Hey, Let Satellite Guide You Around - GPS Talk
Did you GPS today?
An enthusiastic fan of digital products, I can’t help but almost always drool
at whatever new gadgets that they come up to flaunt about. Portable music players, digital cameras, and Windows Mobile powered cellphones are my favorites, but other gizmos also seem appealing to me as long as they are, more or less, connected to computer technology. Yes, no words can describe my appreciation for these ingenious, convenient and in most cases pocket-friendly devices. And I am not alone here. People can never seem to tire of newer, faster, fancier digital
stuff, and they are constantly tortured by the desire to upgrade their collections.
But there are times when cutting-edge technologies come only to confuse people
. The recent buzzword is GPS, standing for Global Positioning System. Perhaps
people are fascinated by all those Double-O Seven movies where the hero rushes here and there trying to save the world – by using all these glaring gadgets, one of which, of course, being the GPS-ready PDAs. With a GPS device in your pocket, you’ll be able to have satellites in the outer space guiding you around through every corner of the world. Does the idea sound alluring! Well aware of this new trend, high-tech companies holding patents of GPS technologies and manufacturers of such devices can’t be more ready to go for broke and brainwash people into the importance of having a GPS receiver: You need GPS while in a strange
city; GPS helps you get out of the woods while mountain hiking; You even need GPS to help locate gas stations, restaurants, hotels, and hospitals if you are caught in bad luck. Retailers keep nagging to you that GPS can get you home if you have too much drink.
They of course won’t just do the snow job. With GPS satellites shinning over
the planet, you just have no place to hide. GPS receivers in all shapes and sizes are everywhere in the computer market, ready for you to pick one. Cellphones with GPS capability are categorized as high-class devices targeting “business
customers” and is an icon for social status, and those ones without, as told by the salespeople and the media, are going out of fashion soon. If it’s not everywhere – student PDAs are said to have GPS in short time, as do newly launched portable media players such as MP4 or whatever. Intensively bombarded for all
this time, I begin to have this obsession, that if the earth will continue spinning without the help of GPS.
Usually a pushover for high-tech devices, I am not – disappointingly -- convinced this time. It didn’t take long to dawn on me that this GPS thing is no more than a commercial gimmick, only being grasped at by GPS companies and manufacturer as a life-saving straw. Why bother, I ask, when I can just get off the car and go to the locals for directions, for free? When go mountain-hiking, I can
just go with friends in the first place – and you never know, one or two of my
fellows might already have one of those magic things.
Panpanpan.
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