【Hacker News搬运】一种名为“Etak”的奇特现象

hackernews

Title: A curious phenomenon called 'Etak'

一种名为“Etak”的奇特现象

Text:

Url: https://maphappenings.com/2024/04/11/story-of-etak/

Etak Navigator 是世界上第一个实用的车辆导航系统，由 Stan Honey 于 1983 年创立。这个革命性的产品改变了全球人们到达目的地的方法。Etak Navigator 的主要创新包括：

1. 世界上第一个实际工作的车载导航系统。
2. 使用地图匹配技术的增强型死算导航。
3. 移动地图抬头显示。
4. 在消费类应用中首次使用地理编码概念。
5. 高效地图数据存储和检索算法。
6. 头显数字化。
7. 世界第一个高容量数字地图生产系统。
8. 发明了通用地图导航符号。

Etak Navigator 最初的价格为 1,395 美元，大约相当于今天的 4,000 美元。由于硬件成本高昂且安装过程复杂，建立可持续的业务变得非常困难。因此，Etak 迅速转型，将其导航代码许可给当时的最大汽车OEM硬件制造商，如德国的罗伯特·博世、美国的通用汽车和日本的克拉里昂。这些公司随后开发了自己的导航系统，并最终产生了像布劳punkt、Garmin、马盖兰、TomTom 这样的“个人导航设备”概念。

Etak 的名称源于波利尼西亚早期航海时期，当时的水手们通过一系列环境线索，如周围岛屿的位置来导航。Etak Navigator 中的车辆被视为静止的，而地图则移动通过车辆。Stan Honey 决定将他的公司命名为 Etak，这是一个波利尼西亚术语，意为移动导航参考点。

Etak 的许多创新，包括其独特的导航符号，至今仍在全球各种导航应用中使用。

Post by: MBCook

Comments:

SamBam: The name is perfect. "Etak" refers to a system of navigation used by Micronesian and Polynesian seafarers to navigate from island to island in the vast Pacific Ocean. Much like this device, it operates by "augmented dead reckoning" (as it says in TFA).The etak system of navigation involves navigating by stars and ocean swells to get the heading, but a key issue when navigating by dead reckoning over long distances is that if you're a fraction of a degree off you may miss your destination and never know it, so it's also vitally important to know how far you've gone. This is hard when there are no landmarks. The navigators estimated their distance by using intermediary islands off to the side, which they viewed as coming towards them (from their point of view, the navigator stays motionless on the open ocean while the world moves towards them) and past them. These reference islands were called etaks.However, confusingly, the etaks were generally not visible, being beyond the horizon, and sometimes did not even exist. The navigators would have named etaks that they pictured being just over the horizon, whether they were there or not, and would track their procession past their boat. When the set number of etaks had passed, they would know they were in the vicinity of the destination island. If they were not at the right time of day for birds to be out, they would then hang out in the area waiting to spot the birds leaving or returning at dawn or dusk.So the system involves dead reckoning plus a system of turning the navigators' own well-developed intuition of how far they had travelled into a formalized system of generally-invisible islands that they used as a mental model to externalize this intuition.(My knowledge of this is from Cognition in the wild, Hutchins, E., 1995.)Edit: D'oh, I should have finished TFA. This is described at the end, although more roughly.

SamBam: 这个名字很完美&quot；Etak”；是指密克罗尼西亚和波利尼西亚海员在广阔的太平洋上从一个岛屿航行到另一个岛屿的导航系统。与该装置非常相似；增强航位推算”；（正如TFA中所说） etak导航系统涉及通过恒星和海浪进行导航以获得航向，但当通过航位推算进行长距离导航时的一个关键问题是；你可能会错过你的目的地，而且永远不会知道，所以这是一个学位的零头；知道自己走了多远也是至关重要的；我走了。当没有地标时，这很难做到。航海家们通过使用旁边的中间岛屿来估计他们的距离，他们认为这些岛屿正在向他们靠近（从他们的角度来看，当世界向他们移动时，航海家在开阔的海洋上静止不动）并经过他们。这些参考岛被称为etaks 然而，令人困惑的是，etak通常不可见，在地平线之外，有时甚至不存在。无论他们是否在地平线上，航海家们都会将他们想象中的etaks命名为，并追踪他们的队伍经过他们的船。当etak的设定数量超过时，他们就会知道自己在目的岛附近。如果它们不是在一天中鸟类外出的合适时间，它们就会在该地区闲逛，等待发现黎明或黄昏时离开或返回的鸟类 因此，该系统包括航位推算加上使导航器转动的系统；他们自己发展良好的直觉，即他们已经进入了一个由通常看不见的岛屿组成的正式系统，并将其作为将这种直觉具体化的心理模型 （我对此的了解来自Cognition in the wild，Hutchins，E.，1995。）编辑：D；哦，我本该完成TFA的。这将在最后进行描述，尽管更为粗略。

gizmo: One the one hand this is a cool story about real technology pioneers. On the other hand, this is a story about people building technology that was so ahead of its time that it had no chance of turning into a good product. Too expensive, too unreliable, too complicated.I think there are some obvious parallels here to General Magic and the Apple Newton. Very cool technology. Impressive demos. But ultimately the products didn't deliver on the vision. It wasn't until the iPod and capacitive touch screens and tiny hard drives came to the market that the iPhone became possible. Being 20 years early doesn't help.Similar catastrophically flawed research projects get started today. In the past couple of days the Humane AI pin has been in the news. It's a wearable AI gadget that seems cool but it doesn't work. The tech has to catch up to the vision. It's at least a decade ahead of its time.

gizmo: 一方面，这是一个关于真正的技术先驱的很酷的故事。另一方面，这是一个关于人们构建技术的故事，这种技术太超前了，以至于没有机会变成一种好的产品。太贵，太不可靠，太复杂 我认为这里有一些明显的相似之处，通用魔术和苹果牛顿。非常酷的技术。令人印象深刻的演示。但最终产品没有；没有实现愿景。事实并非如此；直到iPod、电容式触摸屏和微型硬盘进入市场，iPhone才成为可能。早20岁并不意味着；没有帮助 类似的有灾难性缺陷的研究项目今天开始实施。在过去的几天里，人道AI徽章出现在新闻中。它；这是一款可穿戴的人工智能小工具，看起来很酷，但实际上并不酷；不行。技术必须跟上愿景。它；It’至少比它的时代早了十年。

neilv: 1991 home video demo of an Etak, in a custom housing: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHCCjlSWbHE?t=1m50s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHCCjlSWbHE?t=1m50s</a>(Bet they didn't think at the time that techies of the future would be watching it in 2024 on the ubiquitous global data network.)

neilv: 1991年Etak的家庭视频演示，在一个定制的房子里：<a href=“https://；&#x2F；www.youtube.com&#x2F？watch？v=CHCjlSWbHE？t=1m50s”rel=“nofollow”>https://&#x2F；www.youtube.com&#x2F；看v=CHCjlSWbHE？t=1m50s</a>（打赌他们当时并不认为未来的技术人员会在2024年在无处不在的全球数据网络上观看它。）

Daub: Time to plug my dear father's book 'The Principles of Arab Navigation'.<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Arab-Navigation-2013-02-28/dp/B01FELBIPU" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Arab-Navigation-2013-02-28...</a>

Daub: 是时候给我亲爱的父亲插上插头了；s的书；阿拉伯航海原理 <a href=“https://；&#x2F；www.amazon.com&#x2F！Principles-Arab-Navigation-2013-02-28&#x20F；dp&#x2F：B01FELBIPU”rel=“nofollow”>https://&#x2F；www.amazon.com&#x2F；原理-Arab-Navigation-2013-02-28</a>

fs111: When I started working at TeleAtlas Germany (former Robert Bosch Data; forever a part of TomTom now) in 2005 we still had production processes on the MapEngine technology coming from Etak. We had in-house python bindings that allowed for very productive development. It is fun to see this mentioned here today.

fs111: 2005年，当我开始在德国TeleAtlas（前Robert Bosch Data；现在永远是TomTom的一部分）工作时，我们仍然有来自Etak的MapEngine技术的生产流程。我们有内部的python绑定，可以进行非常高效的开发。今天看到这里提到这一点很有趣。