Page 16 - Boca Club News - January '25

Page 16, Boca Club News

The Arts
The Arts

Book Review…“PINPOINT: How GPS is

Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds”

By Nils A. Shapiro. Nils began Interestingly, one SA, which stood for Select Availability and was reserved
his career as Marketing Director of the individuals who for the military. Four months later Iraq invaded Kuwait
for a major book publisher. He played a role in its in Desert Storm and a private American company, which
has since edited the authors’ development was an had developed a highly efficient small receiver called the
manuscripts’ for more than 20 immigrant who, hating Trimpack—filled a Pentagon order for 1,000 units that
published books, written more and fearing Ayatollah enabled U.S. forces to know where they were in the open
than 200 book reviews, served as Khomeini, fled from spaces of the desert, providing one’s latitude and longitude,
Publisher of several million-plus Iran hoping to work directions to another location and even store the GPS
circulation national magazines, hard and bring his wife coordinates of special battle maneuvers. In order to do so
created the official Yearbooks for teams in Major League and children to the it needed to have Pentagon clearance for SA access. But
Baseball, the National Football League, National U.S. He was hired in when that company ran out of their Trimpacks another
Basketball Association and National Hockey League, and 1981 by a tech firm, firm, Magellan, offered a substitute of their own that could
“retired” as President of a successful telecommunications Trimble Navigation, provide most of the same benefits. “Despite a price tag of
company before being appointed Editor of Boca Club was fascinated by the $1,000 soldiers wanted these Magellans—even if they had
News when the newspaper was launched in January 2007. concept of GPS and to pay for them out of their own pockets. Their families
As miraculous as is the now common practice of being was instrumental in the called the company, which directed them to marine retail
guided by an invisible voice as you drive miles through introduction three years later of their first GPS receiver. outfits. The most enterprising soldiers would manage to
streets and down highways, making left and right turns - The book’s first two chapters are fascinating in call Magellan directly from the Gulf and arrange for the
on command until you arrive at your pre-determined describing centuries of mankind’s search for an answer company to ship the receivers directly to them.”
destination, the true background story of how this to the question, “Where am I?” On a planet that consists - When the private companies began to develop
technology—the Global Positioning System (GPS)— more of water than land, with no identifiable markings and GPS technology their focus was on the mariner (boaters’)
was created and developed is equally extraordinary, and a flat surrounding horizon, travelers on the open ocean market, not automobile drivers. In 1989, Gary Burrell and
it is told here in impressive detail thanks to the clearly were forced to reckon by the sun, moon and stars. Min Kao started their Garmin Company (named from
exhaustive depth of research by author Greg Milner. After As the author notes, “In seafaring and navigational the first parts of both their names) and soon proved them
266 pages of text there are an additional 50 reference terms, while the Europeans were discovering fire, the wrong: “By 2006, Garmin controlled 60 percent of the U.S.
pages. Polynesians had already split the atom. They crossed for navigation equipment. Americans bought five million
I must state at the outset that I am fascinated by the ocean in canoes roughly 60 feet long, built from Garmin GPS receivers that year, as the company posted
the way that the GPS technology is able to provide its hollowed-out trees, with sails made from woven leaves… $1.68 billion in sales, a 64 percent increase from 2005.
driving directions to the general public. I was sufficiently And yet, with no compass, sextant, or any other modern Fully half of the company’s revenue came from GPS units,
intrigued to keep turning the pages to the very last one navigational aid, explorers in canoes found tiny oases with sales in that segment growing at an astounding 140
even though, because of other important events in GPS’s scattered across one-third of the planet, an expanse nearly percent annually.” U.S. News & World Report Magazine
history and other ways in which it is used, the author took as vast as Europe and Asia combined.” credited Garmin with opening up a new consumer category.
so many narrative detours that (ironically, considering this - As part of its ongoing attempts to prevent civilians I may have gotten lost a few times learning about GPS
book’s subject matter) it frequently left a “non-techie” from deriving the full benefits of GPS technology the in these pages because of my low technical I.Q, but you
like me lost for a while. Pentagon in April 1990 established a two-tier coding to shouldn’t let that stop you from heading straight for a copy
But it has been well worth the trip. And here are enable the satellite service. The restricted one was labeled of this book.
just a few of the hundreds of things you will learn here
to underscore my recommendation that you dip into
“PINPOINT”…especially if your technology I.Q. exceeds
mine.
- There is a constellation of 31 GPS satellites
orbiting more than 20,000 kilometers above planet Earth.
Every few minutes 16 U.S. Air Force monitoring stations
around the world, from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific to
the South of England, collect data from satellites coming
over the horizon, noting speed and trajectory based on Scan for a FREE
1,200 different protocols that tell how the satellite is In Home Consultat on
performing. There is no room for error. Among other
uses, all the world’s atomic clocks base their timing on VISIT OUR SHOWROOM
these satellites. And for drivers, if a satellite’s timing is
off by one millionth of a second the directions can send IN BOCA
a driver as far as 200 miles from the desired destination!
- America’s first interest in developing a
technology that would later become GPS began in earnest
during World War Two. Its purpose: to kill people more
efficiently by making our airplanes’ bombing raids over
Germany and Japan more accurate. Although the facts
were kept from civilians at home, the truth was that the
Army Air Corps’ doctrine of high-altitude bombing to
avoid hazardous daytime raids resulted in targets often
being missed by more than a mile.
And then, for decades, our military sabotaged at every
opportunity the use of GPS for civilian purposes! This is
one of the most frustrating themes that runs through much
of the book, a constant example of the shortsightedness
of the American military in its obsessive concern about Modern style
technology getting into the hands of an enemy. It was left
Des gn
to private industry to do the job.

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