Social Change - Research Paper Example

The system depends on satellites to provide precise location and time data to the specified users (Helms 20). GPS-consumer products that exist in cell phones and smart phones accompany the technology. It is through this technology that turn-by-turn directions of everything that the consumer is looking for is available to the car dashboards, smart phones and iPhones among others (Kaplan and Hegarty 13). Navigation for a long time has been considered a skill up to now. It required a lot of knowledge and effort to interpret the maps in the past.

The end of the 19th century and the entry of the 20th century emerged with a new technology that bridged the distance between an ordinary person and a knowledgeable navigator. (Roy and Beringer 32) This technology refers to the global positioning system. The technology has made navigation simple because with a single click on the screen; every person can find the intended way via a complex system that consists of satellites. The system works through receivers that translate satellite data and give precise positions of the features in question (Sherman 45).

The first people to come up with the idea of the GPS were the military personnel and proof that the system worked in 1991.The American forces found it difficult to navigate through the desert terrain due to the lack of landmarks, the introduction of the technology made it easy for the forces to navigate with ease through any terrain that they came across with a lot of ease. The exact accuracy of this technology in the navigation sector showed the power of the GPS technology (Sonokpon 32). The technology also has a lot of impact on the economy of the country.

Many companies are turning the GPS technology for collection of accurate and useful relevant geographic information data to improve their market targets (Hannon 50). A good example is the airport sector where an airline is in a position to find out the shortest possible distance between two