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GPS Slowly Changing How Things Are Done

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the seeing-in-a-new-light dept.

Hemos forwarded me a link to a story at Fast Company about how GPS is changing the way people do business. Several good examples are used, from farmers in Alabama to anti-theft devices. Some notes on GPS' military origins as well. Also worth noting is how GPS, like computers, wasn't adopted overnight, but rather over time as applications were found.

4 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Imagine if GPS were made by a corporation... by Thinkit3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comparable to DirectTV (see slashdot article about them). The signals would be scrambled unless you paid $9.99 per month for a "license fee". They could use the stupidest encryption around, and anybody who broke it would be put in jail and fined. Scramblin it for a military purpose makes sense, but scrambling it to protect "intellectual property" is just stupid. Unit cost for one more person to use it is zero. Like America's Army game, an example of good use of government to keep things sane. A libertarian might argue for donation-based entities, but either way it gets done.

    --
    -Libertarian secular transhumanist
    1. Re:Imagine if GPS were made by a corporation... by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Insightful
      This is soooo wrong on so many levels:
      But instead the government just spends our tax money so people can look for buried garbage in the woods.
      No, it was built for the military. Someone thought "Hey, if we're building this anyway, we might as well also make it available for civilian use". But it wasn't built for civilian use, it was built for defending the country.
      It's only free for mooching foreign nations who do nothing but whine about it.
      No, it isn't free for the countries "whining" about it. The countries "whining" about it are building their own system, rather than "mooching" off the US's.

      And the funny part of this is that the US government is pretty pissed they're doing that.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  2. Re:Boy, I Wish GPS Was Around During WW2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I am getting soooooo sick of the French bashing.

    Look, if it hadn't been for France bailing your asses out 250 years ago, you'd have continued to have your "country" run by some unelected idiot called George whose only qualification to the job was that his father did it.

    Thankfully the French were there to help you defeat King George III, and you avoided that situation.

  3. How technology really evolves... by toupsie · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Ever notice that human technological evolution closely mirrors our desire to more efficiently kill our neighbor? Or at least take his stuff for less than the cost of taking his stuff. GPS is a major advance for economical, global force projection. Instead of a squadron of big, lumbering, gas guzzling bombers, you need one little black jet to hit a target. Kill more, spend less. With most military technological advances, they have civilian applications. GPS is a shining example. My favorite is the computer. It was first built to help calculate military equations so mankind could kick his fellow mankind in the ass faster.

    What will ever happen to human progress if we start all being nice to each other?

    --
    Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.