'GPS 2.0' outline calls for open, hackable, interfaces The group that created GPS wants it opened up so it's easier for people to compete on its individual components. Californian nonprofit The Aerospace Corporation also wants to address the weaknesses that have emerged in GPS in the decades since it was first created – things like jamming and resiliency – without compromising …
Hmm, sounds like they want things like Skyhook (and Google's equivalent), AGPS, inertial reference platforms, etc. to all be opened up and output NMEA sentences...
Fine, but then those things would then all have to be reintegrated into systems but, frankly, who's going to do that other than the phone manufacturers who are already doing this themselves but in a proprietary way?
AFAIK the only component of such a thing that isn't "open" right now is position from WiFi. But there the only magic thing is having a database of WiFi basestations, and almost anyone can build one of those for themselves these days. Skyhook had the idea originally, Google shamelessly copied it, Mozilla has one, Apple have one, Microsoft has one. Literally anyone who has software being run all over the world (WinZip, Linux, anything) can use the existing WiFi interfaces on computers to get the required data and send it back to a server to build up that data base.
Making that data "open" would be nice though - it'd save anyone having to go to the bother of doing it themselves.
And already most GPS systems can show a constellation map and received signal strengths. And GPS data app on a mobile can do that already.
Agree that Google can snoop on their location data at all times?
I refuse, not because I think that more accurate location data is a bad thing, but from a general mistrust of the motives behind the collection. Detailed tracking of my location gathers information about wifi and cell towers. It is also detailed tracking of my location.
Much the same, I suppose, as the resistance to care.data - correlating medical data is an enormously powerful tool for good, but also for less good applications.
Which brings us inevitably to Windows 10. A lot of resistance here to the snooping and forced upgrades. But does the other 99% of the population really care, or even think much about it?
An indicator warning of suspected jamming would be nice.
Apart from that it seems a bit like a solution looking for a problem. In other words, nice idea but what's the point? Position data is only any use when combined with a map, be it electronic or paper, anyway. Besides, it's not like GPS is the only system there is. And should GPS ever be used for what it was originally designed for I guess I have other problems.
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