Monday, December 10, 2007

How GPS Has Revolutionized The Way We Navigate

People used to rely heavily on maps and a compass to navigate, be it through a busy city street or through back country roads or even in forested terrains. However, their reliance on these navigation tools have waned as the years have gone by.

After portable electronic navigation devices were made available to ordinary consumers, more and more people are becoming dependent on devices like Global Positioning System or GPS as their navigation tool.

GPS was first developed solely for military use. It employs the use of several GPS satellites orbiting the Earth. The device receives signals simultaneously from more than one of these satellites.

Once the information from these satellites has been processed, coded and analyzed, the GPS device is capable of determining the exact location. In a nutshell, the exact position will be computed by the GPS receiver by combining the elements of current time, the position of the satellite and the delay of the satellite signal.

Modern day GPS navigation devices are equipped with expandable memory and storage capacity which allows you to install the best navigation software and maintain or upgrade them as well.

There are GPS receivers that can be attached to your pocket PCs. This converts your pocket computer to a powerful navigation device. However, there are still some limitations.

The pocket PC-GPS receiver tandem may be too bulky to carry around. You might find yourself re-installing the software after each time the cable disconnects the devices together.

Also in pretty good use are the so called smart antennas which are most often used for GPS systems that have no user interface. These are usually connected to pocket PCs and use the screen as well as its power. Also available are the bluetooth kind of GPS receivers. Unlike the previous two kinds of GPS receivers, this one can be connected to a pocket PC without using a connecting wire.

There are even GPS receivers which are in the form of an extended CompactFlash (CF) card or secure digital (SD) card. These receivers make the pocket PC a single GPS receiver. There's no need for a bluetooth device or cable systems.

The major disadvantage of these kinds is the memory capacity of your pocket PC will be affected since you will be sacrificing a memory card slot which originally is intended as an expanded storage device.

GPS can be intimidating but in this world of highly sophisticated gadgets, this navigation tool is just a device that we need to get used to.

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