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Could the World Cope If GPS Stopped Working?

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday November 09 2019, @10:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the Betteridge-says-nope dept.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Could the world cope if GPS stopped working?

What would happen if GPS - the Global Positioning System - stopped working?

For a start, we would all have to engage our brains and pay attention to the world around us when getting from A to B. Perhaps this would be no bad thing: we'd be less likely to drive into rivers or over cliffs through misplaced trust in our navigation devices.

Pick your own favourite story about the kind of idiocy only GPS can enable. Mine is the Swedish couple who misspelled the Italian island of Capri and turned up hundreds of miles away in Carpi, asking where the sea was.

But these are the exceptions.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday November 09 2019, @11:01PM (1 child)

    by Mojibake Tengu (8598) on Saturday November 09 2019, @11:01PM (#918428) Journal

    Just switch to GLONASS, would you? Both Samsung and Huawei support that in most of their devices.

    Oh, and a story: Lost tourist finds fame after Iceland GPS mishap
    https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-35482537 [bbc.com]

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday November 09 2019, @11:12PM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Saturday November 09 2019, @11:12PM (#918435) Journal

    It is nice that there are phones that support multiple positioning satellite constellations. But a scenario that knocks out GPS could also knock out GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, et al. I'm sure the U.S. is at the forefront of anti-satellite warfare, what with the USAF's little X-37B jaunts.

    Of course, the scenario could also lead to a global thermonuclear war. GPS will be the last of your worries.

    If not WW3, a solar storm could affect all the constellations equally, unless we have some new and very radiation tolerant hardware.

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