GPS needs to grow-up and get inept

Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 2:03 pm. 0 comments

Buried in among a number of bizarre articles in today’s Times Online content (including accusations by cheesemakers that the government is waging an anti-cheese agenda and the news that the average walking speed has risen by 10-percent since 1994), CNET editor Michael Parsons reveals himself to be a surprising GPS luddite.  His argument is that “it’s cheating“:

“Eventually affluent people in the developed world will start to forget what it was like to be lost - just as we are all beginning to forget what research was like before Google”

Lest I tread on the toes of any sat-nav companies or inadvertently bugger an NDA agreement other, more in-touch bloggers have been observing, I firmly believe that we’ll see a range of GPS devices with in-built randomiser chips.  This high-tech “get lost” function will, according to a user-set ratio of likelihood, randomly choose a journey to scupper with poor directions and general topographical ignorance.

Obviously, with the number of people who blindly obey their sat-nav and find themselves half submerged in the nearest flooded road, manufacturers will have to work hard to out-stupid the general public.  I can only assume that they’ll take ‘Celebrity Voice Directions’ to their logical conclusion and instill the intelligence of celebrity dullards into their dashboard map-manglers.  Let’s hope the day that we can all invest in a little George W. Bush to drive us round the bend comes soon enough to satisfy Michael.