Does Your Cell Phone Know Where You Are? Explosion Predicted for GPS-Enabled Handsets

摘要

Move over, cameras — to be really high-tech, a cell phone needs GPS. Several signs indicate the GPS handset market is on the brink of a tipping point, leading to popular adoption by the average consumer via cell phones. In October, QUALCOMM announced that it has reached the 200-million milestone in shipping mobile handsets worldwide with its gpsOne assisted GPS (AGPS) technology.This shipment total over the past few years demonstrates that "consumers are increasingly demanding location services on the wireless device that most carry with them all the time," said Rob Rovetta, senior director of product management for QUALCOMM Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless technologies. gpsOne enables a variety of GPS services to be accessed through cell phones, from turn-by-turn voice commands to points of interest, applications for athletes in training, real estate services, and security for parents of children or those with elderly relatives.