More commonly known by the abbreviation GPS, the Global Positioning System is much higher than a simple map tool for driving.
While utilizing GPS satellite navigation can help save time and gas money on long car trips, GPS applications go far beyond travel to areas such as farming, animal tracking, and even gaming.
More commonly known by the abbreviation GPS, the Global Positioning System is much more than an uncomplicated map tool for driving. While utilizing GPS satellite navigation can assist save time and gas money on long car trips, GPS applications go far past travel to areas like animal tracking, farming, and even gaming.
After capturing its start in the U.S. military in the mid-1990s, having improved for two decades earlier, GPS expanded and became possible for civilian application in the initial 2000s.
Humans want to apply it for everything they can; the growing availability of GPS to society has led to many innovative insights, with more uses developing every day. The resulting applications outline just a few of the several innovations for GPS technology so far.
Go for a run, walk, hike, or bike ride and never get wasted.
Of course, one of the most common uses for a GPS is just going for a hike, walk, run, or bike ride. You may have a GPS watch to be worn on your wrist. It will show you exercise data such as current heart rate, speed and distance, and your total workout time. The software lets you map out your route on a PC and then track your workout progress. You can load a “ghost” runner on the GPS to see if you are running behind or ahead of previous workout times.
Promoting Agriculture
As the human community maintains to grow, effective food production is becoming frequently necessary. For example, farmers hold food prices down and supply up by using GPS technology to supervise their tractors and implement more precise data for farming and harvesting. In addition, large-scale and smaller farms alike are connecting GPS with other technology, such as geographic knowledge systems, or GIS, to optimize factors like soil treatments and proper irrigation for various types of crops.
Find Wi-Fi hot spots, Coffee shops, Libraries, or Public places.
You can search for just about any public place and then load the waypoint in your GPS. Loading a waypoint is just a matter of connecting your GPS with a USB cable and then using the software included with the GPS to transfer waypoint markers. There’s a marker for just about any taste: All of the historical monuments in the state of Texas, coffee shops with high-speed wireless access, the birthplace location of famous people, the best restaurants in small towns, pizza places located close to shopping malls, and church listing by denomination.
Find your way around town.
One last innovative use for a GPS is in-car navigation. A GPS in a car lets you plan a route just by typing in an address, and then the following voice prompts that tell you where (and when) to turn. The on-screen display shows you a bright easy-to-see find arrow for directions. As a corporate event, in-car systems can be a fun team-building activity.
Track your distance to the tee
You can initially “map” the fairway manually by walking the course and setting waypoints. Then, on most GPS devices, you tap a button that looks like a flag adjacent to each tee box and hole. The GPS reveals your current location and the background to the next spot/hole when you play the course. A more straightforward strategy is to employ a handheld GPS device, which not only reveals your pin distances, but bunker locations and other hazards to avoid — such as lakes and even the most reliable lay-up positions — all automatically for many popular courses. Finally, you pick the hole you are about to play, and the GPS feeds you all the appropriate information. It delivers all of the guesswork out of locating the flag.
Monitoring Vehicle Usage
Whether there is speculated misuse of government vehicles or a company wants to ensure its trucks are not taking deviations to pick up illegal merchandise, connecting a GPS transmitter to a vehicle renders a relatively inexpensive crime deterrent. One type of transmitter on the business is the Plug N Track GPS device, which connects secretly to the car’s computer system through the ODB-II port under the dashboard. Thus, managing track of government vehicles eventually saves taxpayer dollars while retaining police and officials accountable for visiting dubious locations. Meanwhile, heading off illegal deals with GPS technology saves more than money; it may even save lives by stemming the work of dangerous illicit drugs.
Tracking Endangered Species
Most animal activists would acknowledge that prevention is superior to punishment after the fact when it gets to illegal poaching and the trade of exotic animals. National Geographic has previously employed GPS to save elephants, producing and circulating artificial ivory inlaid with GPS tracking devices to investigate and end the criminal organizations responsible for the ivory trade. To implement successful preservation strategies, endangered animals wear tracking collars also serve zoologists to determine how changing environments affect species’ habits.
Tracking Children and Elderly Individuals
In a more busy world, missing track of an exposed loved one can be a terrifying encounter. However, with a GPS wristband and a similar app, roaming kids and their grandparents can quickly be established without the family informing the authorities. Some GPS locators also permit users to talk to caretakers through them while looking like nothing more than a typical wristwatch. This technology allows many seniors to enjoy increased self-confidence later in life than has been earlier possible. Similarly, parents can better get their children in a mob using GPS, helping would-be “helicopter” parents appear more at peace.
Real-world Gaming
People have been holding up ways to own fun with GPS since it initially hit the mainstream. Geocaching, a game in which individuals hide items and prepare a GPS location on a message board or app for others to recover, has been around for the early 2000s. Pokémon GO is a much newer evolution of GPS gaming set to release in 2016, allowing players to use GPS to find monsters that they can see and train using an app on their smartphones and a specially designed, interactive bracelet. In addition, there has been further speculation regarding games that may combine virtual reality headsets and GPS to produce the most immersive gaming experiences yet. However, no such game has been announced at this time.
Summing Up
The innovations listed above are far from comprehensive since there are more novel practices for GPS every day. Nevertheless, GPS continues to unite the world, and its people in ways never thought possible before, improving recreational and business possibilities and saving lives.