For Immediate Release PR Contact: 312.665.7100 or media@fieldmuseum.org State-of-the-Art Navigation Looks to the Future…and the Past “Take a left by the McDonald’s, go past the old Burma Shave signs, look for the big oak tree and take a right. You can’t miss it.” If you’ve ever gotten turn-by-turn directions from someone, you know they work perfectly…until they don’t. Maybe you’ve turned at the wrong McDonald’s (there are so many!), or maybe the oak tree was uprooted in last week’s storm. You miss one stoplight, go a bit too far before you realize it, and pretty soon you’re completely lost, with no way to get back to a familiar landmark. That’s where the in-car navigation system takes us a big step forward. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are based on a network of satellites circling the earth that can pinpoint exactly where you are at any moment. In combination with digitized maps, the navigation system can tell you exactly how to get there from here, wherever “there” and “here” may be. They’re also used in day-to-day business – for example, making sure your package gets to its exact address. And they can be a life-saving feature of your local emergency response team, helping them locate a crisis quickly and accurately. These are feats that would have seemed like science fiction a generation ago; to many of us, they still feel futuristic. But a little-known secret of high-tech digital mapping is revealed here: it depends on old-fashioned legwork – make that wheelwork – by a couple of people in a car, collecting data as they drive the roads. On the Road Again…and Again…and Again… The company that supplies road data to your in-car navigation system, to the Internet mapping sites of MapQuest, Google, and Yahoo, to truck fleets and the U.S. Army, is Chicago-based NAVTEQ. To create their database they begin with existing maps, charts, and satellite images obtained from the Census Bureau, local governments, and other sources. They digitalize this data, bring it all together…and then the fun begins. Continue>>