- Google documents Iraqi museum treasures
- EU drops Qualcomm antitrust probe
- Barnes & Noble reports 2Q loss, cuts guidance
- Nokia to ax 220 R&D jobs in Japan
- Fox CEO wants US to join France on Internet piracy
- Newspaper circulation may be worse than it looks
- GE, Vivendi talks over NBC Universal stretch on
- B&N Nook sells out, too late for holiday orders
TECHNOLOGY NEWS FROM NYTIMES.COM
MOST SHARED
- Ritz-Carlton ?Struggling? in the US: President
- Garlic Price Rises Surpass Gold, Stocks in China
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- Half of Banks' Losses May Still Be Hidden: IMF Head
- New-Home Sales Jump 6.2% To Highest Level in Over Year
- Oil Price to Average $75.40 in 2010: Poll
- Obama Reiterates Commitment to Boost US-India Ties
- Consumer Mood Improves, But Anxiety Over Personal Finances
- Jobless Claims Below 500,000, Durable Orders Slip
- New-Home Sales Jump to Highest Level in Over Year
- Consumer Mood Improves, but Anxiety Over Finances
- Airlines Hit With Penalties for Stranding Passengers
- Jobless Claims Below 500,000, Durable Orders Slip
- US Said It Will Reduce Emissions by 17% by 2020
- Garlic Price Rises Surpass Gold, Stocks in China
- Judge Erases Couple's $525,000 Mortgage Payment
- Black Friday: Can Banks Tap the Frenzy, Too?
- Blue Jeans Expected to See Another Green Christmas
Text Size 
G.P.S. didn’t always stand for Global Positioning System, you know.
In the beginning, it stood for the Grunting and Pointing System, used by cave men to indicate the nearest watering hole. By the horse-and-buggy era, G.P.S. had evolved into a different navigation technology: Guidance by Pony Sense.
 |
Rusty Kennedy / AP |
In the automobile age, G.P.S. came to mean Grumbling by Peeved Spouse. ("Why won’t you just stop and ask?")
Today, G.P.S. is a beautiful thing. A receiver in your car can learn its own location from 24 government-owned satellites overhead — your tax dollars at work.
You're guided to a destination with colorful moving maps on a touch screen and an authoritative voice ("In 200 feet, turn right").
I went looking for G.P.S. models that fulfill three requirements. First, each must be tiny (about the size of an index card), self-contained and battery-operated, so you can take it hiking or biking when it’s not plugged into your car’s cigarette lighter.
Second, each must display live traffic and accident data — and offer to reroute you as necessary. (The traffic data is available mainly in big cities and on highways, and costs extra — usually $50 to $80 a year.)
And finally, each must pronounce actual street names — not just "Turn right," but "Turn right on South Maple Street." That feature makes an enormous difference when you're flying blind in a new town.
As it turns out, only the top models meet those criteria.
Each also plays music and photos; makes wireless connections to Bluetooth cellphones for hands-free calls; and offers a built-in database of United States and Canadian roads stored in memory. (Units that keep the data on hard drives are slower, more fragile and more power-hungry.)
Each receiver also knows about millions of points of interest: restaurants, cash machines, gas stations, parks, hospitals and so on. Most let you call one of these places (through a Bluetooth phone) with one tap.
Now, even these top-of-the-line units are imperfect; in a world where roads are constantly changing, a G.P.S. receiver is only as good as its most recent database update. But in general, these are absolutely incredible machines.
Print
Email
- Here's how key provisions of the health care reform bill would impact your insurance and how you'll pay for it.
- Playboy will outsource its publishing operations in a bid to become profitable again.
- Remember when auto shows were major events where new models could generate buzz?
- After nine years the NBA’s minor league equivalent is finally coming into its own.
- Bill Griffeth is taking a leave of absence from CNBC and Power Lunch for a year. Here's a message from Bill.
- For nearly three decades, these on-call experts have been dishing advice on how to – and not to – cook turkey.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes