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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.

2 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
  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.