Mobile GPS became the new standard for users around the world, and Waze’s user experience coupled with Google’s unparalleled advertising network started a trajectory toward real-time, location-guided advertising. With Google’s innovative map technology, and a crowdsourcing startup from Israel, Waze, the way we viewed the world was further refined, further understood, and made easier to get from Point A to Point B and all points in between. The technology’s military application helped lead to a Gulf War victory, while closer to home, their notoriety led to competition from Garmin and TomTom, and a rapidly expanding industry of standalone GPS devices. Magellan was the first company to bring this technology to the masses with the NAV 1000.
But the seeds were planted for standalone GPS, and package delivery companies became early adopters. But it wasn’t until Stanford Research Institute engineers were tasked with giving a video game pioneer an advantage in a Trans-Pacific yacht race that a computer-based marine navigation system paved the way for the idea to create road-based navigation in real time.Įarly advances were crude, involving cassettes, bulky devices and cumbersome displays. The Cold War’s Space Race produced the world’s first satellite, and with it, an endeavor was born to tell if space-bound technologies could tell where people are on Earth. During the Renaissance, Leonardo Di Vinci created the first modern map – of his hometown of Imola in Italy – drawn in ink with colored washes of chalk. Starting in 16,500 BC, lining the cave walls in France, star maps helped hunters find their way home and make order out of our world. Mapping, as a technology, predates ancient Egypt’s hey-day.