned to the carrier or manufacturer. If any are provided as “long term loaner units” this will be clearly disclosed in his reviews.
Biography
Matthew Miller
Matthew Miller started using a mobile devices in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since. He is a co-host with GigaOM's Kevin Tofel on the MobileTechRoundup podcast and an author of three Wiley Companion series books. Matthew started using mobile devices with a US Robotics Pilot 1000 and has owned over 125 different devices running Palm, Linux, Symbian, Newton, BlackBerry, iOS, Android, webOS, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone operating systems. His current collection includes an HTC Radar 4G, Dell Venue Pro, Apple iPad 2, HTC Flyer, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Nokia N9, Apple iPhone 4S, MacBook Pro, and many more, along with tons of accessories and classic devices like the Apple Newton MessagePad 2100 and Sony CLIE UX50. Matthew can be found on various discussion forums under the user name of "palmsolo".
