GPS, Global Positioning System, refers to a system of satellites and receivers that allow people and devices to pinpoint their locations on the Earth any time and anywhere in any weather because it can work in any weather conditions and anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day without subscription fees or charges. The system consists of a group of 24 satellites with 6 spare satellites that orbit 11,000 sea miles above Earth’s surface and continuously sending signals to ground stations that monitor and control GPS operations. GPS satellites circle the earth twice a day in a very precise orbit and transmit signal information to the earth. GPS receivers take this information and use triangulation to calculate the user’s exact location. Essentially, the GPS receiver compares the time a signal was transmitted by a satellite with the time it was received. The time difference tells the GPS receiver how far away the satellite is. Now, with distance measurements from a few more satellites, the receiver can determine the user’s position and display it on the unit’s electronic map. A GPS receiver must be locked on to the signal of at least three satellites to calculate a 2D position, which are latitude and longitude, and track movement. With four or more satellites in view, the receiver can determine the user’s 3D position, which are latitude, longitude and altitude. When the user’s position has been determined, the GPS unit can calculate other information such as speed, bearing, track, trip distance, distance to destination, sunrise and sunset time.

At first, GPS was used by the United States Military but today it can be used by people. For the military applications, there are many GPS applications which span on many purposes. Navigation is one of the purposes that allows soldiers to find objectives in the dark or in unfamiliar territory, and to coordinate the movement of troops and supplies. The GPS-receivers commanders and soldiers use are respectively called the Commanders Digital Assistant and the Soldier Digital Assistant.  Next, it is target tracking; various military weapons systems use GPS to track potential ground and air targets before they are flagged as hostile. These weapon systems pass GPS co-ordinates of targets to precision-guided munitions to allow them to engage the targets accurately. Military aircraft particularly use GPS to find targets. Moreover, military also uses GPS as a missile and projectile guidance because it allows accurate targeting of various military weapons including ICBMs, cruise missiles and precision-guided munitions.  Later, when GPS can be used by people, many civilian applications benefit from GPS signals using one or more of three basic components of the GPS: absolute location, relative movement, and time transfer. Firstly, absolute location, the ability to determine the receiver’s absolute location allows GPS receivers to perform as a surveying tool or as an aid to navigation. Next, relative movement, the capacity to determine relative movement enables a receiver to calculate local velocity and orientation. Lastly, time transfer, deals with synchronization clocks to exacting standards. For example, CDMA digital cellular, each base station has a GPS timing receiver to synchronize its spreading codes with other base stations to facilitate inter-cell hand off and support hybrid GPS/CDMA positioning of mobiles for emergency calls and other applications. Furthermore, it helps to save lives and properties across the nation. Many police, fire, and emergency medical-service units use GPS receivers to determine the police car, fire truck, or ambulance nearest to an emergency, enabling the quickest possible response in life-or-death situations.  Mapping, construction, and surveying companies also use GPS extensively such as Google Maps, Longdo Maps, GIS Maps, etc.

Another important thing about GPS is GPS tracking. It refers to a device that uses the GPS to determine the precise location of a vehicle, person, or other assets which are attached and record the position of the asset at regular intervals. The recorded location data can be stored within the tracking unit, or it may be transmitted to a central location data base, or internet-connected computer, using a cellular (GPRS), radio, or satellite modem embedded in the unit. This allows the asset’s location to be displayed on a map either in real-time or when analyzed the track later, using customized software. GPS tracker can be categorized into three categories which are data loggers, data pushers, and data pullers. Data loggers are a type of GPS tracker that logs the position of the device at regular intervals in its internal memory. Modern GPS loggers have either a memory card slot, or internal flash memory and a USB port. Some act as a USB flash drive. This allows downloading of the data for further analysis in a computer. The samples of using data loggers are saving the time a photo taken in digital cameras to provide an accurate location, and keeping track of the vehicles.  Next is data pushers, they are a kind of devices used by the security industry, which pushes or sends the position of the device, at regular intervals, to a determined server, that can instantly analyze the data. For example, taxi company may put the tracker in every of its vehicles, thus allowing the staff to know if a vehicle is on time or late, or is doing its assigned route. Finally, data pullers refer to the devices that are always-on and can be queried as often as required. Contrary to a data pusher, that sends the position of the device at regular intervals. This technology is not in widespread use, but an example of this kind of device is a computer connected to the Internet. Data Pullers are coming into more common usage in the form of devices containing a GPS receiver and a cell phone when sending a special SMS message reply to the message with their location.

In conclusion, GPS is the new technology that has several benefits. We can apply it to create the new applications and devices such as moving-map on vehicles to guide the route to the drivers, map applications to find any locations like Google Maps, Longdo Maps, etc. In the future, GPS will be as unlimited as your imagination. GPS satellites will guide us well and new applications will be created continually as technology evolves.

Do you know Bill Gates? I believe that most people know him but there are only a few of them who really know his biography.  If we talk about the richest man in the world, I trust that “Bill Gates” is one of the names that people would mention. There are many rich people in the world today. Bill Gates is one of this group; he is the world’s third richest person in the world for 15 consecutive years. William Henry “Bill” Gates III or Bill Gates as we know is a big American businessman, chairman of Microsoft Corporation – the world’s leading provider of software for personal computers and philanthropist. The next paragraphs will narrate his biography to let you know more about him.

In his early life, William Henry Gates III came from a family of entrepreneur and lived in high-spirits. He was born in Seattle, Washington on October 28th, 1955. His family was upper middle class; his father, William Henry Gates II, was a Seattle lawyer. His mother, Mary Maxwell Gates, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent, and chairwoman of United Way International. He has one elder sister, Kristi (Kristianne), and one younger sister, Libby.  At that time, his parents had a law career in mind for him. At thirteen he enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school in North Seattle, where he first used a computer and began his career in personal computer software. When he was in the eighth grade, the school bought an ASR-33 teletype terminal and a block of computer time on a  General Electric(GE) computer for the school’s students.  Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASICand was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer.  In late 1963, he formed programming group that consisted of him, Paul and two other students from Lakeside school and also got chance to apply their new computer skills to the real world from Computer Centre Corporation. In 1973, he graduated from Lakeside school with the score 1590 out of 1600 on the  Scholastic Aptitude Test and accordingly enrolled at Harvard College. At Harvard, he met Steve Ballmer who is now Microsoft’s chief executive officer. Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer – the MITS Altair. In his junior year, he dropped out of Harvard to form Microsoft, a company he had started in 1975 with his boyhood friend Paul Allen.

After he dropped out of Harvard, he and Paul devoted their energies full-time to Microsoft. Guided by a belief that the computer would be a valuable tool on every office desktop and in every home, they began developing software for personal computers. His foresight and his vision for personal computing have been central to the success of Microsoft and the software industry. Gates contacted  Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems(MITS), the creators of the new microcomputer, to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform. Over the course of a few weeks, they developed an Altair emulator  that ran on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter. The demonstration was a success and resulted in a deal with MITS to distribute the interpreter as Altair BASIC. Paul Allen was hired into MITS and Gates worked with him at MITS in Albuquerque in November 1975. On November 26, 1976, they named the trade name “Microsoft” which was registered with the USPTO, United States Patent and Trademark Office. In late 1976, Microsoft became independent of MITS and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems. The company moved from Albuquerque to its new home in Bellevue, Washington on January 1, 1979. Then, IBM approached Microsoft to write software for personal computer, the IBM PC, and let Microsoft retain the licensing rights to MS-DOS an operating system. On November 10, 1983, Microsoft Corporation formally announced Microsoft Windows, a next-generation operating system.

Gates is not only the business man who wanted the profit but he also is a philanthropist. He and his wife, Melinda, combined three family foundations into one to create the charitable Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the largest transparently operated charitable foundation in the world. The foundation was set up to allow benefactors access to how its money was being spent, unlike other major charitable orgaization such as the Wellcome Trust. Moreover, he has donated more than $28.8 billion to support philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and learning, including $800 million to charities and $200 million to the Gates Library Foundation to help libraries in North America take advantage of new technologies and the Information Age. As of 2007, he and his wife were the second most generous philanthropists in America.

Up to this point, do you think you know more about Bill Gates? I think that you will get more information or know more about him. Bill Gates biography is one of billionaire biographies that is interesting to study. He had shown his talent in computer programming since he was young, so he devoted his time to study programming and became successful later. He founded Microsoft Corporation with his boyhood friend and made it become the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. Furthermore, he donated several billion dollars to charities to help society. So I think that he is praiseworthy person that should be admired.

            Firstly, Google Maps has provided you to find any location around the world wherever you want. This is the main feature to serve users, it powers many map based services including the Google Maps website, Google Rids Finder and embedded maps on third-party websites via the Google Maps API. It offers street maps, a route planner for bicycles, pedestrians and cars, and an urban business locator for many countries around the world. As the user drags the map, the grid squares are downloaded from the server, and inserted into the page. When a user searches for a business, the results are downloaded in the background for insertion into the side panel and map-the page is not reloaded. Locations are drawn dynamically by positioning a red pin on top of the map images. Moreover, it can show result in the different views such as street view, map, satellite, traffic and terrain.

            Google Maps API is the second benefit which satisfies the users who would like to develop a map application into their web pages with their own data points. By using the Google Maps API, it is possible to embed the full Google Maps on an external web site. Developers are required to request an API key which is bound to the web site and directory entered when creating the key. In addition, you can create your own map interface that involves adding the Google JavaScript code to your page, and then using JavaScript functions to add points to the map. Google also provides the document that is designed for people who are familiar with JavaScript programming and object-oriented programming concepts. However, this conceptual document is not complete and exhaustive; it is designed to let you quickly start exploring and developing cool applications. Now, it is integrated with the Google AJAX API loader which creates a common namespace for loading and using multiple Google AJAX APIs.

            Another benefit of Google Maps is Google Maps on mobile phone. In 2006, Google introduced a Java application called Google Maps for Mobile which is intended to run on any Java based phone or mobile device. It is available to run on many platforms such as BlackBerry, Java, Window Mobile, Symbian, Palm OS and iPhone. You just download maps to your mobile phone using your cellular connection and visit m.google.com/maps on your device’s browser and then you get it. By having Google Maps on your mobile phone, you do not have to carry a paper map anymore; it makes your life easier and more convenient. Moreover, you would know your current location on the map. Even though you do not have GPS you would know the direction to your destination. Besides, there is real-time traffic data that helps you find the fastest route to your destination.  

            In conclusion, Google Maps is an interesting free web mapping application that is more and more popular. It does not only provide the map around the world but it also allows the users to add more locations and detail on the map and take it into their web pages. There are many other benefits of Google Maps besides the above-mentioned benefits. So it may become the best and the most popular map in the world.