by: Robert McCourty
You've just finished congratulating your marketing team. After six months of concentrated effort you can now actually find your own company web site within the search engines. Everyone is busy handshaking and back patting when a voice from the back of the room rises above the din. "Yeah this is great! Can't wait until we can find ourselves on wireless devices."
All conversation comes to an abrupt halt. Eyes widen. Everyone turns to the fresh-faced intern standing in the corner with a can of V8 juice in one hand and a PALM device in the other. You, being the Department Manager, barely managing to control your voice not to mention your temper, ask the now nearly frozen with panic intern, "What do you mean find ourselves on wireless? We just spent thousands on our web site visibility campaign!" "Well... Explains the sheepish intern, "There is no GPS or GIS locational data within our source code. Without it, most wireless appliances won't be able to access our site."
Guess what? The intern is absolutely correct. Anyone interested in selling goods and services via the Internet will soon be required to have some form Geographic Location data coded into your web pages. There are approximately 200 satellites currently orbiting the Earth. (even Nasa won't confirm the exact number) Some are in geosynchronous or geostationary orbit 27,000 miles above your head. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is the name given to the mechanism of providing satellite ephemerides ("orbits") data to the general public, under the auspices of the International Earth Rotation Service Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF). Sounds like Star Wars doesn't it? It's pretty close. The NAVSTAR GPS system is a satellite-based radio-navigation system developed and operated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).
More >>>
