GPS To Make Life Easy?

Global Positioning System Is Everywhere

(CBS)  GPS, or the Global Positioning System, was initially created by the U.S. military to help American troops navigate terrain all over the world. Now available to the masses, GPS is everywhere.

As bad as navigating through traffic can be, it still beats getting lost while en route to your destination. But contributor Laurie Hibberd reports, thanks to on board navigation systems, you can leave the maps in the glove compartment.

"Three hundred feet ahead, turn left," is an example of how a voice prompt becomes your co-pilot, so that you don't have to pull over and ask for directions.

This convenience comes courtesy of GPS technology, a navigation system comprised of 24 satellites circumnavigating the earth, which is helping us to do a lot more than get from point A to point B.

GPS receivers are now available to help you locate everything from shipping containers to your dog. It is an expanding market, but experts say it is not a market driven by consumer demand.

Anand Anandalingham says, "What has happened, like all technologies, once the consumer gets it, then they find it has a lot of value and they are not willing to give it up."

Anandalingham is a business professor at the University Of Maryland. He believes effective marketing is the key to creating consumer demand.

"All high end General Motors cars come with On-Star and they give it to you for free for the first year," he says. So it's a way of getting the consumer to use a technology that they may not have thought of using."

And according to On-Star, the company retains 50 percent of targeted consumers beyond the first year.

Another company to find a niche market in the automotive industry is XM Satellite Radio. Their promise: To give you crystal-clear reception. So no matter where you go, you never lose your signal.

Unlike GPS, XM uses a pair of its own satellites to broadcast over 100 stations, for about $10 a month, to a growing audience of subscribers.

Robert Aker of XM Satellite Radio says, "We've been up and running for about two years and are getting close to hitting our millionth subscriber mark later this fall."

But you don't need to be in your car to listen to satellite radio. These days, that same technology is available in a take-anywhere boom box.

Also making the transition from the street to the sidewalk is this GPS-enabled PDA from Garmin. It'll cost you less than half of a navigation system for a car, plus there's a phone book and an MP3 player.

And GPS receivers just keep getting smaller. One fits on a wristband to help runners keep better track of their workouts.

Also in development, GPS on the fairway, to help golfers get the exact coordinates of each hole, though it won't help them with their swings.

The technology is not small enough to fit inside of a golf ball, but imagine the possibilities once it does. There is a prototype for an implantable GPS, which is currently being developed by applied digital solutions. It, too, will get much smaller before it's produced, or so we should hope.