GPS Devices

From time immemorial people have created ways to help them navigate. During the Age of Discovery portolan charts -- a precursor to modern day maps -- were developed based on accounts of medieval Europeans who sailed the Mediterrean and Black Sea coast. In contemporary times, with the advent of GPS, people are still trying to explore their environment; with varying degrees of success.

Many of our clients rent cars but they should take heed that putting blind trust in their vehicles could lead to trouble.

In a recent NYTimes article, a writer describes a scene that happens all over the world: a person blindly following the commands of a GPS device drives up the wrong end of a highway off-ramp. People tend to forget a simple premise: technology is not infallible. Having said that, there are few inventions in the history of transportation that have revolutionized the way people navigate more than portable GPS devices.

GPS or the Global Positioning System (GPS) is the name of a global navigation satellite system that is maintained by the United States government. It is available freely by anyone with a GPS receiver and provides reliable location and time in all weather anywhere on Earth. It was established in 1973 and was created by the American Department of Defense (DOD).

The importance of having a GPS can be summed up with a simple statistic: 18% of American roads change yearly. Places change. Luckily, all GPS navigators on the market today include pre-loaded maps and provide spoken directions and automatic rerouting if you miss a turn.

The five biggest GPS brands are Garmin, Magellan, Mio, Nextar and TomTom.

Garmin

Garmin is the biggest selling brand, with more than 50 percent of the market.
http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/site/us

Mio

Mio was founded in 2002 and its corporate headquarters are located in Taipei, Taiwan.
http://www.mio.com/

Nextar

http://www.nextar.com/frontend/prodcat.asp?co=10000384
^^ The link above shows 5 of their GPS products ^^

Magellan

Magellan lays claim to developing the first commercially available handheld GPS receiver, the NAV 1000, introduced in 1989.
http://www.magellangps.com/

TomTom

TomTom was founded by Harold Goddijn, Peter-Frans Pauwels and Pieter Geelen in 1991.
Market leader in Portable Navigation Devices (PNDs)
http://www.tomtom.com/howdoesitwork/category.php?ID=6&Language=1
They have a wide range of products including:

• Bike navigation
• Car navigation
• Built-in car navigation
• Mobile navigation

Other options

Another popular option to finding your way around is using a free online web mapping service like MapQuest. MapQuest is an American map publisher owned by AOL and

http://www.mapquest.com/