Ionosphere

The technology is clearly not a passing fad. Rockwell International Corp. was awarded a $382 million contract in April of this year to produce the next generation of Navstar satellites. Beyond logistics or security applications are future uses of GPS that challenge assumptions. GPS may become so routine that it is included in many products not initially thought to need it (just as microprocessors are now in coffee makers.) GPS-enabled watches would be accurate to within 340 nanoseconds and could automatically reset themselves as one traveled across time zones.

Golf courses are already being equipped with GPS so that a player may precisely determine the distance to any nearby hazards as well as to the cup. GPS could be used to guide visitors in theme parks and even large office complexes. Cellular telephones may soon communicate location/distance information to enable a different billing formula for calls made.

Lastly, geographical information could easily be added to identifiers of all kinds just as time and date are now added. This would allow better authentication of identity in many instances. In the future, the task of the internet user will be how to limit and filter the information that is available. Information stamped with a geographical location would enable yet one more way to search the sea of information on the internet.