A few weeks ago, my in-laws from Amarillo used their new GPS system to navigate their way to our home in Dallas. I had to laugh when they told me the GPS device took them through a longer route on toll roads when they could have easily taken a more direct route that avoided tolls altogether. I laughed even harder when they told me the Jamba Juice not 1/4 mile up the street from our home was apparently seven miles away according to their GPS.

Despite its quirks, there's no doubt that the Global Positioning System (GPS) is becoming more popular as people see its wide array of benefits. Once the stuff of science-fiction, GPS location technology is now heralded in cars so that nobody gets lost; in school buses to track our most precious of cargoes; in hand-held devices such as cell phones to locate people in emergencies; and even in business vehicles such as parcel delivery services and rental cars to increase efficiency and regulate mileage and usage policies.

The one drawback to GPS has traditionally been its accuracy, only being able to locate a GPS-enabled object within an approximate three-meter radius. In the United States, we know the meter to be a little over three feet, or just over one yard; thus current GPS technology is limited to a little over nine feet, or three yards. Still, nine feet is enough to locate a trapped mountain hiker or a victim of a natural disaster with fairly good odds.

In 2012, however, everything changes. Presently, the European Union (EU) is feverishly working to implement a new generation of satellite technology it dubs, "Galileo." According to the EU, Galileo will locate GPS-enabled objects within one meter, a drastic improvement over its three-meter predecessor:

"More and more often, it will become necessary to ascertain one's precise position in space and time in a reliable manner. This will be possible with the GALILEO satellite radio navigation system, an initiative launched by the European Union and the European Space Agency...This enables any individual to determine his or her position or the location of any moving or stationary object (e.g. a vehicle, a ship, or a herd of cattle, etc.) to within one metre thanks to a small cheap individual receiver. GALILEO is based on a constellation of 30 satellites and ground stations providing information concerning the positioning of users in many sectors such as transport (vehicle location, route searching, speed control, guidance systems, etc.), social services (e.g.

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