The GPS we know and love is part of a larger family of systems called Global Navigational Satellite Systems or GNSS. It’s similar to having different operating systems like Windows, Linux and OS X for a computer - they’re different but they ultimately get the same jobs done in the end.

• GPS is the USA system - Wikipedia GPS Entry
• GLONASS is the Russian system - Wikipedia GLONASS Entry
• Galileo is the European system - Wikipedia Galileo Entry
• Compass is the Chinese system - Wikipedia Compass Entry

I’d write a little more information about all those systems, but really who cares - and for those of you that do, I provided you links to very informative Wikipedia entries. Right now only the USA (GPS) system is fully operational and open to the general public.

Here comes the most important question of all: What do having all those different systems mean the average GPS end user like me? I just want to use the GPS to navigate while I’m driving or keep me from getting lost when I go hiking.

Things aren’t looking so bad in the answer to that question. Since us end users drive the market the manufacturers are hopefully going to listen to what we want.

When I turn on my GPS, or hopefully one day my GNSS device, I don’t want to worry about which satellites are available to me to use or have to configure some little gadget all the time to get it to work properly. I’m going to have more important things on my mind like driving or enjoying the view from atop some majestic mountain peak. I think manufacturers are intuitive enough to know that we’re not all Linux geeks and don’t want to configure it all the time so they’re going to design device that work on whatever system is available and devices that will probably use more than one system at a time to get even better accuracy.

Actually - there are already chips being designed to handle more than one system and a Quick Google Search shows that there’s already some pathetic competition killers trying to patent having all the different receivers on one chip (sarcasm: Wow, such a novel idea!).

Anyways, we’ll let the manufacturers work out all the details. Give me my GPS, make it accurate and make it ‘just work’.

Lately, it seems that Trimble has been trying to break into the consumer GPS market by teaming up with some cellular service providers to offer software services to the cellular provider’s clients.

So far AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Blackberry, T Mobile, Sprint and Alltel Wireless have jumped on board with Trimble. Or maybe Trimble has jumped on board with them.

Trimble has created a new division of the company and called it Trimble Outdoors. With Trimble Outdoors you can plan outdoor trips and use your phone for GPS navigation, tracking your fitness performance, geocaching, and sharing your experiences with others. All of the applications are available on the Trimble Outdoors site, but having them isn’t going to be cheap!

Trimble offers three different software applications that are built with different activities in mind. You’re going to end up paying $5-$6 per month depending on the software application that you choose.

AllSportGPS - The AllSport GPS software application turns your cell phone into a full-featured GPS-enabled trainer and workout tracker for cycling, mountain biking, running, walking and other sports activities.

The AllSportGPS phone application in combination with the Trimble Outdoors web site provides you with a complete solution for tracking, analyzing and improving your fitness.

Trimble Outdoors - The Trimble Outdoors™ application lets you use your cell phone to find your way and document your trips for hiking, backpacking, fishing and other outdoor activities.

The phone application in combination with the Trimble Outdoors web site provides you with a complete solution for using your phone to find your way, creating multimedia trip journals that you can share, researching and planning trips, and sending your trips wirelessly to your phone.

Geocache Navigator - Geocache Navigator™ on your mobile phone offers you a fun and easy way to enjoy a hugely popular hide and seek game called geocaching (also known as “GPS treasure hunting”).

With Geocache Navigator™ you can geocache on-the-go. Leave behind your GPS device, cables, and paper printouts! It’s easy to use for beginners and powerful for advanced geocachers. Just grab your phone, seek and enjoy.

Don’t be surprised about Trimble trying to lock you into using their software product as they’re famous for doing this already with their GIS software products. When I bought my Juno ST I was surprised to learn that there was no useable GPS software on the device or the software disc that came with it that was of any real value to me.

So what are the alternatives? There’s actually a LOT of alternatives, many of which are much cheaper than what Trimble and partners are offering their packages for. But it depends a lot on your device too.

If you’re a Nokia user and your phone has GPS capabilities you can go over to the Nokia Sports Tracker web site and get yourself all hooked up over there.

Handheld, standalone GPS users can use Zone Five Software’s SportsTracks Software which will accept a wide variety of devices and all your information is kept on your PC and the software integrates with Google Earth so you can even “fly through” your route in 3D.
TrailGuru seems to still be in the startup stage but they seem to have a lot of potential. You can use their web site by uploading your tracks or use the site in conjunction with their iPhone application that’s available at the iPhone App Store.

For those of you who want to try Geocaching you’ll find that a Basic Membership on the Official Geocaching Web Site is free.

I’m thinking that Trimble should stick with the professional GIS software/hardware market because there’s not a real big chance that they’re going to keep up in the fast moving consumer GPS market with only a few pieces of software and nothing that’s completely their own.

Your GPS doesn’t know the terrain before the route or track is made unless you have it programmed into the GPS so everything is in two dimensions until the GPS knows different. There’s a couple of things you should always remember when it comes to navigating outdoors with your GPS.

1) A GPS tells you how far it is to the waypoint “as the crow flies”.
2) A GPS tells you how far it is to the waypoint “as the crow flies”.

This makes me remember a time when I was out in the bush trying to locate a concrete monument that was being used to mark a mining claim. I was down in a riverbed with a rock wall on one side of me going pretty much straight up 30 meters and on the other side it was a gradual gain in elevation for about 100 meters before hitting the same type of rock wall.

My GPS was telling me that I was right on top of the monument (I had programmed the known coordinates into my GPS before leaving for my hike) but I couldn’t see it anywhere.

In the valley my dilution of precision was getting pretty bad, I was down to about 4 satellites most of the time so I was wondering really how accurate the readings could be. I had followed what the GPS told me and it pretty much put me up against the rock wall face… Crazy… There was nothing there so I moved on to the other side of the river on the flat where I though that it might be. The monument is man-made so it should be easily accessible… Right?

I walked around looking for about ten minutes and still had not encountered it… I sat down for a second to try and keep my GPS still so I could get a little better accuracy. Looking over to the other side of the river at the top of the 30 meter high rock wall right above where I was standing before was the monument I was looking for.

Now I always remember… Look up… and for that matter… Look down too!

High Tech Hide and Seek/Catch
If you and a bunch of friends all have iPhones a high tech cross between Catch and Hide and Seek may be in order. Just make sure you have some rules in place about the boundaries of your game. An iPhone is capable of showing your all your friends’ locations so you should be able to figure out how to set it up quite easily. I’d think that the more densely populated are the better (downtown core).

Treasure Hunt
Set up a treasure hunt for the kids to help them learn how to use a GPS efficiently. This game is probably best played on a camping trip or somewhere where there’s a lot of space. Plant a few items and mark their locations on the GPS with a waypoint and let them go off and running. To make it just a bit more challenging and educational you can also not mark the waypoint on the GPS and just write it down on a piece of paper - coordinate data types to make it really interesting!

GeoCaching
Of course there’s ready-made GeoCaching - a game you can play with the whole world. Yuo can find the original Geocaching web site at GeoCaching.com

Use your imagination - there’s a lot of potentially good times to be had with a GPS and some people you like.

I recently purchased some GPS software for my Windows Mobile OS based device and believe that this is some of the most advanced GPS software you can get for just $24!

Actually there’s 3 different versions of the software Basic (without upgrades), Standard (1 year of upgrades) and Geo (allows you to do area calculations and comes with 1 year of upgrades).

Since I use my GPS in mother natures great span of wilderness I really prefer this type of software to navigational software.

One of the best things for me with this software is the ability to use Google Earth’s satellite photography as my maps. So when I’m hiking around in the Mexican sierra I won’t get lost! The compass view with the sun’s direction is also really helpful for me when trying to find out which direction I should be going. Of course, the software has all the functions of regular GPS software like the ability to add waypoints and tracks.

When I’m on the road or traveling in a city I’ve never been in and more so if it’s a popular tourist destination, the ability to use maps from Terraserver, OpenStreetMaps or Google Maps is perfect because I don’t have to shell out $50 to $100 just to get a CD with all the maps on it for where I intend to go.

Another neat feature if you’re traveling with a bunch of friends in a real connected city is the ability to share your GPS location with your friends in real time. Yes - I believe this software had the GPS Share functionality long before the iPhone even existed.

Download a free trial of GPS Tuner - Offroad Navigation Sofware today!

So if you’re going on a road trip with the guys maybe you’ll want some entertainment on the way. You can get that with some new Politically Incorrect GPS voices from P.I.G.Tones.

Now that GW Bush’s term is just about over you will be hearing from him a lot less. Not that I personally have a problem with that but some of you out there just might be fond of the little guy after the eight terribly long, almost unbearable years he spent in office… Well, if you find that you do miss him you can download and have him right there as a little, electronic voice.

Just as if he were in office using his veto powers against the will of the majority of the people he was supposed to be serving - he can STILL be telling you WHERE TO GO!

“Today (June 10) at the MassMin conference in Lulea, Sweden, Greg Baiden of Laurentian University, Canada (also Chief Technology Officer of Penguin Automated Systems) presented on a newly developed Underground Positioning System (UPS). The UPS has a range of some 2 km through rock and accuracy better than 3%. Mine trials are to be undertaken later this year and in 2009. Going forward, this has tremendous potential for finding trapped miners, for equipment mechanisation and mine wide asset management. The system employs VLF and would rely on a network of ’satellites’ placed to surround an orebody or underground workings.”

Read the rest of their article.

The Triton isn’t just showing off a tough exterior - it really is built with rubber armoring, impact resistant plastic and a water resistant seal so you won’t have to worry when you take this electronic device outside where it’s actually supposed to be used.

The Triton has a “becoming standard equipment on all electronic devices” 2.5″ touch screen, uses SD Card storage and the famous SiRF Star III GPS chip. Even though it’s doubtable you’ll ever have 20 satellites available to you the SiRF Star III GPS chip boasts 20 channels with WAAS/EGNOS real-time correction.

We like the fact that Magellan decided to give this GPS a 2MP digital camera - now we’re getting somewhere but here’s where Magellan really screwed themselves. This built in digital camera does NOT allow you to geo-tag your photos.

Talk about a failure on the digital camera part - Sorry Magellan you’re STILL way behind.

There’s been a lot of rumors going around that “turn by turn” navigational software will become available for the iPhone very soon - but so far everything is still rumors.

The Dutch company TomTom says they are coming out with turn by turn software for the iPhone but no date or details have been released so far. While TomTom makes great navigational software it’s all wait and see when it comes to TomTom living up to Apple Style and I’d give Garmin a better kick at being able to develop a user interface that still “feels like an iPhone”.

I may be a little bit biased here but what I would really like to see is behemoth Google step up to the plate and develop a navigational system that works with Google Earth. For them to do this they’d have to be making some big changes though and I’m sure they’re much too busy on other projects to be working on a little one like this.

As a consumer all we can do is wait for it. If you ask me - we’ve already been waiting WAY too long!

This is excellent news for all of us that want a heavy-duty buttonless GPS that’s waterproof and has a special sunlight-readable touchscreen.

Here’s our original article on the Garmin Oregon GPS.