U.S. to More Closely Coordinate GPS Policy
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The United States will more aggressively promote and more tightly coordinate oversight of its Global Positioning System, the network of satellites used to determine precise geographic locations, the White House said on Wednesday.
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In an attempt to quell increasing criticism over the nation's patent system, the Bush Administration is looking to make changes to require more specific information, and allow the public to comment.
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Tucked into the Bush administration's space policy is a plan to take the global positioning system offline temporarily during a national emergency. The goal: preventing terrorists from using the navigational technology.
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A plan to use U.S. spy satellites for domestic security and law-enforcement missions is moving forward after being delayed for months because of privacy and civil liberties concerns.
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The United States and the European  Union are close to signing an agreement that would allow their  satellite navigation systems to work together to provide more  accurate images and information.
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Satellite-enabled turn-by-turn navigation, whether you're in a car or on foot
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Regulators sign off on implantable tracking device to manage treatment of Alzheimer's, diabetes, heart disease, other conditions.
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If G.P.S. made it harder to get lost, new cellphone services are now making it harder to hide.
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InfoWorld - Garmin International&#160;has published some APIs for connecting to its GPS devices, making it easier for Web developers to write applications that use information about where consumers are located, the company announced Tuesday.
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The Bush administration wants better information from inventors and to allow public scrutiny of applications.
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Someday soon, many cell phones might store as many as 2,000 songs -- or enough map data for a built-in GPS to steer you any place on the planet.
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(InfoWorld) - Satellite navigation boxes using the GPS (global positioning system) are no longer the preserve of luxury car owners in Europe. Now you see them in the humblest vehicles on the Continent's highways. That's part of the reason why the European Commission Wednesday proposed taking on the entire â¬3.4 billion ($4.7 billion) cost of creatingÂ Galileo, Europe's answer to GPS, which is based in the U.S. "Do consumers really want this product? To answer that you must ask why consumers like GPS so much," said transport commissioner Jacques Barrot at a press conference Wednesday. "Consumers are answering the question by buying more and more GPSes," he said. "Galileo will make money, and with the E.U. as its owner, it will generate income for the E.U. budget." Barrot's confidence wasn't shared earlier this year byÂ the companies picked to share the cost and benefitsÂ of building the 30-strong constellation of satellites. Unsure of the costs and unconvinced of Galileo's eventual commercial potential, theÂ companies dragged their feetÂ to a point in June where the Commission abandoned the partnership with the private sector. Under the original plan, public money was supposed to pay for the first four satellites and then the private consortium of companies building the satellites were to pay for two-thirds of the 26 remaining satellites. This amounted to a private sector cost of â¬2.4 billion. The companies -- AENA, Alcatel-Lucent, EADS, Finmeccanica, Hispasat, Inmarsat, TeleOp, and Thales -- were to recoup their investment costs by then operating the satellites and collecting fees once they were in operation. Barrot said Wednesday that the Commission wants the â¬2.4 billion to be paid for out of European Union funds. The E.U. has already committed â¬1 billion to the project. He said that he initially wanted the 27 member states of the E.U. to fill the funding gap through payments directly to the European Space Agency (ESA). But as 10 countries in the E.U. aren't members of the ESA this was dismissed, leaving the E.U. budget as the only possibility for ensuring that the project is financed. With the E.U. as the sole owner of Galileo, it will still need companies from a variety of industries to build the system's infrastructure, Barrot said. Astrium (EADS group) and Thales Alenia Space (Thales and Finmeccanica groups) approached the ESA for some of this work recently, the commissioner said. "Galileo is extremely important for the strategic autonomy of Europe. We can't let this opportunity to manage the know-how in this advanced technology pass," Barrot said. Transportation ministers of the E.U. member states will meet in Luxembourg on Oct. 2 to debate the Commission's proposal. Countries with most to gain from the project include France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. They are believed to support the Commission. However, others including the U.K. and the Netherlands, remain to be convinced that there is a real need for a European GPS. Separately, U.S. president George W. Bush said in a statement issued by the U.S. mission to the E.U. Wednesday, that he will stop the GPS signal from being interrupted or degraded by military purposes. One of the main justifications for launching Galileo was that GPS is ultimately at the mercy of the U.S. Department of Defense, and could be jammed for strategic reasons, potentially endangering private users' lives. Galileo is intended to be purely for civilian use. However, the U.S. recently has taken steps to assure GPS users that they can count on the system. "President George W. Bush has accepted a recommendation to end procurement of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites that have the capability to intentionally degrade the accuracy of civil signals," the White House press secretary said in a statement Tuesday. Although the U.S. stopped the intentional degradation of GPS satellite signals in May 2000, this new action will result in the removal of "Selective Availability" capabilities, thereby eliminating a source of uncertainty in GPS performance that has been of concern to civil GPS users worldwide. This decision reflects the nation's commitment to GPS users that this free global utility can be counted on to support peaceful civil activities around the world, the statement said.
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Any satellite mapping system can tell you where you are. With a Garmin Rino two-way radio, you can tell other Rino users where you are â and then show them.
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GPS, once a fabulously expensive tool for the military, has dropped in price enough to become part of everyday life. Businesses are moving in to offer satellite tracking of everything from school buses to errant spouses, selling security but also raising privacy concerns. -The Washington Post
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Companies, along with Zagat Survey, to offer oral directions based on voice commands to U.S. addresses, restaurants.
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Russia's GLONASS system, which uses Soviet Cold War-era military technology, is designed to compete with the Global Positioning System.
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WASHINGTON -- The US government, impressed by the promise of antirollover technology, is planning to require automakers to include electronic stability control on all new vehicles in coming years.