Why I Like gps navigation

Gps Mapping - A Whole New Way Of Looking At Things

By Michelle Bery

The Internet has opened up a whole new world for us - bringing places we may never normally see into full view right on our computer screen. Now, like never before, any computer user - regardless of where they are - has instant access to a location that may even be thousands of miles away. Web cams can broadcast live images in a matter of seconds and the Global Positioning System - or GPS - can pinpoint an address down to the street and house through GPS mapping.

GPS is a system of 24 satellites that continually circle the earth. The system as we know it today originally began in the 1960s as the United States Navy implemented a system to help submarines pinpoint their location. The United States Department of Defense - taking this initial work a step forward - designed and implemented GPS. The first satellite was launched in 1978. The 24 satellites of today were not all in operation until well into the 1990s. Today, we can pinpoint any location based upon the signal of the satellite closest to the location.

GPS mapping was a natural byproduct of such advancements, allowing us to harness the information provided by the satellite system. GPS mapping can find an address and instantly bring you there; some footage is so crystal clear that you can see shrubbery in the front yard and cars in the street.

Specific websites will allow you to simply enter an address or point of reference and information is instantaneously gathered from satellites in space. In a matter of seconds, a photo image appears on our computer screen; its almost hard to believe.

Clearly, GPS has brought us into a new world of information; GPS mapping is only part of this process. Its difficult to know what lies around the corner in the form of satellite information and what role GPS will play in our future. But the possibilities are endless.

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If you're willing to pay a premium, text-to-speech capability is a compelling extra. A unit with a text-to-speech engine is able to pronounce street names in addition to announcing upcoming turns. For example, instead of "In 2 miles, turn left," the device would state: "In one point five miles turn left on Broadway." Not only is this convenient, but it means you don't have to take your eyes off the road to look at the screen. Devices with this capability usually start at around $500. You can also choose whether you want a man or woman's voice telling you what to do�in some case it's a celebrity ordering you around. (You missed da tuhn, girly man!
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Qualcomm's Vision of the Wireless Future "When he finished, there were 20 brand-new, CDMA-based mobile handsets and devices arrayed on the table, the high-tech souvenirs of Belk's most recent trip to Hong Kong and Japan.... 'These are not PowerPoint slides,' Belk said. 'These are real devices that are already shipping in volume in Asia.' " at Business 2.0]

And there's the rub. When I do my presentations, that's all I have - pictures of prototypes or of devices not available in the U.S. Europe and Asia really are 18 months ahead of us in this area.

"Beale also discussed Qualcomm's gpsOne location technology.... It also opens the door for many new location-based services, such as traffic information and local weather forecasts. On Japan KDDI's network, there are already more than 20 location-based services available -- all of which are relatively inexpensive, costing less than $5 per month."

I'm looking forward to being able to travel and have information come to me automatically based on my location. For example, if I'm at a conference and I'm looking for a restaurant, I'd like my phone/PDA/whatever to know where I am and offer a list of nearby choices. Maybe it should tell me what movies or plays are on tonight and if there are still tickets available. You get the idea....

"Predictably, both Belk and Beale anticipate strong growth for the wireless industry as ever-more-compelling products and services become available and the industry settles on a single communication standard. How long will that take? Belk, whose career began in the personal computing business in 1983, likened the wireless industry today to the PC business of the 1980s. 'I wouldn't worry about the wireless industry yet, it's still relatively young,' he said. 'Just look how long it took the PC industry just to get to the point of standardized parallel cables.' "

Not to beat a dead horse, but the ebook industry is even younger than PCs, and PDAs have really only come into their own during the last few years. So don't count any of these technologies out just yet.

Write Here, Write Now: And you thought you were overloaded with information now, just wait. Hewlett Packard is working on a technology to let folks print messages in mid-air based on their location incorporating GPS technology. I find this stuff fascinating, even if no one seems to have thought of a good use for it yet. The first sentence of the article is right, though: "The kids are going to love this." in New Scientist via RCPL's Liblog]

When the ALA summer conference was in San Francisco in 1997, the SF Museum of Modern Art had a fascinating exhibit called Icons: Magnets of Meaning. I spent hours browsing through it, but one of the pieces that has always stuck in my mind was called @: Marking the Electrosphere . It talked about the meaning of that one little symbol. How it can define, place, and root you in the world, but at the same time let you be found anywhere. Integrated, widespread use of GPS is going to take this to a whole new level.

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