GPS, Humanity, and the Future of Travel
Author: Joe Muellerbr
Source: ezinearticles.combr
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Over the past several decades the world has seen an explosion in the proliferation of GPS devices. They are in millions of vehicles in the form of navigation units and GPS tracking and they have made their way into the most powerful personal electronic devices available today, the cell phone. The future for this technology is bright and it could create some valuable advances to the way humans live life.
The next phase of GPS development will most definitely belong to the cell phone. Cell phones and GPS are a perfect fit for each other, but it wasnt until 2005 when a law required that cell phone providers make it possible for police and other emergency personnel to trace the origin of a call. This made perfect sense when you consider that in order to respond to some 911 calls the police and fire department need to have a way to find out where the call is coming from.
But once the technology became standard, the use of the GPS technology has exploded. We can now use the tracking and location capabilities for just about anything these days. Cell phones now have fully functional turn by turn directions that actually use text-to-speech, a feature that took standard GPS navigation devices many years to implement. Cell phones are also a lot better at being able to provide accurate location information since they can use both the Global Positioning System satellites that hover over the earth and the cell towers that dot the surface of the earth. This double action makes them particularly effective locators.
Interestingly enough, it also makes them extremely effect trackers as well. A-GPS (short for Assisted GPS) is is the latest and greatest technology in GPS tracking and do you know what it uses to improve its ability to trilaterate a position? Cell phone towers. The personal GPS device manufacturers took a play from the cell phone manufacturers book, essentially copying their success on the cell phone.
The immediate future looks bright for the cell phone as the dominant medium for all things GPS. Sure, there will always be the niche market for personal GPS tracking and vehicle or fleet tracking – but the main way that most people will interact with this technology is through their cell phones.
There are a lot of reasons for this:
Almost everyone already has a cell phone. Since you are already going to drop $100+ on a cell phone why would you then go and fork out another $250+ for a navigational GPS unit? You wont and that is why cell phones are going to win in the immediate future
In addition to that, cell phones are highly portable and extremely useful devices even if they dont have GPS capabilities. Add GPS and they become even more useful since you dont even have to be driving to get awesome directions to where ever it is you and your friends are going. Just take out your phone and get your app to tell you exactly where to go. It really is that simple
There is a massive amount of money being invested in cell phones right now. When was the last time you saw a Garmin, TomTom, or Magellan commercial on TV? Youll probably have to think about that one for a while but you might have seen one recently. Now, how often do you see a cell phone commercial on TV? The difference should be obvious and staggering.
If you arent hearing the Verizon guy asking, Can you hear me now? you are listen to Jim from NBCs The Office telling you about how cool Blackberry is or you have the CEO of Sprint telling you about their 3G network. These commercials are everywhere and the competition is only going to mean that you as a consumer are going to get a lot of options from these businesses as they fight for your service. Cell phones have way more incentive to steal customers away from traditional GPS navigation and tracking services because it will give them a massive competitive edge over their competitors
And finally, cell phone already dominate the way that the next generation communicates with each other. The speed at which a teenage girl texts is something awesome to behold and it signifies the stranglehold that cell phone and cell phone providers have over the lives of this next generation. How can Garmin compete with that?
They cant, and that is exactly why the future of GPS belongs to the cell phone.
different applications that now use GPS on a cell phone has exploded.
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pJoe writes for a target=_new href=http://www.gpsfortoday.com rel=nofollowGPS For Today/a a website about how GPS technology intersects with the daily life of the average person. The site pays special attention to the impact of GPS tracking on families and communities. He has written extensively about a target=_new href=http://www.gpsfortoday.com/gps-tracking-for-kids/ rel=nofollowGPS tracking for children/a and feels that given the right circumstances that this is an option that some parents should take to ensure the safety of their children./pbr
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Tags: cell phone providers, cell phones, GPS, gps navigation, gps tracking