It's no fancy trick for a mapping program to take the data generated by a GPS receiver to mark and track your location on an onscreen map. The navigation system was designated by the US military for ships and aircraft. Unfortunately, while GPS today is nifty for folks who like to play with gadgets and has some limited uses, it has significant drawbacks. To become a mass-market product, GPS must become easier to use and more accurate. Even in Japan, where the lack of a street numbering system makes navigating Tokyo a nightmare, GPS sales have been slow.
Japanese receivers use gyroscopes to calculate position between good satellite fixes.
A possible solution is being designed by US chipmaker SiRF Technology. SiRF has designed a low-cost system that it says can maintain good accuracy for periods when it can see only two satellites and sometimes just one. Lower prices and higher accuracy are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for giving GPS mass-market appeal. In one of our projects, we specifically focus on high-tech devices that include a road navigation system as one of their functions. Voice recognition technology is likely to simplify the way users interact with the device.