IMPACT OF THE INVENTION OF GPS
Introduction
Technologies mean a lot for a modern person. Since the technological revolution, they have been integrating into our daily activities by means of smartphones, personal computers, music players and other gadgets which people use every day. The Global Positioning System is one of the handy technologies which help people not to get lost in a big city or a forest. With a help of GPS, one may freely find the way out of a situation when someone is lost and so forth. However, just like any technology that is integrated into our life, GPS has its advantages and disadvantages. Being a handy software for geographical purposes it remains very power hungry and has other issues connected to one's privacy. Thus, the following paper will discuss advantages and disadvantages of the Global Positioning System and how it was gradually involved in our everyday activities. As it may be concluded from the paper the introduction of the Global Positioning System has brought a lot of improvements in our daily activities and is beneficial for the majority of areas of people’s lives. However, it is necessary to note that there are some dangers which are related to the issue of the use of GPS in our everyday actions.
GPS is “a navigational system using satellite signals to fix the location of a radio receiver on or above the earth's surface (Webster, 2006)”. The GPS technology has become an irreplaceable tool as the time passed. Being a complicated and sophisticated technology, the Global Positioning System became more accessible as user interfaces evolved. The simplest GPS receivers have their accuracies of 10 to 20 meters and the more complicated ones may calculate positions of the object with an accuracy of centimeters (Milla et al., 2005).
However, it is necessary to explain the work of the technology. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is provided by means of the work of approximately 32 satellites which circle the Earth at a height of 26,600 km (Dempster, 2013). The owner of these satellites is the United States Department of Defense but the signals from them may be used by anyone as a person has a receiver. The work of the receiver, at the same time, is based on the four satellites which it may “see”. Before the positioning begins, the receiver tries to locate the signals of the satellites and to download data from them (Dempster, 2013). Bearing in mind this fact, one may imagine how advanced the technology is since such complicated process is performed in few moments.
In order to provide the effective work of the aforementioned process, it is necessary that the two main things happen. Firstly, the GPS receiver should measure the distance to the satellite by measuring the time during which the signal travels to the satellite at the speed of light. Then, the GPS receiver gets the information about the position of the satellite and knows that it lies on a sphere with the radius of the distance that was measured (the sphere has the satellite as the center) (Dempster, 2013). Mainly, the receiver should intersect three of such spheres to work properly. By means of the process entitled trilateration, absolute or relative locations may be effectively determined (Dempster, 2013).
Nonetheless, there is a problem even in such accurate and complicated calculations. While the Global Positioning Satellites have the expensive atomic clocks the receivers of the signals have the cheap ones and this creates an uncertainty at the time of receiving the signals. Thus, the fourth satellite is useful in such situation as it may take into account the fact which is known as the receiver clock drift (Dempster, 2013). So, despite being a highly advanced technology the Global Positioning System has its disadvantages even in its construction.
There are some causes which led to the introduction of GPS for civil needs. The Global Positioning System is now used by thousands of people every day. This state of affairs is the result of the decrease of the cost of small-screen technology such as LED screens due to the spread of mobile phones in the 1990s (Dempster, 2013). The devices using GPS became more affordable and the system itself became much cheaper than it was before the proliferation of mobile phone technologies. Moreover, the introduction of such mapping services as Google Maps and Google Earth made GPS even free to use. As the technologies became cheaper GPS receivers turned into a consumer product. When such a decrease in the cost of these technologies occurred and smartphones became equipped with GPS receivers people were able to navigate using downloadable or even built-in applications in their phones. Taking into account all these facts it is necessary to specify the positive changes which were brought by the introduction of GPS in our everyday lives.
Advantages of GPS
It is now possible to feel safer since most smartphones have built-in GPS receivers. A person cannot get lost and may find the way to the nearest bus stop or the café he wanted to visit. When one’s phone has a signal, it is easy to determine one’s location by means of GPS and cell tower triangulation (that will be explained further in the discussion of the negative feature of the Global Positioning System). As Agrawal states, GPS is revolutionary in the industry because it proves that technology evolves with society and that adaptation occurs to add convenience to everyday life. Added features to Internet-enabled GPS programs improves existing systems to become the best GPS system a manufacturer can provide (Agrawal, 2016)”.
The most obvious advantage of GPS receivers being built-in in our cell phones is the access to emergency services. Police or fire department may determine one's location in case of emergency even if he or she cannot talk or does not know the exact location (Artman, 2016). The people who work in these services may have access to one's location by means of the information from the GPS receiver on one's phone or contacting the wireless carrier in order to specify the position of the device in relation to the nearest cell tower.
The most useful feature of the Global Positioning System connected to the issue of emergency services is crime prevention. Some law enforcement agencies use GPS as the way to track vehicles and people who look or behave suspiciously. These people may be involved in some criminal or even terrorist activities. Tracking these objects, police or other agencies are able to prevent crimes and catch criminals who may have gone without the employment of the Global Positioning System. Consequently, GPS is a great helper when it comes to the safety of all people as it helps to prevent or determine potential crimes. Talking about the military purposes GPS may control the movement of road transport making road safety possible (Jones and Soatto, 2011). Consequently, when it comes to our safety in the military meaning the Global Positioning System serves to protect and guard people.
Besides being used in the aforementioned areas it is used in anthropology and geology studies helping the professionals build maps, locate different artifacts and so forth (Royer, 2012). Thus, the Global Positioning System is useful for exploring both the past and the present. This is an additional point in the discussion of why geography matters in terms of GPS.
Negative impacts of the introduction of GPS
Notwithstanding all the positive effects of the use of the Global Positioning Systems in people's daily activities, there are some issues and dangers connected to GPS. The main concern of all people that appeared with the introduction of GPS in cell phones is location privacy. Sharing location is a dangerous thing when it comes to illegal activities of stalkers who use the information about one’s location in order to harass, threaten or stalk. These offenders misuse cell phones of common people and access the information about the location of the user. The victim may be misrepresented to the cell phone provider to gain information, the offender may monitor one’s phone bills, family plans, or simply install a spyware that uses one’s location (Lee and Olsen, 2013). This means that one should be especially aware of what he installs on his phone and which permission an app needs.
The majority of cell phones are easy to be tracked with the help of its design and operations. The user of a phone with built-in GPS receiver may be easily tracked by means of it. Furthermore, the phone may be track even when one does not actively use GPS. This happens due to the process connected to triangulating the cell towers. During this process, the distance between the phone and the three nearest towers may help one determine an approximate location of the phone (Lee and Olsen, 2013). Other methods which may help one determine the location of the phone are used by wireless carrier companies. These methods are GPS information and network usage information that has the information about the location as well (Lee and Olsen, 2013). Thus, the carrier may get the information about one's location when the cell phone is on and connects with cell towers. The information about one's location is mainly used only by the wireless carrier or may be transmitted for some purposes connected to law enforcement in case the institution that provides it is given the proper warrants or authorization (Lee and Olsen, 2013). However, the information about one’s location that the wireless carrier has may be attained by offenders for their illegal activities.
More specifically, these illegal activities are linked to the misuse of the GPS in the cell phone of the victim. In this way, abusers and stalkers can track and monitor the phone. One of the most widespread techniques in this area is tracking programs and spyware which are installed to one's cell phone (Lee and Olsen, 2013). However, such installation in most cases needs a direct physical contact with the abuser. This happens when the offender has access to one’s cell phone or when some spyware is installed by the user without knowing what the software does in fact.
Bearing in mind the possibility that such an app may be installed any time by any person it is necessary to note how these applications work and how to avoid being tracked. Location tracking services are sometimes presented in the form of family locator apps which are downloadable for smart phones. Moreover, the majority of the wireless carriers have their own family locators (Lee and Olsen, 2013). The main purpose of such apps as the family locator is to keep parents aware of their child's location by means of their cellphones. However, these apps have some features which are beyond the location of one’s cell phones and some of these features may be used by a potential abuser. The person who monitors his victim through these features may be aware of one’s movements with a help of notifications. The abuser may be notified when one leaves a certain location (such area is called geo-fence) or when a monitored person goes to some location, place or address, get the information about one’s location in certain periods of time or even be notified about one’s history of going anywhere during the day, week or even a month (Lee and Olsen, 2013). In most cases, a person who uses family locator app is aware when the software is running just simply looking at the status bar or contacting one’s wireless carrier. Some wireless carriers provide the information about the running services by texting messages periodically or giving updates so the user can know that the family locator app is currently running (Lee and Olsen, 2013). However, Lee and Olsen state that the abuser can change the name of the application making it look more harmless than it, in fact, is (Ibid., 2013). By these means, those who are involved in stalking may make a user unaware of the tracking app having been installed on their cell phone. Thus, it is necessary to check all the apps which are currently running on one’s phone before going somewhere and so forth.
Conclusion
As it may be concluded, the Global Positioning Systems is highly beneficial for a modern person. Besides having some technical purposes connected to military activities such as tracking transport or landing an aircraft it is handy when it comes to our safety. With the help of GPS people are able to find the way out of some dead ends in the new city, find their friends in a crowded place, track their children's activities and movements and so forth. Talking about safety it is necessary to specify that the Global Positioning System is greatly useful when it comes to law enforcement as it helps police locate and prevent crimes. In the case of emergency, fire department or police may easily find you even if you do not know your location. Of course, there are issues with location privacy but all the illegal activities are easy to prevent if one is aware of the aforementioned techniques.
References
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