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Where are you? That's not just a metaphysical question, but increasingly a geopolitical challenge that is putting tech giants like Apple and Alphabet in a tough position.
Countries around the world, including China, Japan, India and the United Kingdom plus the European Union are exploring, testing and deploying satellites to build out their own positioning capabilities.
That's a massive change for the United States, which for decades has had a practical monopoly on determining the location of objects through its Global Positioning System (GPS), a military service of the Air Force built during the Cold War that has allowed commercial uses since mid-2000 (for a short history of GPS, check out this article, or for the comprehensive history, here's the book-length treatment).
[...] Now, a number of other countries want to reduce their dependency on the U.S. and get those economic benefits. Perhaps no where is that more obvious than with China, which has made building out a global alternative to GPS a top national priority. Its Beidou (北斗 – "Big Dipper") navigation system has been slowly building up since 2000, mostly focused on providing service in Asia.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/21/the-gps-wars-have-begun/
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Sunday December 23 2018, @11:37PM (7 children)
Galileo [galileognss.eu] launched its first satellite in 2011.
Glonass in 1982.
Seems other countries have realised you can't rely on the US.. https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/ [gps.gov]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Monday December 24 2018, @12:10AM
I came to call the same thing out you did, this hasn't been true for a while.Heck, modern phones are typically designed to use multiple of these systems to improve their location detection and accuracy.
I suppose technically it is true that the US does have a practical monopoly on the specific constellation of positioning satellites dubbed GPS. Just not on GPS style technologies such as Glonass, Galileo, Beidou also in orbit.
The first article is dated 2012, which is likely where the somewhat dated perspective comes from.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 24 2018, @12:28AM (5 children)
Beyond that there's India's NAVIC [wikipedia.org]/IRNSS [wikipedia.org], and Japan's QZSS [wikipedia.org]
UK may build a Galileo alternative due to Brexit:
https://spacenews.com/could-britain-collaborate-with-australia-on-a-galileo-alternative/ [spacenews.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/28/theresa-may-pledges-galileo-alternative-if-uk-locked-out-of-satnav-system [theguardian.com]
It remains to be seen whether that will ever go up. If we're lucky, maybe it will not only exist but be less restrictive than Galileo (which has an accuracy of 1 meter public, 1 centimeter encrypted). The UK version could be scaled back to only cover the UK and surroundings, not the whole planet.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Monday December 24 2018, @01:42AM (4 children)
The UK has already contributed £1.2bn to Galileo, cutting them out is the EU being pissy. Again.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @02:10AM (3 children)
Well, when your neighbor decides to take his ball and go home, that doesn't mean he gets to keep playing with the stuff other people brought or force them from playing without him.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Monday December 24 2018, @02:56AM (2 children)
Except that this kid basically brought the ball.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @06:31AM
Yes, I know. The U.K. is the one that decided to "take his ball and go home" as it had the referendum and hit the big red exit button.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Monday December 24 2018, @05:58PM
So... they contributed 14%, then decided they didn't want to play anymore, and oh, they want their money back.
That's like buying a ticket to a performance, and leaving in the middle, and demanding a refund. They're not even claiming it was a bad performance, they just thought maybe they'd left the kettle on at home.
(Score: 2) by CZB on Monday December 24 2018, @01:39AM (4 children)
National exclusivity only matters for military use, industrial GPS antennas use all of them for better accuracy.
Last fall I was using my GPS guided tractor and realized the past swath was off a couple feet without an alert sounding. Later talking with some neighbors, some of them had the same thing happen at the same time. Someone must have been messing with the sats.
If a big satellite war happens, farmers and construction workers will have to switch to tower based positioning. It actually can be more accurate, its just short range and less standardized.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday December 24 2018, @02:14AM
This [npr.org] may be somewhat related. And this [nationalinterest.org] is probably directly related to the previous link.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @04:17AM
A few feet would not exceed the normal GPS error. Those errors can easily be correlated, i.e. everyone in the area is affected by the same ionospheric fluctuations. Even if it was something else, pushing a system beyond it's spec (with ground augmentation) might not always be the most reliable thing.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Monday December 24 2018, @05:34AM (1 child)
The article mentions national security but does not expand on the reasoning:
Why would receiving radio signals be an issue? My understanding is most modern devices already support GPS and GLONASS, as Russia has steep tariffs on non-GLONASS enabled devices. Plus, multiple systems is good for reliability.
(Score: 2) by CZB on Monday December 24 2018, @06:46PM
There are a bunch of rules about what GPS capabilities can be exported to particular countries. Many dev kits state there are built in limitations of accuracy at particular speeds, to make it harder to build DIY guided missiles. Some chips quit working if they calculate high speed travel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @04:10AM
Next thing you know, he'll try to get money from the rest of the world for using GPS.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday December 24 2018, @04:15AM
I'm sure it'll go downhill fast VERY soon...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @12:31PM (2 children)
When I tried to buy a GPS receiver/tracer/map renderer for my friend (I don't use GPS devices for myself), I found a very disturbing trend with it. It is related to GPS chipsets which are in fact a selective RF amplifiers, detectors and decoders. Because signals are weak, significant power has to be used for amplification and filtering. Yes?
So why all modern chips have additional, unneeded TRANSMITTING circuitry?
The transmitting is done on GSM frequencies. Some chips are directly advertised ad "GPS/GSM chips", but some officially offer only GPS, while very similar chips, in terms of package, pin count, and model number are released in GPS+GSM feature - it looks like the transmitter feature is just shut off, and there is no information is it off permanently. The funny thing is that even GPS transmitting trackers designers don't know about it and frequently use additional chip in their designs. There are some older GPS devices in market, usually oceanography/scientific ones which have very well-documented chips and they don't have this feature, but they are only for giving coordinates.
Making a documented consumer-grade GPS device would be competing for end user.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @03:45PM
in cell phones the GSM (and/or LTE) stuff augments the pure GPS parts. whether helping by giving cell tower location info or getting satellite coords info, both which speed up acquiring GPS coordinates.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @07:59PM