Just as new satellite-navigation (satnav) device are being showcased at the recent CeBit, it becomes quite clear that what a long distance these lilliputian devices have come so far in the past decade: The tiny devices seem to have become the best mate for the navigator that whispers commentary as a live tourist guide. Tomorrow’s tourists are expected to stroll round the sights of Hong Kong, Athens or New York with a satnav to their ear in place of a guidebook in their hand.
The latest devices exemplifies a fashion: satnav seems to be going past cars, which is generally consisted with the technology as a standard accessory for the opaque road networks of western Europe and Japan, plus is previously getting common on high-end cell phones and BlackBerry products. Nowadays satnav devices mostly make use of signals from the US network of (GPS) global positioning satellites. While on the other hand European Union (EU) plans to launch a rival worldwide system, code-named Galileo, by 2011, is being held back by disputes amongst the industrial partners.
