The words when, where and how would normally elicit a flurry of words in purported Greek, from by standers, not to mention the incoherent gesticulations .The same when and where when flushed into the toilet of a map would throw out a lot more words and sounds along with a mulling head ache alongside an excessive eye strain. Its then that Mr. technology decided to grab some spinach and went on to carve out a solution in the name of GPS to combat the "when and where questions”, in our second to second lives. Yes! Global positioning system as it is uncommonly known assumes the expansion of the omniscient GPS. GPS enabled devices is catching solid ground in the drool widgets section as people seem to long for the “never say lost” motto. GPS apart from moving on to deprecate the asking around, map gawking or going round in circles, does contribute towards a self sufficient scenario and does add on to the benefit of society. Now with the technology extant, getting this technology to amalgamate with our lives is the next caveat, which is to be addressed. Well realistically speaking, wrapping the rocket is absurd and rob doesn’t exist. The rest of the article is going to be about you, the GPS and your wallets within your percolated pockets.
Great! With the above said lets move on to give a little account concerning GPS before we slide this GPS pie down our lusty throats. The GPS is essentially a satellite based navigation system made up of a network of satellites. Owing to the satellites assuming the god fatherly position of GPS, it is known to function smoothly rendering weather conditions, location and time attributes to retreat from the battlefront. The GPS is thus an anytime, anywhere aspect to carry around in our bags.
Getting the GPS to aid the betterment of our lives is possible in numerous ways but I guess I could very well lay emphasis on the contemporary high end phones which have GPS receivers imbibed into them along with manifold other phone elements/features. With the above said we can infer that the mobile phone could in turn double up as a GPS receiver and with the right software or the service package, would be able to pinpoint one’s location, give directions to destinations and also provide invaluable information about nearby businesses. There are currently 27 GPS satellites in the orbit. Thus the GPS receiver will be able to hit the nail on your head with the help of at least 3 satellites above you and by assessing your relative position with respect to these satellites.
With the integration of the aforementioned GPS receivers and cell phones we can get ourselves the whereabouts of the shoes, at our feet, at any point of time.
One important factor that is to be sharpened out is that, the GPS service could be service provider independent. The GPS enabled phone could connect to a third party GPS server (which renders the maps and the turn by turn instruction oriented services that works on the data location co-ordinates passed out by the GPS enabled phones/receivers) through GPRS. These third party providers are essentially navigational solution providers who come out with navigational software, maps, voice instructions and other manifold services to satiate the relevant needs of the customers. These providers have flexible packages for people who already have GPS enabled phones or blue tooth GPS receiver and packages that comes to the aid in case of non-availability of a GPS receiver by providing a receiver along with yearly subscription facilities. One such example is Wayfinder navigational solution providers. Tomtom, which is the world’s largest navigation solutions provider, recently tied up with Google Maps such that users can search and send addresses directly from the Google Maps’ website to Tomtom devices. Similarly we have Destinator technologies, a provider of personalized navigation software, for Nokia Symbian smart phones. They claim to have come up with their latest software designated ‘destinator 7’.According to them, they have touted this very navigational software as quoted below “This latest version of our award-winning software is the best possible traveling companion – smart, quick and with an eye for detail that makes getting from A to B simple and trouble-free. With all the quality and reliability you have come to expect from our products, Destinator 7 provides a range of exciting new features, coupled with improvements in the underlying routing engine that really make a difference to the end user experience”. Bharti Airtel had also launched the GPS based navigation application on mobile handsets in collaboration with the aforementioned Wayfinder Systems AB of Sweden. This application would render the compatible mobile phones into a GPS-based navigation system with detailed maps and Points-of-Interests in a number of cities in India.
There are numerous other mobile handsets that are currently enjoying an elaborate tryst with the ever so petite GPS.To name a few I would start with the HTC p3300 pda phone as it was recently launched in India. This GPS featured device allows one to click and affix satellite co-ordinates into the frozen realities (photos ). It comes with a standalone GPS and the new tomtom Navigator 6 application. So relieve yourself of Rs 23,000 and use the htc to guide you back home .
Nokia also had flashed its GPS badge with the Nokia 6110 Navigator mobile phone, N-95, N-95 8Gb, Nokia N-82 and Nokia E-90.
One of the above GPS compatible mobiles or a blue tooth receiver available for rates from the $ 60 range could make us ready to start the race.
So simplicity circumvents itself by requiring nothing more than a GPS receiver mobile device/GPS blue tooth receiver, navigation solution provider with maps and software, and service provider to enable GPS oriented data & map sharing. Thus the thin line separating the plugged and unplugged could very well be rubbed off to offset all the traveling woes. Eventually the push of a button would replace drawing down the car windows, to seek directions.
Until the next break through, drive safely.