I did this in my final year thesis at uni. Worked pretty well in the royal college building at strathclyde. Didn't work quite as flawlessley as I would ahve liked but then I was just one under grad not quite the same scale as nokia!

...Nokia keeping my mum?

Isn't that schtum?

You could ape exactly the way GNSS systems currently work. And without the need to derive out some of the non-dispersive errors it should be pretty accurate.

All the system would need to do is rewrite the almanacs to include stationary ground-based transmitters but I'm pretty sure that's already included in the protocol.

I had a pretty neat prototype working using a combination of solid state giros and traditional GPS 5 years ago when I worked at ****. Of course we had drift, but most of that was down to our crude prototype manufacture and we reckoned on a much greater improvement if we got the giro alignment more true to the orthogonal. Then we all got fired as **** closed their UK research arm. ****

Mapping of airports?

Now a terrorist can use their mobile phone to find the bomb site and set the bomb off too.

Then I can just merge my shopping list with the local Sainsbury's shelf map, and my Nokia-fied trolley can say "DESTINATION:TOMATOES NEXT LEFT, THEN IMMEDIATE RIGHT FOR PEAS. AT ITALIAN RED WINE TAKE SECOND TURNING" for an optimal route plan ...

be useful for finding coats?

Supermarkets don't want you to find your can of beans. Not immediately, anyway. The layout is designed to make you wander endlessly through all the aisles looking for that elusive can of beans which, this week, is located next to the baking accessories. Next week it'll be across from the salad dressing, just in case you memorised the floorplan. The longer you walk, the more you buy.

... Connect the phone via bluetooth to your remote control trolley, and sit back in starbucks waiting for the bill to be texted through... and the trolley to make it's way home...

Ah... isn't that Internet shopping?

I saw this done on an episode of Spooks...

You joke about it - but I once had to calm my father-in-law when he found out there was a code that could shut down the entire internets, after the guys in Spooks saved us all from it falling into the wrong hands, had they not planes could fall out of the sky, banks would collapse, the economy would go into meltdown, and countries would be at each other throats preparing for war.

I laughed and explained it was just a TV program, and that it couldn't be that simple otherwise nobody would use it.

But now look... Phorm starts pissing about with ISPs in the UK, and within a year or so the world is in crisis, planes falling out of the sky, banks collapsing, economy in meltdown, and everybody is fighting everybody else..... if only I'd of listened.... if only we all had...........

for blind folk.

Seriously, just read an article(http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4702728a26870.html) about how a normal GPS enabled phone with special software (Wayfinder Access) is giving people who are blind increasing freedom, in that they are able to navigate around town etc. on their own without needing to rely on others for directions.

You couple that with this indoor system from Nokia and you will have a solution that will have them even more.

What's the URL to the Conversations post??

Until, presumably it directs them into a stream.

Or a motorway....

does this mean we can finally get a transponder to put on someone, and have not only a blip on a screen showing distance, but the cool 3d effects of showing the floor plan and what not? I've always wanted that.

Differential GPS anyone?

Making it easier for Chavs and Pikeys to find the Elizabeth Duke Counter.......!

Is this really progress..?

@Alfred Loo:

No, DGPS only works if you can receive GPS signals - notably crap within buildings or built-up areas, and who knows how shot the timings would be (unless you're tendering for a Govt. offender-tracking contract, that is ...)

> Differential GPS anyone?

No, this is more like enhanced GPS (eGPS):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGPS