Sony succeeded in making it very difficult to update the GPS Assist Data on their GPS enabled cameras using a Mac or Linux. Sony supplies a windows-only software for downloading and updating the GPS almanac on the camera. The supplied PMB Portable software runs on Apple’s OS X, but it does not support downloading the GPS almanac.

Here are the steps to do so manually on any OS:

1. Download assistme.dat using this link
2. Download assistme.md5 using this link
3. Verify that the MD5 sum of the assistme.dat file matches the one in the assistme.md5 file
4. Create a top-level folder hierarchy on the memory card for the camera (not the internal memory of the camera) called PRIVATE/SONY/GPS/
5. Place the downloaded assistme.dat file in the PRIVATE/SONY/GPS/ folder
6. Place the memory card in the camera and verify that the GPS Assist Data is valid

IMPORTANT: The GPS Assist Data is only valid for approximately 30 days, after which it is necessary to re-import the data.

Brix Andersen has written a small perl script for automating the above tasks. The script takes the mount point of the memory card as argument. It will run on any OS that has Perl installed.

You can get a copy using this link.