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Researchers say GPS can guide tourists, track convicts

A navigation system intended to guide bombs to their targets may soon help Alzheimer’s patients find their way home.

Researchers who are tinkering with the same technology – the Global Positioning System – say it also can be used to guide visitors through museums. Other innovators plan to use it to beam cell phone ads to specific locations, to enable stores and restaurants to lure hip wireless customers who are strolling in their neighborhoods.

Not since the Humvee has a military innovation excited so much civilian interest. The GPS already is essential gear for sailors and wilderness hikers and a navigation aid for millions of drivers. You’re likely to see more new uses soon, tech futurists said, thanks to miniaturization, higher accuracy and falling prices.

GPS "is in so many different areas. It transcends a lot of barriers," said Jessica Myers, a spokeswoman for Garmin, a major GPS maker based in Olathe, Kan.

One big innovator, the corporate technology unit of Germany’s Siemens AG, is working on a system to send text messages to precise locations rather than to individual cell phones. Any GPS-compatible phone that’s passing through the coordinates would receive the message.

Full Story: http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&ts=1&display=rednews/2005/08/13/build/business/25-tourists.inc

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