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Pinpoint : how GPS is changing technology, culture, and our minds / Greg Milner.

by Milner, Greg.

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W.W. Norton & Company, [2016]

Global Positioning System.

Global Positioning System -- Social aspects.

Geospatial data.

9780393089127 (hc.)

xx, 316 pages ; 25 cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: The Whisper from Space -- Part I: Calculating Route -- 1. Tupaia Goes Home -- 2. The When and the Where -- 3. Global Reach, Global Power -- 4. Ranging the Perfect Beet -- Part II: You Have Arrived -- 5. Death by GPS -- 6. The Hornet's Nest -- 7. Better Living Through Tracking -- 8. Return from Mid-Ice -- 9. Tied Together (40.74375° N 73.9835° W) -- Epilogue: Direction Home -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index.

The Global Positioning System helps land planes, route mobile calls, anticipate earthquakes, predict weather, locate oil deposits, measure neutrinos, grow our food, and regulate global finance. It is as ubiquitous and essential as another Cold War technology, the Internet. A fascinating tour of a hidden system that touches almost every aspect of our modern life. While GPS has brought us breathtakingly accurate information about our planetary environment and physical space, it has also created new forms of human behavior. We have let it saturate the world’s systems so completely and so quickly that we are just beginning to confront the possible consequences. A single GPS timing flaw, whether accidental or malicious, could bring down the electrical grid, hijack drones, or halt the world financial system. The use, and potential misuse, of GPS data by government and corporations raise disturbing questions about ethics and privacy. GPS may be altering the nature of human cognition―possibly even rearranging the gray matter in our heads. Pinpoint tells the sweeping story of GPS from its conceptual origins as a bomb guidance system to its presence in almost everything we do. Milner examines the different ways humans have understood physical space, delves into the neuroscience of cognitive maps, and questions GPS’s double-edged effect on our culture. A fascinating and original story of the scientific urge toward precision,

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