I am working with a friend right now (and hopefuly some help from the blackberry dev guys) to design a program that interfaces with a bluetooth GPS module, polls the current location/speed/etc data, and dumps it to a log file which then gets uploaded to a server for real-time tracking.

I am probably going to make it in such a way where you plug in your own server address/port information, and then configure it on your end for an interface into googlemaps for example. Least overhead possible, allowing as much customization as you want on your end.

My goal is to have a piece of software I can run during road trips, where my parents/friends can log onto my website, and see where I am in the past few minutes. Might help resolve some of the "how much longer, where are you, have you died yet" type of calls, or at least limit them. Since most of this stuff is transmitting or working with incredibly small text files, we are talking super low bandwidth. I could probably handle a few thousand users on my site, since the map data would be coming from google, with me just serving out plot points depending on what user it was.

Oh, and for all you tin-foil hat guys, all of this is going to be open source, so you can see exactly where your precious lat/long data is going

That would be sweet if you can get this going. Sign me up

Is this a free app? or are you looking for beta users?

Beta users probably, but in the next few days (starting tonight, lol) it will be single user trying to debug the program just to get it working in the most basic operation. While the main goal of this project is for single users using their own server frontend for the tracking, I might be willing to make a semi-public part since most people dont really have access to their own webservers. Depending on how much traffic and bandwidth it consumes, I *may* have to charge a very small amount to cover that. Free during beta testing, maybe couple bucks a year for main service. The program itself still be free if you want to implement your own interface.

If you are interested in a Beta position, and have a bluetooth GPS unit for your blackberry, shoot me an email at with "Blackberry GPS" in the subject bar. Give me your name, email, blackberry model, gps model, and city/state. Depending on how long it takes to get the main component working on the website with a google maps API in our free time, it could be a few weeks before you get a chance to test it out.

Can I use it in my Pearl by using Bluetooth GPS receiver WITHOUT data plan?

Well, what exactly would you do with it then?

I don't think they are going that route... if they do, you better have unlimited SMS

count me in too! I'm sick of getting lost on stupid NJ roads.

Count me in, we are going across the country with our camper this summer and it would be cool for the rest of the Fam to be able to check out where we are each day.

I wonder if later we can use the data it tracks to make some sort of trail on the maps to show where we have been at the end of the summer or day.

Cool!