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| Yes | 45% | 180 votes | Total: 396 votes | |
| No | 55% | 216 votes |
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Add to FavoritesGlobal Positioning Systems were used among the government when first created. The main use of this system was for military use. Allowing soldiers to know their position behind enemy lines, and in return also let the military know where it's soldiers were. Soon after the car industry began to use this new system, portable devices soon became available to the public. Many of the consumers that were the first to use this product were among hikers and bikers. As this technology became more researched, they began putting them in dogs, in order for owners to find their lost dogs and or for lost pets to be returned to their owners.
Maps are an essential object that everyone will use at least once throughout their lifetime, or until now. Many consumers have invested in global positioning systems (GPS), because they are an ease of use to consumers. Would a consumer rather type in their destination of travel and be directed right to where they need to go, or would they rather trip plan using a conventional map? I find that easy to answer, GPS. Then comes the question of price?
As new products emerge, they are expensive in the eyes of the consumer. Later on through the product cycle, we see that products tend to become cheaper. When Sony first introduced the GPS device in 1996, the suggested price for auto dealers was $2,995. Today, you can obtain a Sony GPS for as little as $299. As we should all know that the cheaper the product the more demand there is for the product. Therefore, as there is more demand for the product the price will reduce.
Features that are on a GPS set the bar for a map. Imagine that you are in another town/city that you have no clue what is around but you are getting very hungry. Within your menu somewhere there is a button for restaurants. This really changes the concept of just stopping at the first restaurant that you see. Many other features accompany the standard GPS systems like restaurant finders, points of interest, road map, gas station finder, etc. A traditional map does not compare to the wonderful features that accompany a GPS system.
Just like DVD's took over VHS and Cd's took over tapes, I believe that GPS is very close taking over a conventional map. Ease of use is a major concern to consumers in today's market. As new technology and products appears on the market, consumers often wonder whether or not the product is easy to use. GPS systems are much easier to use than your conventional map. For example, voice guided turn by turn directions are one of the features of a GPS, imagine that you are trying to pay attention to the road and look at a map. Now if you had voice guided directions, much easier. As I expressed earlier, people are looking for technology that will help improve their lives; but better yet, something that will improve their live and is very easy to use. It is also nice to have some extra added features, and GPS is the way to go for someone who is looking in that direction, not a map.
Learn more about this author, Joseph Fish.
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No
As former Chief Technology Officer of NAVTEQ Corp, and the former SVP for Global Marketing and Strategy at that company, it might seem counterintuitive for me to be arguing in the "NO" camp. But before laying out the argument, I'd like to say that Mr. Marcus' line of reasoning is substantially without merit and would like to address that first. The debate as framed is clearly intended to encompass the devices rather than the infrastructure and when he takes pains to point out how the (satellite) infrastructure is not "the map" he misses the essence of the debate. Further, he goes on to say (in paraphrase) a map is a map.
In fact, digital maps for GPS are radically different from printed maps. In the latter, the map is conerned primarily with relative accuracy. "This street is laying in this direction and joins those streets at its ends". A user of such a map is unconcerned with absolute positional accuracy and such maps can be permitted to be hundreds of meters adrift from "ground truth" without substantial loss of function. A digital GPS map does need to be absolutely accurate and (as an obvious by-product of this) also relatively accurate. Otherwise the GPS receiver(concerned only with coordinates) will place the device in a location which doesn't line up with the map's view of that location.
So, having clarified this point, why do I argue that GPS won't replace conventional maps?
Debates often hinge not differences of substance between protagonists and antagonists but on their different readings of the terms in the title. If we can get past such interpretive differences we can argue the core substance of the debate at least as I (and I hope most people) interpret the title.
In this case, having posited that GPS here means the devices which leverage the infrastructure more than they mean the infrastructure per se, we need to further clarify what we mean by "conventional maps". In my opinion this term is not restricted to the choice of medium. Instead it refers to a manner of usage in which the human does the interpretation of spatial information which may or may not involve them placing themselves in its context. In this way, for me at least, the term "conventional map" means a map depicted on a medium for direct human interpretation. By this approach, we can describe an "unconventional map" as being one which is either not depicted on a medium or not intended for (or amenable to) direct human interpretation. It is interesting to note that many GPS devices (especially the earlier ones in automobiles) did not bother to display a map as such. They simply gave turn instructions (arrows and words) in anticipation of upcoming maneuvers. Though a digital map was being used inside the GPS device, the user was never presented with its contents. Only the consequences of using its contents.
I believe maps (conventional or otherwise) serve a very large variety of purposes and only some (perhaps even a large majority) but not ALL purposes will demand an the unconventional map required for GPS.
So, conventional maps may become digital and the medium might be an LCD but they'll be conventional and serve those other purposes. They might even be aboslutely accurate and fit for GPS usage, but as long as they're being used "conventionally" they'll be conventional.
If we take this perhaps purist view, even when paper maps are to be found only in museums, GPS devices will not completely replace conventional maps since those devices won't be fit for whatever non GPS purpose the conventional map is being used for by a human viewer.
Learn more about this author, Salahuddin Khan.
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