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GPS is Getting Competition

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 23 2018, @11:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the begun-the-gps-wars-have dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

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/

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  • (Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Monday December 24 2018, @02:56AM (2 children)

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 24 2018, @02:56AM (#778006) Journal

    Except that this kid basically brought the ball.

    British officials have been reported to be seeking legal advice on whether they can reclaim the €1.4 billion invested by the United Kingdom, of the €10 billion spent to date.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @06:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 24 2018, @06:31AM (#778041)

    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

    by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 24 2018, @05:58PM (#778138)

    British officials have been reported to be seeking legal advice on whether they can reclaim the €1.4 billion invested by the United Kingdom, of the €10 billion spent to date.

    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.