The Global Positioning System is going to get even better: GPS is getting $8-billion upgrade: Improvements, including the replacement of satellites, aim to make the system more reliable, more widespread and much more accurate - latimes.com - May.23.10.

A reader notes that the Russian satellite global positioning system GLONASS is almost finished: Russian sat-nav almost complete - BBC - May.11.10.

Roger L. Easton is honored for his work in helping to create the Global Positioning System (GPS): Father of GPS Inducted into National Inventors Hall Of Fame - Aero-News Network.

I forgot about this article from last month about the geocaching hobby and how it can sometimes arouse the suspicion of the police: Geocachers find trinkets and trouble: Hobby using GPS to discover hidden containers prompts additional police scrutiny - Washington Post - Nov.15.09.

Regarding one of the recent incidents where a couple followed a GPS device's directions into a bad spot, the Air Force explains why it's not the fault of the GPS system: Lost Couple Can't Blame GPS, Air Force Says - SPACE.com - Dec.30.09.

As they say, use common sense when following GPS directions: Different Couples Follow GPS Directions Into Trouble in Oregon - Risk Factor/IEEE Spectrum - Dec.29.09.

For many years I heard predictions that consumer GPS devices would soon become a major market. Looks like it is finally happening: Satellite Navigation Market Continues To Soar Worldwide - Space New/space.com - Jan.14.08. Unfortunately, I expect that many users will not even realize that the devices are space enabled.

The frontier of GPS and satellite tracking applications just continues to expand: Satellite tracking | No hiding place : If it flies, a proposed space-based animal-tracking system could observe almost anything on Earth - Economist.com - Mar.8.07.

Check out Everytrail - The GPS Travel Community. The site allows you to upload your GPS data along your trips and see the trail displayed on a Google Map. Plus you can pinpoint spots where you took pictures and display those as well. Share your trips with a community of GPS users.

I remember seeing articles several years ago about how the consumer market for GPS systems had failed to appear as expected. I don't have any statistics handy but I sure have the impression that consumer GPS must be doing quite well now . The other day, for example, I was surprised to see a prominent display of GPS navigation devices along an aisle at a Target department store. Certainly a sign that the GPS navigator is becoming yet another electronic system with which most people are familiar.

It has helped that navigators with displays big enough to allow a map to be visible to drivers and passengers while sitting on the dashboard have dropped in price in the past year or two. I still have just an old hand held unit with arrows to point toward a point set with latitude and longitude coordinates. With the more sophisticated mapping systems you simply enter the address of where you want to go.

I have relatives and friends buying them for their cars. They are really helpful if you live in the DC metropolitan area, which encompasses not just downtown but an ever expanding area of Virginia and Maryland. We might be invited to someone's house in a new development way out past Dulles airport one weekend and to a dinner party in eastern Maryland the next. Google map is great but sometimes it would be useful to have a guide in the car when things don't really seem to match with the map or when we forgot to make a printout.

Now you can even track your hunting dog via GPS: Astro.

Europe finally gets its Galileo GPS program off the ground with the launch of a prototype spacecraft:
* First Galileo satellite launched - spacetoday.net - Dec.28.05
* Test satellite for Europe's Galileo system launched - Spaceflight Now - Dec.28.05

Note that the spacecraft was built by Surrey Space Technology. When I see this company mentioned, I always like to note that it is a spinoff of the AMSAT/student satellite program at the University of Surrey. The company is growing into a major player in the satellite industry.