Mankind Has Lost the Art of Map Reading, Says the Man Who INVENTED GPS

The inventor of GPS has lamented that people are unable to read maps because they are now ‘too dependent’ on using their smartphones or sat-nav devices.

Bradford Parkinson, the pioneer inventor of the navigation system relied upon by billions of people, said that he ‘worries’ about what impact its failure could have.

Professor Parkinson received the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering in London last night for his key role in developing the Global Positioning System or GPS, along with the rest of his team: Professor James Spilker, Jr, Hugo Fruehauf, and Richard Schwartz.

They originally began working on the system in the 1970s as a military project but were unaware of the revolutionary impact it would have on wider society.

GPS signal is made by a network of around 30 spacecraft in orbit that transmit positional information and precise timing to receivers around the globe.

Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $25.00 (as of 11:36 UTC - Details) It helps cars, trucks, planes, ships and trains to navigate as well as providing a timing reference for the financial industry.

Professor Parkinson said that many of the tasks it performs were not anticipated when it was created but that it is vulnerable to failure, the Times reports.

‘Like all good things, GPS is something on which we can become too dependent,’ he said.

The rise in the market of GPS ‘jammers’, devices which are plugged into car cigarette lighters and can stop tracking systems, can interfere with other signals beyond the one they intend to block.

According to experts, the devices are used for people who don’t want to be detected and can create a 500-metre bubble around a vehicle.

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