America is too dependent on tech developed by the american military?!
the fuck?
FCC chair says we’re too dependent on GPS and wants to explore ‘alternatives’ (read: multi billion contract with Musk)
Submitted 2 days ago by drmoose@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theverge.com/news/625671/fcc-vote-gps-911-technologies-inquiry
Comments
FiskFisk33@startrek.website 2 days ago
some_designer_dude@lemmy.world 2 days ago
But Elon doesn’t own the American Military (yet) so this makes sense. Its just vertical integration, really.
TommySoda@lemmy.world 2 days ago
GPS isn’t just for google maps. I’m a land surveyor and we literally use GPS every single day. Without it we’re basically fucked. We do hydrographic surveying and without GPS we’d have to basically go back to analog as 90% of the equipment on our boat would be useless. Good luck figuring out how much water is left in the Colorado river without it.
The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) will be completely fucked without it as it’s built on decades of data and monitoring. You can’t just look for “alternatives.” Y’all know what a GEOID model, state plane, or ellipsoidal height are? Because I’m pretty sure these cucks don’t and whatever Elmo has is not robust enough for the precision that is required for what we use GPS for. And without shit like that you couldn’t hit the broad side of a city.
metaldream@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
These guys don’t care. They’re a bunch of gangsters trying to profit by dismantling the government and selling corporate replacements for its services.
We’re either headed towards long term fascism or a massive civil backlash.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Without it we’re basically fucked.
Meh, there is Galileo.
You may or maynot need new equipment tho
TommySoda@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yeah, imma have to go through our equipment to find out if they go through with this. If we do have to replace it, this shit is not cheap.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 2 days ago
Most receivers already use GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and beidou.
ms_lane@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Also QZSS, but that’s just GPS not run by US (it uses GPS signalling, but it’s designed to look directly down when over a small arc of Japan (which covers Tokyo) so you can get more accurate GPS inside the ‘urban valley’
We get slightly better GPS in Australia (esp. Adelaide) due to it too, since the other end of the orbit is over AU.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
🤣
Who’s “We”? The Government?
“Government is too reliant on Government?” (GPS is run by the US Government)
So they want to rely less on government, but relying on a corporation.
🤔
Goodmorningsunshine@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Sounds like the FCC chair is taking his orders from Musk
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
GPS? You mean the technology that we as a country collective maintain? And have continued to maintain since it’s immediate inception?
Yeah, ok.
Call me when you start using glonass.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 days ago
That’s weird, I always viewed GPS as a form of American Imperialism. Sure, it’s a bit extreme maybe, but America does own and operate it and jam it when enemies try to use it.
ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Calling GPS part of imperialism is a stretch. It was put in the air at no cost to another country and can be used without cost by anybody, but nobody has to use it. Other countries can launch their own satellites if they want, but they don’t because that’s expensive and GPS is free. The US isn’t making money off of it or exploiting another country with it.
Yes, the US can jam it regionally when in conflict but of course why wouldn’t we? No reason to help the enemy.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Other countries can launch their own satellites if they want, but they don’t because that’s expensive
They do, and they did:
EU (not a country, but still)
Russia
China
They all have their own.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
technically, originally the GPS system was private, until made public, where it had error obfuscation, until semi recently it was released fully.
It was originally funded by the US government, still is, it’s just publicly accessible now.
(the original usecase being for shit like ICBMs and what not, obviously)
dv48@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Except for Galileo and glonass.
Petter1@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Corruption?
hansolo@lemm.ee 2 days ago
My phone uses the Graft Positioning System to tell me where I can go and who I can talk to.
hansolo@lemm.ee 2 days ago
I really hope this means another attempt to use the magnetosphere itself. MAGNAV might actually be possible at this point.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
No, the “better” article has a buzzword to information ratio of 3:1.
thog78@lemm.ee 2 days ago
How does that handle high tension lines and the like, doesn’t it disturb the magnetosphere far too much? Kinda the reason even compasses don’t work anymore in town?
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
this would also be susceptible to magnetic field switching as well, shouldnt be a huge technical limitation, but im not sure accuracy is going to be quite as good.
hansolo@lemm.ee 2 days ago
No idea. I think there’s a lot of machine learning - enabled mapping up front.
QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world 2 days ago
One interesting alternative would be the Visual Positioning System (VPS) that Niantic has built from Pokemon go player data. Basically you can take a picture outside and your phone will know exactly where you are:
www.nianticspatial.com/locate#vps
arstechnica.com/…/niantic-uses-pokemon-go-player-…
Too bad they’re getting close to being bought out by a company that’s notorious for squeezing out every penny from their player base.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Yeah so good luck using that in the middle of the woods
tehWrapper@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Would this work in a war zone if everything that used to be there was gone now?
QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I doubt it would work well, but with enough training data it would be able to pick up on some areas. Especially if there are large landmarks in the frame (mountains/hills/rivers, etc.).
Natanael@infosec.pub 2 days ago
It’s also what Google Maps live view is using. Street view imagery plus rough location plus on-phone camera sensor calibration data allows it to compute highly accurate positions relative to surroundings.
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
he should explore seppuku with musk
potatopotato@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
There’s already a startup trying to get the FCC to give them half of the 915mhz band (meshtastic, smart home stuff, ELRS, ham radio) for a pay to win GPS alternative.
stopdropandprole@lemmy.world 2 days ago
first time hearing about this, any more details you can provide or link to a news release?
potatopotato@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee 2 days ago
I hope I’m not reading into this too much and thinking he just wants to use Russias standard of satellite technology. L5 GPS is better accuracy. Also if you look at 3GPP’s future planning and goals, the game is to utilize all RF technology together. 5G broadcast and LoRaWAN will make sensors happens within cities and highways and that working together with GPS and cell, you can get readings about a foot or less.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
this is just some autistic shit from musk most likely.
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m kind of surprised that Musk hasn’t proposed turning Selective Availability back on.
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Understood! Anyway, thanks to the ruzzian GPS, I made a left over the canyon. Currently dangling. I think its wrong!..oh wait, it’s because I didn’t tell it to not fly or avoid bodies of water. Got it!
redditfuckingsucks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
as opposed to what? can’t exactly say we should use something else if the government is intent on firing everyone that isn’t actively engaging in the tariff war
bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Don’t we use Galileo now instead?
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
Maps still work without GPS though. I wonder how many people could find their location on one?
brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
A good 5 years ago or so I was getting a breakfast burrito when an older couple came in asking for directions. They had an old school mapbook. It took a minute to orient myself, but I found they were on the wrong page.
Its one of my bucket list items, but an old school road trip with nothing but a mapbook and a compass. No real destination, no time frame. Just the open road and exploring. And no GPS to make it efficient or optimized where I’ll soar right past everything.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
Don’t really need a compass for a road trip given you are just following roads. I went on a bike ride somewhat recently following a similar idea, using a tablet instead of a book but I just had an offline map and it doesn’t support GPS. I followed various paths and roads going around. Was a nice day trip.
futatorius@lemm.ee 1 day ago
This is going to kill people in order to enrich SwastiKet.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 2 days ago
They’re called maps. I have several in my glove box.
slumberlust@lemmy.world 2 days ago
How many gloves are in there?
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 2 days ago
2
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Used to be 6, now 4.
regrub@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The article is pretty vague, but I bet stellar navigation is a strong contender. Although, it works best only when there’s good visibility of the night sky
Neverclear@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Wait til you hear about radio astronomy:
The brightest discrete radio source is the Sun (Figure 1.10), but the Sun is much less dominant than it is in visible light. The radio sky is dark even when the Sun is up because atmospheric molecules and dust particles don’t scatter radio waves whose wavelengths are much larger than these particles. Most radio observations can be made day or night. Clouds are also nearly transparent at wavelengths λ>2λ>2 cm, so long-wavelength radio observations can be made even when the sky is overcast.
usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Or is he referring to GLONASS, the Russian version of GPS?
In any case, I guess it’s good the EU has the Galileo network specificaly to have an alternative to avoid depency on the US
Modern and newer phones will often use all three system (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS) + sometimes others at the same time since it improves accuracy
stoy@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
And this is why the EU should have ignored the US when they whined that our Gallileo system used different frequencies from GPS.
As it stands now Gallileo was built to using frequencies that the US can jam using GPS.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Ooh i did not know about that, interesting. However they could just have built their GPS sats in such a way that allows a wide range of frequency jamming anyways.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
there’s a significant difference in jamming capability between different frequencies? Are you jamming them from space or something?
That doesn’t really seem like a significant technical limitation to me.