When Christopher Columbus set sail from Europe in 1942, he didn’t know exactly where he would end up. He didn’t have Global Positioning Satellites, Google Earth, Mapquest or even paper maps, as we know them today. He just set sail and was going to see where he landed. He traveled away from his native land without any of the modern technology so many people rely on today.
Jump ahead to the late 80’s, early 90’s and you have GPS units being produced for use in civilian cars. Until this point, the satellites orbiting the earth were used for military purposes. Then, even once they were starting to use them for civilian use, they still were not very accurate because the military would not give the units an accurate signal. It was not until 2000 when Bill Clinton was president that the government allowed civilians to have a more accurate signal. After this, GPS devices slowly made their way into the cars of the average Americans. Now, a larger number of cars have the option of being built with the GPS screens as part of the main console in the car.
While all this was going on with screens appearing in car, GM was busy developing their own navigation system. Their answer was OnStar. With OnStar, people just push a button and start talking with someone who would help however possible. With this technology, people were able to get turn-by-turn directions by voice from a speaker in the car. This particular technology didn’t find its way into GM cars until the 1997 model year in just a few cars. The service, which requires a subscription, became more prominent in GM vehicles in the mid 2000s. It is still being developed today with the addition of reading text messages out loud and ability to sync it with Facebook and the addition of voice controls.
Other key players in the area of technology for travel use are MapQuest and Google. MapQuest had the first popular online route finder. All you have to do is plug in the starting point and final destination and it creates the best route for you. This is a lot different from what Columbus went through on his journey. Not to be outdone by MapQuest, in 2005, Google introduced their own online direction finding service with Google Maps. It did essentially the same thing as MapQuest; however, Google offered a satellite image of the area, something that MapQuest didn’t have until 2007. Then Google came out with a program for download called Google Earth. This allows people to use satellite images and search through the whole world. Now people can see a place before they actually travel there.
The technology used for traveling has certainly come a long way from what Columbus used in 1492. And while the popular instruments have changed over time from paper maps to GPS units, there is still a need for maps in order to travel. This shift from maps to satellites is just the beginning of the changes that are bound to happen to the technology used for travel.
I think that one travel related topic which you can touch on a bit more sometime this semester is the advancement in air travel. Air travel has been expanding ever since the Wright Brothers first flew an airplane in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina with no signs of slowing down. I think it is amazing how pretty much anyone can go online, click a button saying where they want to go, and then enter a credit card number, and instantly have an airplane ticket to fly around the world. Also, the air travel industry has become so refined that not only can a person fly to almost anywhere in the world, but they can do it at any time and also have a very good idea of when they’re going to arrive at their destination. Air travel is very efficient and clears up the road ways which are becoming more and more congested as there are more vehicles on the road than ever before. I think that your topic is a great one and I look forward to reading your blogs as the semester goes on.
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