On Top of the world: A Chinese survey team, aided by GPS, conquers Mount Everest

In recent years, Global Positioning System navigation, commonly known as GPS, has rapidly migrated from ocean-going vessels and adventurers’ backpacks to the dashboards of luxury sedans. In yet another leap into the mainstream, GPS technology, cheaper yet more sophisticated than ever, is increasingly finding its way into the palms of everyday users.

In an array of devices, many new and some newly enhanced, the use of orbiting satellites to orient and guide travellers has never been simpler, more accurate or, well, cooler.

Taking advantage of faster, smaller processors, higher-resolution liquid-crystal-diode colour screens and more efficient antennas, digital storage and software, GPS devices are becoming an ever more compact source of useful maps with walking and driving cues.

“More and more young people look to GPS,” said Steven Hendricks, a Motorola spokesman. “They’ve used it as hikers and snowboarders. Now more professional folks are wanting to use it for travelling, finding their ways to restaurants and hotels, to meetings and clients.”

In some instances, roofers helping to rebuild homes and businesses in Hurricane Katrina’s wake have been using hand-held GPS devices to locate job sites in areas where street addresses have been blown away, workers say. But perhaps the most prominent example of GPS’ broadening acceptance is its increasing incorporation into feature-laden mobile phones.

Now, it requires mobile phone makers to embed location technology in handsets to help emergency services better locate people in emergencies. But basic location technology, accomplished in most handsets with GPS chips, cannot alone be used to navigate from point to point. For that, carriers must provide or use special software or even additional hardware, experts said.

Motorola’s i870 multimedia phone, offered by Sprint Nextel, is crammed with new hardware that includes GPS navigation with turn-by-turn directions, as well as an MP3 music player and video camera.

Similarly, the BlackBerry 7520, a slightly swollen version of the popular personal organiser and cell phone combo, features turn-by-turn GPS navigation. It automatically fixes where it is, and once a location ? an exact street address or simply an intersection in a given city ? is entered with its keyboard or by way of its voice recognition feature, the device goes to work. It graphically maps out directions based on several criteria, including whether the traveller prefers driving highways or city streets, or walking.

Extensive testing of the BlackBerry-TeleNav system in cities including Los Angeles and New York found it extremely responsive, despite use in urban canyons of skyscrapers known for breaking links with GPS satellites.

Hassan Wahla, senior director of business development at TeleNav, said special “predictive functionality” in the system calculates where a user is and then ? based on speed, as determined by an internal accelerometer ? indicates where the user is likely to be whenever satellite signals are interrupted. The effect is rather seamless, he said.

“If you lose signal while travelling under a bridge or because of a tall building, you keep navigating,” Wahla said. “The entire trip is downloaded in the first minute of a trip and is stored on your phone or BlackBerry as you’re driving. If the GPS goes off line, you will continue to be given guidance. It knows your last known location and speed.”

STMicroelectronics, a large Italian-French semiconductor company, designs and makes motion-detection chips that provide similar predictive technologies to hand-held GPS systems, including cell phones. Extras like these that are making GPS easier to use, many retailers say, are speeding overall consumer adoption and acceptance.

This holiday season, Radio Shack, with its 7,000 stores nationwide, is offering portable GPS devices ranging in price from $100 to $1,000. Two years ago Radio Shack offered two models of GPS devices, said Charles Hodges, a company spokesman. “Today we have nine,” he said.

NYTNS