Word: gps
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...virtually no place on earth will be out of range. Satellites are also making possible commercial use of the Pentagon- developed global positioning system, which was employed by soldiers using handheld monitors during the Gulf War to pinpoint their location in the desert. Private-boat owners have been using GPS to fix their position at sea for the past decade...
...GPS is available in U.S. autos. As of last summer, Oldsmobile buyers could opt for GPS receivers, with accompanying digitized road maps, built right into their dashboards. A motorist lost in the San Fernando Valley can tap into GPS and get an instant position on the digitized map, accurate to the length of a minivan. At its current $1,995 price, GPS is still an expensive option, but rental-car companies are very interested. As prices eventually come down, these locators could become common features in cars...
Through the computer and the cell phones, drivers would receive destination instructions; using GPS, dispatchers would keep tabs on the real-time progress of each vehicle. Passengers would call up the service, be met with minimum delay, transfer only if necessary and relax while professional drivers took them to their desired destination -- say, that quaint little farmers' market on the far side of town, where the vegetables are always fresh but they don't take credit cards. In that case, you'd better hope there's an ATM around...
...presence of gear; they are likely to buy any piece of overpriced sports equipment, so long as it has a digital readout or is made of something crucial to the success of the space station. Or both; Panasonic is advertising a tiny hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS) device, a little brother to the satellite navigation system developed for the military and now used in aircraft and yachts. This astonishing dingus will consult the stars (satellites, actually) and tell you, on land, in the air or at sea, how lost you are. Cheap...
California's department of transportation is testing a GPS dispatching system on a tow-truck fleet in the San Francisco Bay area. University of Wyoming scientists plan to use GPS technology in a tracking collar for studying the migration patterns of elk. And by combining GPS with computerized maps, engineers are developing electronic road atlases that, installed in car dashboards, could one day enable a visiting motorist to negotiate Los Angeles' freeways without ever making a wrong turn...