A Perfect Storm

Consumer Demand

2005 saw the broad emergence of location-aware Web services from Google Earth and Microsoft TerraServer, both of which use satellite photos with surprising clarity and detail to show consumers near-military-grade views of any site on the planet, from the Eiffel Tower or Great Wall of China to consumers’ own homes. At the same time, services such as TomTom in Europe and MS MapPoint in the U.S. add to consumers’ overall sense that getting locations, directions, and navigation help should come standard with today’s latest electronics offerings. For insight into consumer GPS expectations, visit www.gpspassion.com.