GPS Slowly Changing How Things Are Done

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.

Love My GPS!

[NetJunkie]

I have a Garmin GPS V and LOVE it. The turn-by-turn routing has been a huge help. We started looking to buy a house and would print out a ton of MLS listings. Without the GPS we'd have to spend a lot of time planning our route. With the GPS we just punch in the address of the next house and off we go. Very accurate.

Is business really ready?

[Demodian]

We worked on a turn-key project over a year ago (before matters got screwed by an acquisition), and one aspect of the product was to track GPS position and record it every so often with a few other real-time parameters, such as speed, direction, and average MPH. The project completed the first product phase of deployment, but actually using the GPS data (while recording WAS working) was slated for phase 2. Unfortunately, I think the whole thing got mothballed because the company receiving the product was not technically inclined one bit. Such a waste of effort. It would have helped cut their yearly expenses down a lot.

When I can track my own stolen car

[Anonymous Coward]

without paying an outrageous monthly fee akin to protection money, or calling a company to do it for me for a fee, then gps will have arrived for me.

One stolen car, recovered by my family, not police.
One van, stolen twice, recovered by my family twice, not police.
One 4x4, stolen, never recovered, $10,000 loss, insurance settlement was a joke after months of haggling and threatening to sue.

Geocaching

[IwannaCoke]

My father and I use GPS receivers as often as possible. We are both Geocachers [geocaching.com].

For those of you that don't know what Geocaching is, here is a quote from the geocaching.com FAQ:

"What is Geocaching?

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache. "

wardriving and computer security

[Anonymous Coward]

Wardriving is a perfect example of how GPS has changed the way we look at computer security, especially where wireless LANs are concerned.

Check out wifimaps.com [wifimaps.com] to see if your wlan has been scanned.

Question

[thomas536]

Can someone enlighten me as to why a farmer driving a tractor would need to know their location to a 1' accuracy?

Privacy ignored ***again***

[Goonie]

The mind boggles. How many people are going to accept a system that lets their insurance company track everywhere they drive? Yes, I'm surely more obsessive about this kind of thing than Joe Average, but surely you don't have to be a privacy nut to have some issues with this.

Re:Imagine if GPS were made by a corporation...

[MBCook]

While your analogy has some merit, it's important to remember that DirecTV doesn't have any content of their own. They resell other people's content. As such, there is something to be stolen. If you steal DirecTV you're not hurting DirecTV. You're hurting them, and Showtime, and Starz, and Cinemax, and Blockbuster (who does all the PPV movies) and countless others who only get revenue through selling subscriptions (you could argue that it would actually BENEFIT the commerical networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, HGTV, Discovery, etc since they are showing more commercials). DirecTV is best thought of as a middle man, not the origionator of the service.

That said, I think things would end up as they are eventually. Look at cellphones. It used to cost a fortune to make a local call, but it's gotten cheaper to the point of being nearly free. Long distance used to be horrendus, but it's to the point where it's nearly free. Since the infrastructure is there, they can just sell "access units" (phones, or in your case GPS recievers) and they still make money (since maintainc is nearly free, or at least is for GPS). So while it would have taken a while, things would have gotten to this point eventually. It's the natural conclusion of things (or at least it seems to be to me).

Re:Cell Phones

[MBCook]

I would think most cellphones are (or at least will be) this way. GPS is something that is already there (due to the E911 thing), so why not make it available to the cellphone users so they can use it and you can claim it as a feature and say "our phone is better because theirs doesn't let you see where you are with our IntelliGPS HyperLocater technology." If it's not common now, I think it will be. I for one would prefer to buy a phone that would let me see the GPS data over one that wouldn't, all else being equal. Wouldn't you?

GPS works well for locating stuff you bury

[doormat]

Like utility infrastructure. I work at a water company, and before a contractor burries pipeline, we use RTK (realtime kinematic) GPS to record its location down to 0.04' (or 1cm). So when line locators need to mark facilities its much more accurate. Normal GPS isnt that accurate, but we use base stations and radios to send correction data in real time out to the GPS collection devices.

Been used here for a while now.

[Eminor]

Several good examples are used, from farmers in Alabama to anti-theft devices.

Up here in Canada, farmers have been using it to level their fields for years now. Canada is usually pretty quick to pick up new technologies.

Re:Boy, I Wish GPS Was Around During WW2

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he'd have lost.

The recount that was done had Gore win in eight of the ten scenarios, including the all important "If they counted every vote". The two where Bush won were the way the vote was counted, and the scenario where Gore got only the three counties he wanted recounted recounted.

This lead to certain newspapers putting up headlines of the "Gore would have lost anyway" variety. Which in turn has lead every freeper wingnut to claim that Gore lost the election even in the recounted version. BS.

Uh...

[Anonymous Coward]

"...because with an auto-steer tractor, they would be able to work at night."

Most tractors these days have headlights. Some of the larger tractors come with enough lights from the factory that it almost feels like daylight when they're all on.

You're not going to see a lot of GPS guided tractors any time soon. There are too many random factors to consider, like random patches of soft soil (mud or sand), animals (my grandfather accidentally ran a lame deer through a combine once... Ick.), debris in the field (rocks, tree limbs, etc), etc.

We'd need optical recognition systems to be good enough to steer around the junk you don't plan for using GPS. Also, some stuff you don't want to steer around, you want to remove it from your path.

GPS is useful with farming, though. Plotting soil samples, and then using that data when applying fertilizer is faily nice.

Re:Imagine if GPS were made by a corporation...

[TampaTim]

Oh, GOD FORBID if the government spends a teensy little bit of your money on somethig that can benefit every PERSON and CORPORATION on the planet, and stimulate the economy (and not the bottom line of the one company that would own it if it were private). Look at Iridium. They shot themselves in the foot and almost had to destroy the whole system. I would NOT want GPS under the control of one company, no matter how well managed and intelligently run the company is. Furthermore the gov't doesnt try to profit off of GPS. A coorperation would not only wan to recoup their invesment but also would want to make money hand over fist.

P.S. I think you are a troll!

Favorite hack, plus a way to play

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

One university's avionics department put a GPS receiver in each wingtip of an airplane and used them as a bank angle indicator. They just compared the altitude of one wingtip with the altitude of another wingtip.

If you have a ham radio license, you can hook your GPS to a transmitter and experiment with tracking yourself and things. The telemetry standard used for this also allows flagging your position with status information (e.g. "on duty") and weather information. See http://www.findu.com to track hams who are doing this, or google for "APRS".

It sure has changed desert ATV riding

[norweigiantroll]

Just mark your car, ride miles away, and when you're ready to go back, just follow the arrow. No parking near landmarks to remember where the car is.

Re:Love My GPS!

[Eminor]

No, your assumption is incorrect. I use email for correspondence. However, I have noticed that you get more responses from resumes if you print them off and mail them.

It only takes a minute to look at a map and plan your route. I find yahoo maps work quite well. Sometimes i print a few off. Print one zoomed out to show the whole route. Print another with your destination zoomed in.

Re:Love My GPS!

[NetJunkie]

That's fine, assuming I know I'm going there before I leave. But sometimes plans change. Plus, doing this for 20 house listings would take significant time.

Again, it's also nice to have the GPS tell me when to turn and how far away I am. Just some good peace of mind....

Could Farmer Bob patent that?

[Kelmenson]

Patents seem to be so prevalent these days for minor advances to standard procedures by adding new technology, that I almost wonder if the first farmer to attach a GPS to his operation could get away with patenting it, and then stopping any other farmer from using the same methodology.

It seems that more thought actually went into the GPS farming than into many recent computer patents, like Apple's "fast user switching" or any of the other process patents mentioned on Slashdot [slashdot.org]. Are farmers just not patenting because they aren't in technology? (Or is this process actually patented and it just wasn't mentioned...)

Why when I was a youngin....

[Pvt_Waldo]

We had to pay $60,000 for a rack mount GPS unit for the research ship I was on. We only got 2 or 3 satellite fixes and even then that was for only a handful of hours a day because the constellation wasn't complete. But by cracky we loved it! It was good enough then and by god ... by god... what we wouldn't have done for one of those modern sub $200 contraptions. Oh yea and a full constellation of satellites.

Navigation for scientific research (gravity & magnetic surveys) was interesting. We'd post process and combine a few hours of GPS a day, Transit Sat Nav (crude sat fixes + dead reconing), plus ARGO ranging navigation. The cool thing about ARGO was that it required shore stations where someone had to be by the transmitter for several weeks. And since the cruises were in the Carribean and off Brasil, sitting around a shore station (aka "the beach") for several weeks was pretttty fine.

Re:Question

[thunderbird46]

On my family's farm we use GPS for accuracy in chemical application. My father has a Case IH sprayer [caseih.com] which he modified to be 105 feet wide. In the past, sprayers used foam dropped from the end of the boom to indicate where the end of the swath was, but on something this big moving about 15 MPH across a field it can be difficult to drive accurately using just a row of foam dots 52.5 feet away from yourself for guidance. The GPS system on the sprayer lets my dad just follow the lights on an indicator and know that he's not over or under applying pesticides. I've used a GPS system in a similar way while applying granular fertilizer -- without the GPS I had a terrible time keeping the tractor the correct distance from my previous track.

Re:Question

[mdielmann]

I've talked to clients in the agro business, and they mentioned GPS-mapped ariel surveys of their crop fields to determine where the weeds were growing (apparently they absorb - or don't - a specific IR range). This would be coupled with a GPS-equipped tractor, the data would be downloaded, and the GPS system would spray only the regions that showed as having a troublesome level of weeds. This may not have required 1-foot accuracy, but it was still GPS, and could reduce herbicide use to 1/3.