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September 25, 2006

Smarter Agent

[from npr.com]
GPS Is Smartening Up Your Cell Phone

There's a good chance that you are, right now, carrying around a tiny device that's picking up faint radio signals from space and keeping track of your location. It's a Global Positioning System -- or GPS -- receiver, built into your cell phone. A hundred million or so people in the United States have those devices, but few, up to now, have been able to use them.

Selling the GPS Idea

Cell phone companies didn't originally want to put GPS receivers into cell phones. But several years ago, the Federal Communications Commission required them to come up with a way to locate their customers for rescue workers and 911 calls.

Some companies, such as Cingular, adopted technology that locates a cell phone by analyzing how its signal is picked up by different cell towers. Others, including Verizon, Sprint, and Nextel, decided to install a GPS receiver in every cell phone. This generally determines location more accurately, although it doesn't work as well indoors or in dense cities.

Read the full NPR article.

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Posted by richard ting at September 25, 2006 10:57 AM