If you're a boat owner, pilot, or orienteerer, you've known about the Global Positioning System (GPS) for years. Matter of fact, some owners of upscale automobiles have had some face time with the satellite-based navigation technology. To most of the rest of us, though, it's been just another meaningless three-letter acronym.

All this is about to change.

Due to a confluence of factors, including continuing miniaturization and falling cost, GPS technology is destined soon to start turning up in a host of electronic devices aimed at the general consumer market, notably - you guessed it - PDAs and phones.

Here's the short course: A GPS receiver gathers pulsed signals from as many of the two dozen or so GPS satellites orbiting the earth as it can lock in. Using triangulation -- by measuring and comparing the travel time of individual signals - the receiver calculates its position, and it's accurate to within twenty yards or so.

For over a year, Garmin International's iQue 3600 stood alone as the only PDA to integrate GPS. It brought satellite-based mapping and positioning to a handheld everyone could use.

The iQue 3600 has flip-up GPS antenna that locks in place at two different angles to optimize GPS signal reception and viewing.

In addition to the standard Palm OS applications and the ability to run any of the thousands of third-party Palm software, the iQue 3600 bundles basemaps of North America, South America, Europe and regions in the Pacific Rim.

The basemaps provides generalized information about highways, major city streets, railways, rivers, lakes and state, provincial and national borders. Detailed street information is also available on an included MapSource CD-ROM. All maps work with the GPS feature.

Last month, Garmin competitor Navman introduced PiN (Personal Interactive Navigation), the first Pocket PC with an integrated GPS receiver (see Navman Pocket PC Integrates GPS).

The Pocket PC comes with a pre-loaded SD card with the latest version of its navigation software, SmartST V2. Software capabilities include Microsoft Pocket Outlook integration for address-to- contact routing, a time-saving zip code search tool, the ability to pre-select areas to avoid, a town-to-town routing function (Complete route summary), enhanced zooming functionality and a 3D map display option that aims to enhance the visual navigation experience.

Navman PiN

Other features include address-to- address routing, selectable map views, automatic and manual zoom for map detail control, Back-on-Track rerouting when off-course, day and night screen modes and a points-of-interest library.

Rising to the challenge, Garmin quickly answered with the iQue 3200 (see iQUE 3200 Second GPS PDA from Garmin), its next-generation Palm-based GPS-enabled handheld. The iQue 3200 takes the price point of integrated GPS down from close to $600 for the iQue 3600 to $536.


iQUE 3200

Pocket PC users wanting GPS will soon have another option, as d-Media Systems, a Taiwanese smartphone and PDA original design manufacturer, plans to release the In-View Pocket PC N-911 (see top image) later this month in North America and Europe.

The new handheld will feature a high-resolution display that supports over 260,000 colors, excellent for maps, and a GPS antenna, GeoHelix, from Sarantel. It is not clear whether d-Media will sell the N-911 under its own name or a better-known vendor will pick it up.

GPS-Enabled Mobile Handsets

Why should PDA users get all the good stuff?

Chipset maker Global Locate answers: They shouldn't. In keeping with this position, that company today unveiled Stingray, its dime-sized System-in-a-Package that will let mobile phone platform providers and handset manufacturers easily integrate A-GPS into mobile handsets and smartphones-as well as PDAs.

A-GPS is short for Assisted-GPS. It improves the performance of GPS receivers by providing data that is normally downloaded directly from a GPS satellite either locally, on a mobile device, or via a server that relays information to the GPS receiver. With A-GPS, GPS receivers operate faster and more efficiently.

Gobal Locate's VP of Sales said "we continue to focus our resources on providing the best A-GPS solution to the cellular handset and PDA market. Stingray addresses our customers' requests for a high performance solution with emphasis on economy, low power consumption and very small footprint."

Stingray also integrates Global Locate's IndoorGPS, a company branded solution that enables GPS to work when it's used in challenging indoor environments.

According to Global Locate, during testing, IndoorGPS, for example, tracked six or more satellites inside an area with no windows and beneath a concrete and metal roof from a mobile handset running on a GSM network. The company said it performed just as well under similar circumstances with a CDMA-based cell phone.