The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) developed by the United States Department of Defense and managed by the United States Air Force 50th Space Wing. It is the only fully functional GNSS in the world, can be used freely, and is often used by civilians for navigation purposes. It uses a constellation of between 24 and 32 Medium Earth Orbit satellites that transmit precise microwave signals, which allow GPS receivers to determine their current location, the time, and their velocity. Its official name is NAVSTAR GPS. Although NAVSTAR is not an acronym, a few backronyms have been created for it.
Since it became fully operational in 1993, GPS has become a widely used aid to navigation worldwide, and a useful tool for map-making, land surveying, commerce, scientific uses, and hobbies such as geocaching. Also, the precise time reference is used in many applications including the scientific study of earthquakes. GPS is also a required key synchronization resource of cellular networks, such as the Qualcomm CDMA air interface used by many wireless carriers in a multitude of countries.
Now let us come to the real time applications of GPS, when it is used or rather misused by the normal people. Do you know that you can track anyone in the world, it maybe anybody, your friend your enemy anyone, and know in which part of the world that person is in with the help of GPS Tracking. And the irony is that even you can be tracked by some other person and he or she can know where you are!
Some of the basic things that may come to one's mind is that is suppose you are the employer and your employee calls up and tell you that he is sick and won't be able to come to office today, then what would you do, just switch on the tracking device and maybe you would find out that he is in a pub sipping on some drinks.
SImilarly you can even track your spouse and check whether she is lying to you or even your kids and to see where they are and if they have gone to school or they are just fooling around in a playground. And whats the mos interesting is that if you have the tracking device on your pet then you can find him out even when he gets lost. Sounds Strange! But that is absolutely true. You can do wonders with this GPS.
On one hand GPS can be a boom and it can also bring upon doom, because if you keep on suspecting, then you may become vulnerable of your near and dear ones going away from you. But that possibility is very bleak, and GPS acts as a help more than anything else.
Some devices that are present already in the market are GPS devices ehich give satellite images of roads to help us navigate better. Nowadays even mobile phones are equipped with this technology and we can navigate much better and easier and in any place of the world if we have this feature on our phone. We have also seen in many hollywood flicks that they place a transmitter on a person and keep on tracking him throughout the world. This seems absurd but can actually happen.
