I recently took a business trip to Paris, a city I had never been to. I had a packed schedule, with tons of meetings and I was also hoping to get to see some of the sights in between. My company had hired a car, which was waiting for me at the airport but I had no idea where I was going!
Then I remembered that my brand new mobile phone came with GPS (a swanky new Blackberry in case you're wondering, check it out on Vodafone Blackberry site - it's the rather sleek Blackberry Bold). Until that very day, I honestly did not know that those three little letters stood for Global Positioning System. You don't need to know that either but I eventually became very interested in how this was working because the results were truly amazing.
Here's what I did: From the airport I had to drive to my hotel. On my mobile phone, I opened the GPS. Right away it asks you if you will allow it to see where you are located. It is to your advantage to say yes, obviously, unless you actually want to type in the address of where you are. Then you need to tell it where you are going. In my case, just by typing in the name of the hotel, it recognized it right away.
It really only took a minute or so to find its bearings and then started giving me directions. You have a few choices in terms of how the information is imparted to you. Some people like the map function, where a colourful line delineates your route. Others like the "list" option, where it tells you which street to make a left or a right at. There is often also the option of having the device track how many seconds or minutes until you have to make a turn. Since the GPS is tracking the speed of your car, this is often very accurate and can be a very helpful feature.
I bet now you are wondering how this works, right? Okay, well, a GPS device calculates its position by sending signals to a satellite high above the Earth. In turn, those satellites continually send back messages with incredibly precise orbital information. The receiver measures the transit time of each message and calculates the distance. Imagine how many times your little GPS needs to do this to make sure you arrive safely at your hotel! Amazing, right?
GPS systems were originally developed by the US Army and have mostly been used for military operations. However, as civilian lives become more and more mobile, we're realising how much more need we have for such tracking devices.
My favourite thing about having a GPS when I'm driving is that even if I make a mistake or take the wrong exit, or miss my exit, I don't have to worry about what I did wrong. The GPS either finds a different route according to what street you are on now, or shows you how to get back on track.
