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Europe's Own SatNav Galileo Goes Live

posted by FatPhil on Saturday December 17 2016, @01:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the god-didn't-buy-any-of-these dept.

On IRC, Bytram brings us:

After 17 years, numerous setbacks and three times over budget, Europe's Galileo satnav system went live on Thursday promising to outperform rivals and guarantee regional self-reliance.

Initial services, free to users worldwide, are available only on smartphones and navigation units fitted with Galileo-compatible microchips.

Some devices may need only a software update to start using the service, according to the European Commission, which funds the 10 billion euro ($11 billion) project.

Source: http://phys.org/news/2016-12-galileo-europe-satnav.html

There's a list of Galileo-enabled devices at www.useGalileo.eu. One thought that goes through this editor's mind is that wIth two sources of data, the deliberate inaccuracy in the US military system seems somewhat futile now, I wonder if that misfeature is reaching end-of-life?

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday December 17 2016, @01:45AM

    by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Saturday December 17 2016, @01:45AM (#442318) Journal

    Hmm, let's click on that list of Galileo-enabled smartphones [usegalileo.eu]...

    BQ Aquaris X5 Plus
    Huawei Mate 9

    Oh my god! 2 devices allows the use of the plural "smartphones"! Well, at least I have heard of the Huawei Mate 9. But you have to wonder why Apple and Samsung couldn't add support for this in advance, and just activate it with a software patch.

    promising to outperform rivals

    Looks like it will be a while before we can test that claim.

    the deliberate inaccuracy in the US military system seems somewhat futile now

    An anonymous coward said this was wildly outdated info on the last story. Let's see if anon was right. Yes [wikipedia.org]:

    Initially, the highest quality signal was reserved for military use, and the signal available for civilian use was intentionally degraded (Selective Availability). This changed with President Bill Clinton signing a policy directive in 1996 to turn off Selective Availability in May 2000 to provide the same precision to civilians that was afforded to the military. The directive was proposed by the U.S. Secretary of Defense, William Perry, because of the widespread growth of differential GPS services to improve civilian accuracy and eliminate the U.S. military advantage. Moreover, the U.S. military was actively developing technologies to deny GPS service to potential adversaries on a regional basis.

    Regional reliance is still a concern, and not just theoretical:

    However, the US government can selectively deny access to the system, as happened to the Indian military in 1999 during the Kargil War.

    Between GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, Beidou, IRNSS, and QZSS, I don't anticipate any problems locating yourself or even building a little homemade satnav missile.

    Civilian GPS will be getting another upgrade soon. [wikipedia.org]

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  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday December 17 2016, @01:52AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday December 17 2016, @01:52AM (#442323) Homepage

    Europe has much bigger problems - it is presently under attack from weaponized refugees.

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday December 17 2016, @03:04AM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday December 17 2016, @03:04AM (#442340) Homepage

      Modded Flamebait, huh.

      Europe will be in the third-world in another few years, and there's not a goddamn thing they're gonna do to stop it. They are victims of widespread social engineering. Our experiment is complete. We now know that inducing and leveraging guilt (which is not a new concept, see Original Sin [wikipedia.org] and learned helplessness [wikipedia.org] ) at an institutional level level will render chaos to the subjects, who can all be rebuilt to our whims at best, or be rendered too divided to present a threat at least.

      Ha ha, yes. It's going all as planned.

      It's no wonder that European Franz Kafka always died at the end of his good books, he was too much of a pussy to fight back.

  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday December 17 2016, @01:57AM

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday December 17 2016, @01:57AM (#442326) Journal

    We know for certain tha Glonass and Galileo do not have any accuracy reduction modes. Right? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

    Anyway, I've heard it said that using multiple systems (GPS+Glonass or Glonass+ Galileo) does not yield more reliable accuracy and that it could actually increase uncertainty.

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    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday December 17 2016, @02:12AM

      by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Saturday December 17 2016, @02:12AM (#442329) Journal

      1. Find place with precisely known coordinates. Determine and compare coordinates based on GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, etc.

      2. Go to sidewalk and open mapping application. Zoom all the way in and see if it can place you on the sidewalk. Or standing on the sidewalk crack 2 inches from the curb. Etc.

      This is not some crazy mystery. The people making the SoCs will be able to determine whether a combination of signals boosts accuracy. And they are not limited to satnav... they can use Wi-Fi networks for instance. GPS Block III boosts signal strength and allows you to correct for ionospheric delay:

      The immediate effect of having two civilian frequencies being transmitted from one satellite is the ability to directly measure, and therefore remove, the ionospheric delay error for that satellite. Without such a measurement, a GPS receiver must use a generic model or receive ionospheric corrections from another source (such as a Satellite Based Augmentation System). Advances in technology for both the GPS satellites and the GPS receivers have made ionospheric delay the largest source of error in the C/A signal.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @02:08AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @02:08AM (#442328)

    Oh my god! 2 devices allows the use of the plural "smartphones"!

    Well, it's technically correct, and pedantically correct, and in a binary world of "is or is not Galileo compatible" you've only got two choices and this list has two devices. I'm not sure the list can ever be improved beyond its current state.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 17 2016, @02:15AM

      by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Saturday December 17 2016, @02:15AM (#442330) Journal

      I'm not sure the list can ever be improved beyond its current state.

      You don't think newer phones like the Galaxy S8 or iPhone 10 will support Galileo?

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @09:43AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @09:43AM (#442400)

        Whoosh?

    • (Score: 1) by Demena on Saturday December 17 2016, @04:39AM

      by Demena (5637) on Saturday December 17 2016, @04:39AM (#442361)

      If you are not sure, then you did not check the chipset radio button.
      This lists the chipsets that can access it. Chipsets used in many current phones.
      Since only software needs writing, I think it will be safe to assume that some already existent phones will be added to the list.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @09:45AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @09:45AM (#442401)

        You realize GP was mocking GGP's post, right? Perhaps your next phone should use a more advanced sarcasm detection chipset.

        • (Score: 1) by Demena on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:34AM

          by Demena (5637) on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:34AM (#443545)

          Look up to the skies and see that as an AC you are entitled to be sneered at when you criticise a named user on a personal issue rather than a technical one. Dismissed

  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday December 17 2016, @04:06PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday December 17 2016, @04:06PM (#442452) Journal

    Yeah, only two smartphone producers did make a Galileo-enabled phone before the system was actually switched on. Actually the first DAB-supporting smartphone appeared this year, despite DAB being broadcast since quite some time, and FM radio receivers in phones not being exactly uncommon. Compared with that, the Galileo adoption is incredibly fast.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @05:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @05:22PM (#442469)

    Responding line-by-line is an incredibly irritating and immature way to communicate.