Mobile phones slowly replacing paper maps, GPS

If you’ve ever been sent by a company on a business trip in a city you’ve never been in, you know the feeling of wanting to have something or someone to guide you while moving around. Finding places to eat or chill out are not always in maps, hence the need for a more accurate alternative.

Enter the mobile phone. Once designed as a clunky version of a land phone with about two pounds of short-life batteries that you carry around, wireless communication handsets have come a long way. They’ve run alarm clock makers out of business, and this time, GPS companies could be next.

New mobile phones such as the Nokia N95 and leading wireless service providers like Verizon are teaming up to give subscribers on-screen maps in their handsets that allow the user to navigate almost effortlessly in a city they’re new in. The technology behind this is the same as the one used by emergency workers to find callers who are in danger.

“Everything is time here,” says Milton Williams who installs air-conditioning systems for a living. “Going from one job to the other. It helps me tremendously.”

“I don’t have to worry about where I’m going, about where things are. All I need is the address on the phone and it tells me how to get there verbally,” says Robert Brissel, who spends a lot of time on the road in his career.

The service providers and handset makers aren’t stopping there. Plans are already underway to make the technology useful in keeping track of children and people who may be at risk of getting lost.

Via Reuters

If you’ve ever been sent by a company on a business trip in a city you’ve never been in, you know the feeling of wanting to have something or someone to guide you while moving around. Finding places to eat or chill out are not always in maps, hence the need for a more accurate alternative.

Enter the mobile phone. Once designed as a clunky version of a land phone with about two pounds of short-life batteries that you carry around, wireless communication handsets have come a long way. They’ve run alarm clock makers out of business, and this time, GPS companies could be next.

New mobile phones such as the Nokia N95 and leading wireless service providers like Verizon are teaming up to give subscribers on-screen maps in their handsets that allow the user to navigate almost effortlessly in a city they’re new in. The technology behind this is the same as the one used by emergency workers to find callers who are in danger.

“Everything is time here,” says Milton Williams who installs air-conditioning systems for a living. “Going from one job to the other. It helps me tremendously.”

“I don’t have to worry about where I’m going, about where things are. All I need is the address on the phone and it tells me how to get there verbally,” says Robert Brissel, who spends a lot of time on the road in his career.

The service providers and handset makers aren’t stopping there. Plans are already underway to make the technology useful in keeping track of children and people who may be at risk of getting lost.

Via Reuters