GPS has made a major impact on our world. How is it a free service that anyone with a phone can access? How is it profitable for companies to offer services like navigation without subscription fees or ads?
In: Technology
You can thanks the USA military spendings for putting up the Satellites. Civilian usage is just a byproduct, as the satellites are just sending unencrypted information about their positions above the earth. From the position data you can calculate backwards where you are, based on what satellites you can see (not all satellites are always visible, similar to how the sun rises and sets above the horizon). There are multiples such systems from other countries and organisations such as the European Galileo system, or the Russian GLONASS.
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