Global Positioning System
When they first came out, global positioning systems were more of a novelty than a useful consumer electronics product. Of course, the military could use a global positioning system tracking unit as a way to pinpoint targets, keep track of its vehicles, and navigate the battlefield, but civilian GPS hadn’t really been developed that well yet. Your average global positioning system was clumsy, inaccurate, and prone to mistakes. It is amazing how quickly things have changed. Nowadays, portable GPS and GPS auto navigation devices are vastly improved.
The global positioning system displays a map on the small screen. You simply input a destination on the map, and it calculates a route there. You then get directions every step of the way and you don’t even have to look at the map because the instructions are spoken out loud…
I tried out my first global positioning system this weekend. I was driving in my cousin’s car, and wanted to try out his GPS car navigation. He is notorious for getting lost. He can get lost on a route he has traveled a hundred times before. I don’t know why – maybe he is absent-minded, or perhaps he is easily distractable, but whatever the reason, he has a really poor sense of direction. Since he got a global positioning system, however, he is almost always on time. Sometimes he will even get there early! This change is really remarkable, and I wanted to see what it was all about.
When I asked him about it, he explained that his car actually had two global positioning systems. One of them was a TomTom Ease. The other one was hidden which could be used to track his vehicle practically anywhere if it got stolen. It was a small transceiver on the back of the car, discreetly hidden but extremely powerful. The police could simply activate it and find out where the car was.
The one I was more interested in was the global positioning navigation system. I was familiar with MapQuest and other online map programs like that, so the interface was familiar to me. The global positioning system displays a map on the small screen. You simply input a destination on the map, and it calculates a route there. You then get directions every step of the way and you don’t even have to look at the map because the instructions are spoken out loud. I was surprised at how easy it was to use. The auto navigator unit even had pre-programmed points of interest with maps on how to get there.
All-in-all, it was quite an impressive demonstration, and I was glad to be able to try it out the TomTom Ease auto navigator firsthand.
Mike Silva
