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The availability and accuracy of the Global Positioning System (GPS) offers increased efficiencies and safety for vehicles using highways, streets, and mass transit systems. Many of the problems associated with the routing and dispatch of commercial vehicles is significantly reduced or eliminated with the help of GPS. This is also true for the management of mass transit systems, road maintenance crews, and emergency vehicles,

GPS enables automatic vehicle location and in-vehicle navigation systems that are widely used throughout the world today. By combining GPS position technology with systems that can display geographic information or with systems that can automatically transmit data to display screens or computers, a new dimension in surface transportation is realized.

A geographic information system (GIS) stores, analyzes, and displays geographically referenced information provided in large part by GPS. Today GIS is used to monitor vehicle location, making possible effective strategies that can keep transit vehicles on schedule and inform passengers of precise arrival times. Mass transit systems use this capability to track rail, bus, and other services to improve on-time performance.

Many new capabilities are made possible with the help of GPS. Instant car pools are feasible since people desiring a ride can be instantly matched with a vehicle in a nearby area.

Using GPS technology to help track and forecast the movement of freight has made a logistical revolution, including an application known as time-definite delivery. In time-definite delivery, trucking companies use GPS for tracking to guarantee delivery and pickup at the time promised, whether over short distances or across time zones. When an order comes in, a dispatcher punches a computer function, and a list of trucks appears on the screen, displaying a full array of detailed information on the status of each of them. If a truck is running late or strays off route, an alert is sent to the dispatcher.

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The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a U.S. space-based radionavigation system that provides reliable positioning, navigation, and timing services to civilian users on a continuous worldwide basis -- freely available to all. For anyone with a GPS receiver, the system will provide location and time. GPS provides accurate location and time information for an unlimited number of people in all weather, day and night, anywhere in the world.

The GPS is made up of three parts: satellites orbiting the Earth; control and monitoring stations on Earth; and the GPS receivers owned by users. GPS satellites broadcast signals from space that are picked up and identified by GPS receivers. Each GPS receiver then provides three-dimensional location (latitude, longitude, and altitude) plus the time.

Individuals may purchase GPS handsets that are readily available through commercial retailers. Equipped with these GPS receivers, users can accurately locate where they are and easily navigate to where they want to go, whether walking, driving, flying, or boating. GPS has become a mainstay of transportation systems worldwide, providing navigation for aviation, ground, and maritime operations. Disaster relief and emergency services depend upon GPS for location and timing capabilities in their life-saving missions. Everyday activities such as banking, mobile phone operations, and even the control of power grids, are facilitated by the accurate timing provided by GPS. Farmers, surveyors, geologists and countless others perform their work more efficiently, safely, economically, and accurately using the free and open GPS signals.

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More and more, the court system including the Supreme Court has become removed from the oversight of government surveillance. With the new surveillance law just passed in Congress, the government now has its’ own pseudo-court system that privately monitors and green stamps the actions of U.S. government activities that involve surveillance of all kinds behind the scenes.

The failure of the judicial branch resides in the legal unwillingness of the judicial legislature to realize the extent and depth of government surveillance in the life of the average American citizen or in the life of global society. The power of the Constitution, notably the Fourth Amendment, has been abandoned in favor of a new approach to the rights of American citizens.

The event that really sold the concept of new world surveillance was the September 11 attack by terrorists. The government has provided large sums of cash, enveloping society with new camera technology in order to provide a new age of monitoring ability. Combined with the power of computers and internet access, data and information management has become the almost exclusive territory of big government.

The Supreme Court has decided that Americans in public places are not due privacy rights. Common areas and public squares are the free territory of policing unencumbered by the Constitution of the United States. Even private information that you have given to someone else: a doctor, bank or school is no longer protected. If you have released information into the public domain, you no longer own the exclusive use of that information.

The battle is ongoing. New programs are brought into existence that continue to enhance the authority and ability of the government on all levels to supervise the activities of citizens in the vain hope of discovering terrorist and potential criminal activity. Even though the effectiveness of government attempts are questionable at best, this has not impeded or slowed the invasion of privacy.

Meanwhile, government is conditioning Americans to accept the “security and convenience” of new computerized I.D systems. For example, the city government of Washington D.C. has planted a new I.D. system with an innocent card called the “One Card.” This city photo identification card serves as a city resident's I.D. card, an access card to public libraries, parks, pools, motor vehicles, student identification and the Metro transportation system. The Department of Homeland Security is issuing “REAL ID” grants to generate methods of “securing” data while making data transparency between government bodies a reality in the name of security and efficiency.

The violation of personal privacy seems so innocuous and beneficial that millions of Americans will continue to learn to expect the measure without question. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is convinced that “Americans overwhelmingly want secure identification, and this funding will help those states working to provide it.” Time and time again, computers have proved that technology does not secure data, but instead makes data easier to use.

Instead, the expressed purpose of intent is policing and verification. The stated purpose of the Department of Homeland Security is to reduce and impair “the use of stolen, borrowed, altered, or counterfeit source documents widely used to obtain state-issued documents.” The system does not necessarily stop the use of fraudulent documents, but adopts them into the system and prohibits illegal changes in the future. The long-term goal can only be the control of information. The reality is that the strategy of the Department of Homeland Security only works for the long-term as a net of established personal documents are built and used to permanently source the living population of the country over time. After a number of years, any variance from the norm will create a red flag condition that will undoubtedly result in some sort of penalty or trial.

Public security measures can easily be extended to biometric data and DNA data for the general population so that everyone in the nation can feel safe. For the majority of the American and global population, living with the security of government surveillance is only a matter of conditioning. The analogy of conditioning the population could be akin to boiling a lobster. Boiling a lobster can be done slowly so that the lobster is unaware of being cooked for dinner. Surveillance in the name of security may seem like a perfect solution. To others, the situation may seem like a double-edged sword resulting in total control over time. What do you think?

Consumer reports on GPS (Global Positioning System) devices say that GPS locators can be very useful and enjoyable devices to own for both professional and recreational purposes. By utilizing satellite receivers floating around the earth, a GPS is used to provide you with precise information on your longitude and latitude.

Formerly used by military, these GPS tracking devices are currently in use in Afghan and is presently utilized in Iraq to precisely track the movements of ground troops during excursion operations, mobile recon, and urban conflicts. Future developments in GPS devices include human interactions with the technology, which may include inserting chips behind the neck of soldiers to help track their bodily signs, injury status, and course their global positioning.

GPS devices come in many different sizes that sell for little to nothing in prices. Most of the big retailers have a variety of different products to choose from. For mobile navigations, there are the smaller but popular Tom-Tom GPS devices that can be outfitted to sit on the dashboard of your car or mounted directly on the front window for better visibility. For more outgoing adventurers there is the more expensive GPS tracking device that basically home in on real time positioning and locate your whereabouts in a matter of seconds. Garmin has a bunch of outdoor GPS and mapping devices suitable for those weekend outdoors men who love to hunt, fish, hike or bike through the rough and tough wilderness. For the corporate traveler, crossing the globe can be tiring and you may find yourself lost and confused. Well there are tons of GPS accessories that fit direct onto your phone. Or you can opt for the third generation PDA’s that come with GPS applications built into the phone.
Wonderful Uses for a GPS

The uses of a GPS range quite a bit. The most obvious use for one of these machines is to use it to find your exact location if you are lost somewhere. With exact information of your location, you can aid rescue workers in finding you or help you find a nearby road.

Another use of the GPS is to find other locations and establish your relative distance between you and them. For example, if you are driving down the interstate and you see a highway that might be a shorter route between you and your desired destination, GPS devices will tell you not only if it is shorter, but also how much shorter and how long it will take to get there.

Finally, you can also use a GPS as more than just a locating device. Some can be used as asset management devices (depending on its GSM status), some can be used for mobile communication, and some can even be used to search the Internet. These, of course, are just the practical uses of a GPS; there are many fun uses as well.

A popular game for people who own GPS devices is known as geocaching. Geocaching is a game in which challengers are given a group of different waypoints (coordinates of longitude and latitude), and they must be the first team or player to get to each location first. While most people cannot participate in a game like this because of practical responsibilities (most games take usually a month), it is very easy to make a scaled down version of this game, with just one waypoint or two, on a family camping or hiking expedition.

Who dominates the GPS World?

Popular GPS gadget maker Garmin, currently king of the U.S. navigation device market, controlling about 57% of the consumer and enterprise markets, and its dominance will only grow in the next couple of years.

Garmin currently has 57 percent of the American consumer market for GPS navigation devices, followed by Magellan (12 percent), Tom-Tom (nine percent) with the others rounding to 12% of the entire market.

What is GPS doing for the industry? One example is the organizations with huge number of employees especially in the service industries often employ GPS to keep tabs on their workers as well as send and receive communications on their location when employees are on the go.

Within the next couple of years GPS technology will see a transformation from cars to GPS enabled mobile phones. A single touch screen user interface that can be used as a basic GPS device that can be mounted in your car, and can also convert to a Smartphone, multimedia player, camera, and with a fully functional web browser, this trend on GPS devices will continue to grow and thrive.

The new AT&T Soulmate Locator scans and records your psyche, and also measures your physical attributes and genetic makeup. Using GPS technology, it then scans the globe to identify your soulmate based on such criteria as intelligence, physical health, personal values, communication style, religion, sexual orientation and favorite foods. You can then immediately phone or text that person, and even send him or her your photo.  The device cost $999 with a two-year commitment.

“This really saves love seekers a lot of time they would otherwise have to spend in online dating sites,” AT&T Mobility marketing director Ken Hart said in a press release. “With the Soulmate Locator, true love is just a click away.  Even if you’re one true love is atop Mount Everest, Soulmate Locator will find them.  You can arrange for a rendezvous, or just cut to the chase and start planning your wedding.”

But Dr. Phil McGraw, TV psychologist and special love analyst for FU, warns that users should be careful about the results they get when using their Soulmate Locators, arguing that they might end up with a soulmate who isn’t right for them.

“Gals, suppose your Soulmate Locator finds you a true love who is connected to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway,”  McGraw said. “And fellows, say you’re soulmate turns out to be too old or flat chested. Shucks, in cases like these, you’d be better off finding love the old fashioned way—by reading one of my self-help books.”

This system has the potential to auto-catalog and verify vast swaths of disorganized sky images, making the  astronomical catalogs at various institutions cross-comparable for the first time.  Plus, if the project continues to stay open (it's open source now), there's the potential that one could make additional extensions to the technology.

Naturally, the notion that pops to mind is an application where people can take digital time-stamped pictures of the night sky, and use the astrometric matches along with the time to make Earth-position calculations.  My best wishes for the astrometry.net crew, they've taken on a big challenge.

The software (£19.95) responds to satellite prompts as cars approach places of historical interest throughout the UK, delivering information narrated by a hot friendly female voice through the SatNav. It means you will no longer have an excuse for being an ignoramus.

Get this: new research commissioned by RoadTour shows that a quarter of people think Leeds Castle is in Yorkshire, rather than Kent, one in ten that the Romans built the A1 and 10% of 18-24-year-olds that Stonehenge is in Norfolk. A further 38% of all those questioned by YouGov believe that Hadrians Wall is in Scotland, not England.

Five years in the making, this invention fulfils Daniel Taylor’s passion for history and his desire to help Britons as well as tourists use technology to get the most out of our heritage. Ironically, GPS technology has perhaps until now put us out of touch with roadmaps and chance discoveries en route. For the dunces, there’s at least one picture of each place.

The U.S. military is increasingly interested in developing a new generation of high-speed air-to-surface missiles that could be integrated into stealth aircraft to attack an enemy’s radar sites or fleeting targets.

U.S. Air Force planners are anxious about enhancements in air defense technology, worrying that as powerful computer processing becomes more ubiquitous and network cabling becomes cheaper, adversaries can link radar systems of different types to raise their chances of spotting and potentially shooting down even low-observable aircraft.

Although the military is putting much effort into using directed-energy and network attack tools to thwart such threats, the kinetic kill approach hasn’t fallen out of favor entirely. One reason is that the initial generation of directed-energy systems will still require aircraft to get comparatively close to a threat, while missiles can be launched at greater stand-off ranges. The missiles themselves could also be candidates for directed-energy warheads.

There has been frustration among weapon developers that the U.S. and Europe have not done more to push high-speed technology, with a few exceptions such as the European rocket/ramjet-powered Meteor air-to-air missile. Russia has ramjet-powered air-to-surface weapons in its inventory, and China and India are also pursuing this area aggressively, bemoans a European industry official.

But the situation may be changing. One emerging project, for instance, is a Raytheon initiative to design a ramjet-powered version of the AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM), according to a company official. Raytheon has been exploring various options for a ramjet motor, which would be paired with an enhanced HARM front end.

The ramjet concept now undergoing more detailed systems analysis at Raytheon would use an asymmetric intake configuration, with the two ducts on opposite sides of the missile body. The motor would be paired with a standard 10-in.-dia. missile frame, says a European industry official.

In addition to the anti-radar role, the weapon would be aimed to meet the Pentagon’s persistent requirement for higher-speed strike weapons to eliminate time-sensitive targets, which can move quickly and often prove elusive. A HARM coupled with the high-speed motor would likely feature guidance enhancements enabling it to strike coordinates even if a target is not emitting.

Raytheon is working with Diehl Defense to try to interest the German government in the HARM Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses Attack Module (HDAM), an upgrade of the basic weapon which includes an inertial measurement unit/global positioning system for enhanced precision. Germany at one point funded Diehl to develop its own ramjet-powered anti-radar missile, Armiger, but the military ran out of funding.

HARM’s 10-in. diameter would be an integration problem on smaller stealth aircraft, but one U.S. official suggests the effort could be aimed at long-standing U.S. Air Force interest in integrating such a weapon on the B-2 bomber.

The F-22 and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter might potentially be outfitted with reduced-diameter weapons. But they would require much smaller missiles because of the limited space in their internal weapons bays. Even a 7.5-in.-dia. missile could have fit problems because of the inlet ducts and control surfaces, says one industry official who has looked at the problem.

An electronics upgrade slated for the F-22 will give it enhanced ground-emitter location capability, which would significantly boost the aircraft’s capability to destroy enemy air-defenses. But with its current array of air-to-surface weapons, the fighter would have to fly well inside the layered engagement zones of systems such as the Almaz Antey S-400 (SA-21 Growler).

Even though the F-22’s stealth features and ability to fly supersonic without afterburner greatly increase survivability, weaponry with additional stand-off range is seen as important to the fighter’s long-term future. Russia is working on upgrades and follow-on development to the S-400 partly driven by the ability to combat stealth. S-400-derivative systems will also probably begin to proliferate during the coming decade.

One option to deal with this threat would be internal carriage on the F-22 and the F-35 of a 7-in.-dia. version of HARM now being worked on by Raytheon.

However, Alliant Techsystems, which builds the latest upgrade to HARM, the AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radar Guided Missile (Aargm), also has its eyes on trying to address the emerging market and the internal carriage problem. Aargm has a sophisticated millimeter-wave seeker and an INS/GPS and passive radar detector. The company is exploring various options, including fitting the Aargm front end with an enhanced Amraam air-to-air missile motor. Amraam is smaller than HARM and is a baseline weapon for both the F-35 and F-22, so the integration would not be an issue.

Another option being studied would marry the Aargm seeker with the ramjet-powered Meteor missile. There’s already an agreement with MBDA because of Italian interest in the AGM-88E. The air-to-air Meteor is a candidate weapon for the U.K.’s F-35. Another set of fit check trials were due to be carried out in mid-December on a slightly revised missile configuration to provide adequate clearance in the aircraft’s internal bays.