It seems that every week a new and usually glowing market report appears on GPS. As a marketing professional, I naturally take a keen interest in the data that can be gleaned therein. Such reports are an essential source of information for both industry participants and investors.

Expert Advice — Prepare for GIOVE-B Liftoff Apr 1, 2008 By: Jörg Hahn, Valter Alpe

A at the end of this month, on the 27th of April, Europe will add a new cornerstone to the Galileo programme and to global satellite navigation as a whole. GIOVE-B, the second Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element (GIOVE) satellite, will rise into a medium-Earth orbit aboard a Soyuz launcher from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Expert Advice — In Defense of SiRF Apr 1, 2008 By: Stephen Colwell

On February 11, GPS World's Navigate! e-news daily reported that a Pennsylvania law firm made SiRF Technology the object of a class-action lawsuit following the company's February 5 fourth-quarter earnings report. On February 14, we reported a second action. More than a dozen firms have now filed against SiRF.

Expert Advice — GLONASS Business Prospects Feb 28, 2008 By: Ivan G. Petrovski, Vasily Engelsberg, Valery Babakov

Similar in many aspects to GPS, GLONASS has performed much less successfully on a commercial scale, failing — so far — to create significant business worldwide. Today, however, the commercialization of GLONASS has taken a new and more promising direction, receiving strong encouragement from the Russian government. We look forward to GLONASS being completely restored to its full operational capabilities within the next few years, and we are certain that this time GLONASS will create successful business opportunities worldwide.

Expert Advice — Accuracy in More than Position Only Feb 1, 2008 By: James L. Farrell

Terry McGurn's closing observations in his November 2007 column on accuracy evoke a grateful reaction from me. Glib summaries of performance are incomplete. Pinpointing moving objects within ever-smaller fractions of size is not always most important; frequently, it's knowing where they'll be a little later.

Leadership Talks — European Industry Group Feb 1, 2008

We spoke with John Wilde (JW), director at the independent technical consultancy DW International Limited about the future of Galileo.

Expert Advice — eLoran, Superhero Sidekick! Jan 1, 2008 By: Sally Basker

Enhanced Loran, eLoran, is GPS's new best friend and superhero sidekick. It is independent of GPS with dissimilar failure modes and delivers complementary levels of performance to multi-modal users.

We present a selectively abridged version of the published minutes of the second meeting of the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board, held October 4-5 in Washington, D.C. The full minutes are posted for public review at www.pnt.gov. Bold headings have been added to indicate topics and to facilitate reading. Other than deleting some discussions entirely and others partially to get the original document from 18,000 words down to this 4,000-word version, no other changes have been made to the minutes.

Leadership Talks — The A-GNSS Backbone Dec 1, 2007 By: Alan Cameron

Jari Syrjarinne, technologist in GNSS systems research at Nokia Technology Platforms, spoke with editor Alan Cameron. Nokia recently offered $8.1 billion to acquire digital mapper Navteq.