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MyFord Touch (branded as MyLincoln Touch on Ford's Lincoln brand products) is an in-car communications and entertainment system developed by the Ford Motor Company , based on Microsoft technologies. The technology was factory installed with Ford product offerings and was based on the Microsoft Auto 4.0 software platform. It was regarded as the next-generation of Ford Sync . Announced in January 2010, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the technology launched with the 2011 Ford Edge . Reviews of MyFord Touch were overwhelmingly negative. A USB drive, self-installed software upgrade became available in March, 2012; this update was mailed out free-of-charge to all Ford customers, and Ford also offered free installation of the update by any Ford dealer. The update did not address continuing problems with light-touch capacitor switches (on cars so equipped) that control many functions. Several updates have since been released which allowed for more natural speech recognition , simpler Bluetooth pairing, and refinement of the on-screen interface and menus.

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117-481: MyFord Touch promised to enable drivers of Ford cars to seamlessly integrate nearly all mobile phones , PDAs and digital media players into their cars. Operation of these devices, utilizing advanced Ford Sync functionality, was performed using voice commands, touch-screen inputs, the vehicle's steering wheel , radio controls, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. MyFord Touch is also capable of receiving text messages and reading these text messages aloud to occupants of

234-408: A moving map display , or recorded or used by some other system, such as a vehicle guidance system. Although usually not formed explicitly in the receiver processing, the conceptual time differences of arrival (TDOAs) define the measurement geometry. Each TDOA corresponds to a hyperboloid of revolution (see Multilateration ). The line connecting the two satellites involved (and its extensions) forms

351-400: A basic mobile phone, which is only capable of voice calling and text messaging. Feature phones and basic mobile phones tend to use a proprietary, custom-designed software and user interface . By contrast, smartphones generally use a mobile operating system that often shares common traits across devices. The critical advantage that modern cellular networks have over predecessor systems is

468-434: A customer unit could use. A cellular network mobile phone system gets its name from dividing the service area into many small cells, each with a base station with (for example) a useful range on the order of a kilometer (mile). These systems have dozens or hundreds of possible channels allocated to them. When a subscriber is using a given channel for a telephone connection, that frequency is unavailable for other customers in

585-705: A deliberate error introduced into the GPS data that military receivers could correct for. As civilian GPS usage grew, there was increasing pressure to remove this error. The SA system was temporarily disabled during the Gulf War , as a shortage of military GPS units meant that many US soldiers were using civilian GPS units sent from home. In the 1990s, Differential GPS systems from the US Coast Guard , Federal Aviation Administration , and similar agencies in other countries began to broadcast local GPS corrections, reducing

702-450: A directive making GPS freely available for civilian use, once it was sufficiently developed, as a common good. The first Block II satellite was launched on February 14, 1989, and the 24th satellite was launched in 1994. The GPS program cost at this point, not including the cost of the user equipment but including the costs of the satellite launches, has been estimated at US$ 5 billion (equivalent to $ 10 billion in 2023). Initially,

819-418: A few sets of radio channels (frequencies). Once these few channels were in use by customers, no further customers could be served until another user vacated a channel. It would be impractical to give every customer a unique channel since there would not be enough bandwidth allocated to the mobile service. As well, technical limitations such as antenna efficiency and receiver design limit the range of frequencies

936-517: A full complement of 24 satellites in 2027. The GPS project was launched in the United States in 1973 to overcome the limitations of previous navigation systems, combining ideas from several predecessors, including classified engineering design studies from the 1960s. The U.S. Department of Defense developed the system, which originally used 24 satellites, for use by the United States military, and became fully operational in 1993. Civilian use

1053-429: A liaison. The U.S. Department of Defense is required by law to "maintain a Standard Positioning Service (as defined in the federal radio navigation plan and the standard positioning service signal specification) that will be available on a continuous, worldwide basis" and "develop measures to prevent hostile use of GPS and its augmentations without unduly disrupting or degrading civilian uses". USA-203 from Block IIR-M

1170-563: A manageable level to permit accurate navigation. During Labor Day weekend in 1973, a meeting of about twelve military officers at the Pentagon discussed the creation of a Defense Navigation Satellite System (DNSS) . It was at this meeting that the real synthesis that became GPS was created. Later that year, the DNSS program was named Navstar. Navstar is often erroneously considered an acronym for "NAVigation System using Timing And Ranging" but

1287-461: A minimum, four satellites must be in view of the receiver for it to compute four unknown quantities (three position coordinates and the deviation of its own clock from satellite time). Each GPS satellite continually broadcasts a signal ( carrier wave with modulation ) that includes: Conceptually, the receiver measures the TOAs (according to its own clock) of four satellite signals. From the TOAs and

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1404-523: A mobile device, such as a smartphone. The term "app" is a shortening of the term "software application". A common data application on mobile phones is Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging. The first SMS message was sent from a computer to a mobile phone in 1992 in the UK while the first person-to-person SMS from phone to phone was sent in Finland in 1993. The first mobile news service, delivered via SMS,

1521-401: A number of distinguishing features. The International Telecommunication Union measures those with Internet connection, which it calls Active Mobile-Broadband subscriptions (which includes tablets, etc.). In the developed world, smartphones have now overtaken the usage of earlier mobile systems. However, in the developing world, they account for around 50% of mobile telephony . Feature phone

1638-501: A problem due to the design of the phone, the quality of the cellular network and compression algorithms used in long-distance calls . Audio quality can be improved using a VoIP application over WiFi . Cellphones have small speakers so that the user can use a speakerphone feature and talk to a person on the phone without holding it to their ear. The small speakers can also be used to listen to digital audio files of music or speech or watch videos with an audio component, without holding

1755-431: A receiver start-up situation. Most receivers have a track algorithm , sometimes called a tracker , that combines sets of satellite measurements collected at different times—in effect, taking advantage of the fact that successive receiver positions are usually close to each other. After a set of measurements are processed, the tracker predicts the receiver location corresponding to the next set of satellite measurements. When

1872-462: A significant problem still exists in early models and will be covered under warranty if the customer happens to notice the flaw. This only affects EU models and only when combined with certain other options. E.g. climate control. Affected vehicles under warranty can be replaced with the SYNC3 system to eradicate the issues that exist with SYNC2. In a confidential document circulated around dealerships in

1989-464: A single hand, since most thumbs cannot reach the entire screen surface; they may need to be shifted around in the hand, held in one hand and manipulated by the other, or used in place with both hands. Due to design advances, some modern smartphones with large screen sizes and "edge-to-edge" designs have compact builds that improve their ergonomics, while the shift to taller aspect ratios have resulted in phones that have larger screen sizes whilst maintaining

2106-517: A single platform. There are a huge variety of apps, including video games , music products and business tools. Up until that point, smartphone application distribution depended on third-party sources providing applications for multiple platforms, such as GetJar , Handango , Handmark , and PocketGear . Following the success of the App Store, other smartphone manufacturers launched application stores, such as Google's Android Market (later renamed to

2223-429: A small microchip called a Subscriber Identity Module or SIM card , in order to function. The SIM card is approximately the size of a small postage stamp and is usually placed underneath the battery in the rear of the unit. The SIM securely stores the service-subscriber key (IMSI) and the K i used to identify and authenticate the user of the mobile phone. The SIM card allows users to change phones by simply removing

2340-471: A telephone service area, which is divided up into 'cells'. Each cell uses a different set of frequencies from neighboring cells, and will typically be covered by three towers placed at different locations. The cell towers are usually interconnected to each other and the phone network and the internet by wired connections. Due to bandwidth limitations each cell will have a maximum number of cell phones it can handle at once. The cells are therefore sized depending on

2457-652: A variety of other services , such as text messaging , multimedia messaging , email , Internet access (via LTE , 5G NR or Wi-Fi ), short-range wireless communications ( infrared , Bluetooth ), satellite access ( navigation , messaging connectivity ), business applications, payments (via NFC ), multimedia playback and streaming ( radio , television ), digital photography , and video games . Mobile phones offering only basic capabilities are known as feature phones ( slang : "dumbphones" ); mobile phones that offer greatly advanced computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones . The first handheld mobile phone

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2574-469: A very thin carbon microphone". Early predecessors of cellular phones included analog radio communications from ships and trains. The race to create truly portable telephone devices began after World War II, with developments taking place in many countries. The advances in mobile telephony have been traced in successive "generations", starting with the early zeroth-generation ( 0G ) services, such as Bell System 's Mobile Telephone Service and its successor,

2691-412: Is a term typically used as a retronym to describe mobile phones which are limited in capabilities in contrast to a modern smartphone . Feature phones typically provide voice calling and text messaging functionality, in addition to basic multimedia and Internet capabilities, and other services offered by the user's wireless service provider . A feature phone has additional functions over and above

2808-513: Is being used or not) using a technique known as multilateration to calculate the differences in time for a signal to travel from the mobile phone to each of several cell towers near the owner of the phone. The movements of a mobile phone user can be tracked by their service provider and, if desired, by law enforcement agencies and their governments. Both the SIM card and the handset can be tracked. China has proposed using this technology to track

2925-486: Is evident that it has entered its end-of-life stage. Whilst 3.8 was thought to be the last official version, 3.10 was released to address certain bugs on November 16, 2017, marking over 7 years since an official update - more than cause to classify the software as end-of-life. This has not been readily available in Europe, where Ford does not have a customer self-service portal and dealers are not always willing to tamper due to

3042-490: Is impossible to downgrade. With such natural demand, the update has appeared in an unofficial form on most Ford forums and has been successfully installed by many, without any issues. SYNC2 was officially discontinued as of Q4 2015 and is no longer available as an option to order. New vehicles ordered with the option and built from Q4 2015 onwards should automatically be fitted with SYNC3 depending on build cycle. Existing stocks are being held back for repairs and replacements as

3159-462: Is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geolocation and time information to a GPS receiver anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. It does not require the user to transmit any data, and operates independently of any telephone or Internet reception, though these technologies can enhance the usefulness of

3276-527: Is owned and operated by the United States government as a national resource. The Department of Defense is the steward of GPS. The Interagency GPS Executive Board (IGEB) oversaw GPS policy matters from 1996 to 2004. After that, the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee was established by presidential directive in 2004 to advise and coordinate federal departments and agencies on matters concerning

3393-808: Is unhealthy For a more complete list, see List of GPS satellites On February 10, 1993, the National Aeronautic Association selected the GPS Team as winners of the 1992 Robert J. Collier Trophy , the US's most prestigious aviation award. This team combines researchers from the Naval Research Laboratory, the U.S. Air Force, the Aerospace Corporation , Rockwell International Corporation, and IBM Federal Systems Company. The citation honors them "for

3510-468: The 5G NR (5G New Radio) standard. 5G can be implemented in low-band, mid-band or high-band millimeter-wave, with download speeds that can achieve gigabit-per-second (Gbit/s) range, aiming for a network latency of 1 ms. This near-real-time responsiveness and improved overall data performance are crucial for applications like online gaming , augmented and virtual reality , autonomous vehicles , IoT, and critical communication services. Smartphones have

3627-503: The Doppler effect , they could pinpoint where the satellite was along its orbit. The Director of the APL gave them access to their UNIVAC I computer to perform the heavy calculations required. Early the next year, Frank McClure, the deputy director of the APL, asked Guier and Weiffenbach to investigate the inverse problem: pinpointing the user's location, given the satellite's. (At the time,

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3744-648: The Improved Mobile Telephone Service . These 0G systems were not cellular , supported a few simultaneous calls, and were very expensive. The first handheld cellular mobile phone was demonstrated by John F. Mitchell and Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973, using a handset weighing 2 kilograms (4.4 lb). The first commercial automated cellular network ( 1G ) analog was launched in Japan by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone in 1979. This

3861-888: The Philippines . A pilot project in Bali was launched in 2011 by the International Finance Corporation and an Indonesian bank, Bank Mandiri . Mobile payments were first trialled in Finland in 1998 when two Coca-Cola vending machines in Espoo were enabled to work with SMS payments. Eventually, the idea spread and in 1999, the Philippines launched the country's first commercial mobile payments systems with mobile operators Globe and Smart . Some mobile phones can make mobile payments via direct mobile billing schemes, or through contactless payments if

3978-649: The WCDMA standard. This was followed by 3.5G or 3G+ enhancements based on the high-speed packet access (HSPA) family, allowing UMTS networks to have higher data transfer speeds and capacity. 3G is able to provide mobile broadband access of several Mbit/s to smartphones and mobile modems in laptop computers. This ensures it can be applied to mobile Internet access, VoIP , video calls, and sending large e-mail messages, as well as watching videos, typically in standard-definition quality. By 2009, it had become clear that, at some point, 3G networks would be overwhelmed by

4095-450: The internet of things (IoT), fixed wireless access , and multimedia streaming (including music, video, radio , and television ). Deployment of fifth-generation ( 5G ) cellular networks commenced worldwide in 2019. The term "5G" was originally used in research papers and projects to denote the next major phase in mobile telecommunication standards beyond the 4G / IMT-Advanced standards. The 3GPP defines 5G as any system that adheres to

4212-504: The navigation equations gives the position of the receiver along with the difference between the time kept by the receiver's on-board clock and the true time-of-day, thereby eliminating the need for a more precise and possibly impractical receiver based clock. Applications for GPS such as time transfer , traffic signal timing, and synchronization of cell phone base stations , make use of this cheap and highly accurate timing. Some GPS applications use this time for display, or, other than for

4329-599: The screen . Depending on the device's type and design, the screen fills most or nearly all of the space on a device's front surface. Many smartphone displays have an aspect ratio of 16:9 , but taller aspect ratios became more common in 2017. Screen sizes are often measured in diagonal inches or millimeters ; feature phones generally have screen sizes below 90 millimetres (3.5 in). Phones with screens larger than 130 millimetres (5.2 in) are often called " phablets ." Smartphones with screens over 115 millimetres (4.5 in) in size are commonly difficult to use with only

4446-411: The 2013 Ford Flex), Consumer Reports has downgraded its ratings for vehicles so equipped. Early purchasers of the first generation MyFord Touch system complained that MyFord Touch systems crashed without warning, did not reliably respond to touch commands, and often failed to sync with mobile phones and iPods. The March 2012 MyFord Touch upgrade, addressed some of these performance issues, however even

4563-524: The Earth's center) and the offset of the receiver clock relative to the GPS time are computed simultaneously, using the navigation equations to process the TOFs. The receiver's Earth-centered solution location is usually converted to latitude , longitude and height relative to an ellipsoidal Earth model. The height may then be further converted to height relative to the geoid , which is essentially mean sea level. These coordinates may be displayed, such as on

4680-664: The GPS and related systems. The executive committee is chaired jointly by the Deputy Secretaries of Defense and Transportation. Its membership includes equivalent-level officials from the Departments of State, Commerce, and Homeland Security, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and NASA . Components of the executive office of the president participate as observers to the executive committee, and the FCC chairman participates as

4797-411: The GPS positioning information. It provides critical positioning capabilities to military, civil, and commercial users around the world. Although the United States government created, controls, and maintains the GPS system, it is freely accessible to anyone with a GPS receiver. The GPS project was started by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1973. The first prototype spacecraft was launched in 1978 and

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4914-668: The GPS service, including new signals for civil use and increased accuracy and integrity for all users, all the while maintaining compatibility with existing GPS equipment. Modernization of the satellite system has been an ongoing initiative by the U.S. Department of Defense through a series of satellite acquisitions to meet the growing needs of the military, civilians, and the commercial market. As of early 2015, high-quality Standard Positioning Service (SPS) GPS receivers provided horizontal accuracy of better than 3.5 meters (11 ft), although many factors such as receiver and antenna quality and atmospheric issues can affect this accuracy. GPS

5031-595: The GSM was used by over 5 billion people in over 220 countries. The GSM (2G) has evolved into 3G, 4G and 5G. The standardization body for GSM started at the CEPT Working Group GSM (Group Special Mobile) in 1982 under the umbrella of CEPT. In 1988, ETSI was established, and all CEPT standardization activities were transferred to ETSI. Working Group GSM became Technical Committee GSM. In 1991, it became Technical Committee SMG (Special Mobile Group) when ETSI tasked

5148-740: The Global Positioning System (GPS) its 60th Anniversary Award, nominated by IAF member, the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The IAF Honors and Awards Committee recognized the uniqueness of the GPS program and the exemplary role it has played in building international collaboration for the benefit of humanity. On December 6, 2018, Gladys West was inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame in recognition of her work on an extremely accurate geodetic Earth model, which

5265-493: The Google Play Store), RIM's BlackBerry App World , or Android-related app stores like Aptoide , Cafe Bazaar , F-Droid , GetJar , and Opera Mobile Store . In February 2014, 93% of mobile developers were targeting smartphones first for mobile app development. As of 2022, the top five manufacturers worldwide were Samsung (21%), Apple (16%), Xiaomi (13%), Oppo (10%), and Vivo (9%). From 1983 to 1998, Motorola

5382-741: The MyFord Touch system until it fulfills its original design promises; meanwhile owners must make do with remaining glitches. In order to address the many criticisms on the Microsoft-powered system, Ford decided to use Blackberry's QNX CAR Platform for Infotainment beginning in 2015, referred to by Ford as Sync 3. This QNX-based system has been shown to be much more responsive and stable. Unfortunately, it does not appear that Ford will allow owners of vehicles with MyFord Touch to upgrade to Sync 3. Though Ford has yet to confirm when it will officially stop producing software updates for SYNC2, it

5499-480: The Navy TRANSIT system were too slow for the high speeds of Air Force operation. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) continued making advances with their Timation (Time Navigation) satellites, first launched in 1967, second launched in 1969, with the third in 1974 carrying the first atomic clock into orbit and the fourth launched in 1977. Another important predecessor to GPS came from a different branch of

5616-582: The Navy was developing the submarine-launched Polaris missile, which required them to know the submarine's location.) This led them and APL to develop the TRANSIT system. In 1959, ARPA (renamed DARPA in 1972) also played a role in TRANSIT. TRANSIT was first successfully tested in 1960. It used a constellation of five satellites and could provide a navigational fix approximately once per hour. In 1967,

5733-714: The SIM card from one mobile phone and inserting it into another mobile phone or broadband telephony device, provided that this is not prevented by a SIM lock . The first SIM card was made in 1991 by Munich smart card maker Giesecke & Devrient for the Finnish wireless network operator Radiolinja . A hybrid mobile phone can hold up to four SIM cards, with a phone having a different device identifier for each SIM Card. SIM and R-UIM cards may be mixed together to allow both GSM and CDMA networks to be accessed. From 2010 onwards, such phones became popular in emerging markets, and this

5850-604: The SLBM situation. In 1960, the Air Force proposed a radio-navigation system called MOSAIC (MObile System for Accurate ICBM Control) that was essentially a 3-D LORAN System. A follow-on study, Project 57, was performed in 1963 and it was "in this study that the GPS concept was born". That same year, the concept was pursued as Project 621B, which had "many of the attributes that you now see in GPS" and promised increased accuracy for U.S. Air Force bombers as well as ICBMs. Updates from

5967-524: The TOTs, the receiver forms four time of flight (TOF) values, which are (given the speed of light) approximately equivalent to receiver-satellite ranges plus time difference between the receiver and GPS satellites multiplied by speed of light, which are called pseudo-ranges. The receiver then computes its three-dimensional position and clock deviation from the four TOFs. In practice the receiver position (in three dimensional Cartesian coordinates with origin at

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6084-607: The U.S. Navy developed the Timation satellite, which proved the feasibility of placing accurate clocks in space, a technology required for GPS. In the 1970s, the ground-based OMEGA navigation system, based on phase comparison of signal transmission from pairs of stations, became the first worldwide radio navigation system. Limitations of these systems drove the need for a more universal navigation solution with greater accuracy. Although there were wide needs for accurate navigation in military and civilian sectors, almost none of those

6201-442: The U.S. Secretary of Defense, William Perry , in view of the widespread growth of differential GPS services by private industry to improve civilian accuracy. Moreover, the U.S. military was developing technologies to deny GPS service to potential adversaries on a regional basis. Selective Availability was removed from the GPS architecture beginning with GPS-III. Since its deployment, the U.S. has implemented several improvements to

6318-421: The UK, the total number of mobile phones overtook the number of houses in 1999. Today, mobile phones are globally ubiquitous, and in almost half the world's countries, over 90% of the population owns at least one. A handheld mobile radio telephone service was envisioned in the early stages of radio engineering. In 1917, Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt filed a patent for a "pocket-size folding telephone with

6435-416: The US government announced that the next generation of GPS satellites would not include the feature at all. Advances in technology and new demands on the existing system have now led to efforts to modernize the GPS and implement the next generation of GPS Block III satellites and Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX) which was authorized by the U.S. Congress in 2000. When Selective Availability

6552-690: The US in Q1 2015 and Europe in Q2 2015 dealers were encouraged to push the SYNC2 system to reduce stocks notifying them of advance warning of the discontinuation in Q4 and only offer SYNC3 if the customer specifically asked for it. SYNC3 has been available as an option to order on certain models as far back as Q1 2015 and was extended to additional models in Q2. In certain models, SYNC2 and SYNC3 are directly interchangeable. However units equipped with Navigation require replacement of

6669-504: The USB hub. All versions require replacement of the GPS antenna, usually hidden in the dashboard. Any units which have failed and where the vehicle is under warranty will naturally be rectified under the warranty scheme, however it is likely a SYNC2 unit will be replaced with a SYNC2 unit where on-hand stock permits, unless there are repeated reproducible problems and the customer has noticed one of

6786-512: The United States military. In 1964, the United States Army orbited its first Sequential Collation of Range ( SECOR ) satellite used for geodetic surveying. The SECOR system included three ground-based transmitters at known locations that would send signals to the satellite transponder in orbit. A fourth ground-based station, at an undetermined position, could then use those signals to fix its location precisely. The last SECOR satellite

6903-578: The ability to transfer cash payments by secure SMS text message. Kenya's M-PESA mobile banking service, for example, allows customers of the mobile phone operator Safaricom to hold cash balances which are recorded on their SIM cards. Cash can be deposited or withdrawn from M-PESA accounts at Safaricom retail outlets located throughout the country and can be transferred electronically from person to person and used to pay bills to companies. Branchless banking has also been successful in South Africa and

7020-550: The abnormally high traffic. Capacity was further increased when phone companies implemented digital networks. With digital, one frequency can host multiple simultaneous calls. Additionally, short-range Wi-Fi infrastructure is often used by smartphones as much as possible as it offloads traffic from cell networks on to local area networks. The common components found on all mobile phones are: Low-end mobile phones are often referred to as feature phones and offer basic telephony. Handsets with more advanced computing ability through

7137-451: The axis of the hyperboloid. The receiver is located at the point where three hyperboloids intersect. It is sometimes incorrectly said that the user location is at the intersection of three spheres. While simpler to visualize, this is the case only if the receiver has a clock synchronized with the satellite clocks (i.e., the receiver measures true ranges to the satellites rather than range differences). There are marked performance benefits to

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7254-961: The benefits of different calling plans. For example, a particular plan might provide for cheaper local calls, long-distance calls, international calls, or roaming. The mobile phone has been used in a variety of diverse contexts in society. For example: In 1998, one of the first examples of distributing and selling media content through the mobile phone was the sale of ringtones by Radiolinja in Finland. Soon afterwards, other media content appeared, such as news, video games, jokes, horoscopes, TV content and advertising. Most early content for mobile phones tended to be copies of legacy media , such as banner advertisements or TV news highlight video clips. Recently, unique content for mobile phones has been emerging, from ringtones and ringback tones to mobisodes , video content that has been produced exclusively for mobile phones. In many countries, mobile phones are used to provide mobile banking services, which may include

7371-469: The call, from detecting the presence of a handset in a service area, temporary assignment of a channel to a handset making a call, interface with the land-line side of the network to connect to other subscribers, and collection of billing information for the service. The automation systems can control the "hand off" of a customer handset moving between one cell and another so that a call in progress continues without interruption, changing channels if required. In

7488-410: The car. Fulfillment of the system's promise has fallen short, with thousands of MyFord Touch owners complaining that the system is unreliable, that it crashes without warning, that it fails to respond to commands, and that it fails to integrate with common mobile devices, such as the iPhone. Ford reliability ratings, both by Consumer Reports and J.D. Powers and Associates have plummeted because of

7605-456: The center stack, a media hub with 2 USB ports, SD card reader, RCA video input jacks and 5-way controls located on steering wheel; Sync voice activated communications and entertainment system (Free three-year pre-paid subscription for 911 Assist, Vehicle Health Reports, traffic reports, GPS -based turn by turn driving directions and information services). Unreliability of the MyFord Touch system has been cited by J.D. Powers & Associates as

7722-399: The clock rate (generally given in multiples of hertz ) but also the memory hierarchy also greatly affects overall performance. Because of these problems, the performance of mobile phone CPUs is often more appropriately given by scores derived from various standardized tests to measure the real effective performance in commonly used applications. One of the main characteristics of phones is

7839-648: The clocks on GPS satellites, as observed by those on Earth, run 38 microseconds faster per day than those on the Earth. The design of GPS corrects for this difference; because without doing so, GPS calculated positions would accumulate errors of up to 10 kilometers per day (6 mi/d). When the Soviet Union launched its first artificial satellite ( Sputnik 1 ) in 1957, two American physicists, William Guier and George Weiffenbach, at Johns Hopkins University 's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) monitored its radio transmissions. Within hours they realized that, because of

7956-407: The committee with UMTS (3G). In addition to transmitting voice over digital signals, the 2G network introduced data services for mobile, starting with SMS text messages, then expanding to Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), and mobile internet with a theoretical maximum transfer speed of 384 kbit/s (48 kB/s). In 2001, the third-generation ( 3G ) was launched in Japan by NTT DoCoMo on

8073-479: The commuting patterns of Beijing city residents. In the UK and US, law enforcement and intelligence services use mobile phones to perform surveillance operations. Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System ( GPS ), originally Navstar GPS , is a satellite-based radio navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31 . It

8190-435: The concept of frequency reuse allowing many simultaneous telephone conversations in a given service area. This allows efficient use of the limited radio spectrum allocated to mobile services, and lets thousands of subscribers converse at the same time within a given geographic area. Former systems would cover a service area with one or two powerful base stations with a range of up to tens of kilometers' (miles), using only

8307-455: The defects in the MyFord Touch system, and Consumer Reports recommends that new car buyers not consider Ford or Lincoln models equipped with MyFord Touch or MyLincoln Touch. As a stand-alone option, the MSRP for MyFord Touch is $ 1,000. Purchasers of this option get the MyFord Touch system with two driver-configurable 4.2" color LCD displays in the gauge cluster, one 8" color LCD touch screen in

8424-496: The distance from the satellite to the ground station. With the distance information collected from multiple ground stations, the location coordinates of any satellite at any time can be calculated with great precision. Each GPS satellite carries an accurate record of its own position and time, and broadcasts that data continuously. Based on data received from multiple GPS satellites , an end user's GPS receiver can calculate its own four-dimensional position in spacetime ; However, at

8541-451: The distance traveled between two position measurements drops below or near the random error of position measurement. GPS units can use measurements of the Doppler shift of the signals received to compute velocity accurately. More advanced navigation systems use additional sensors like a compass or an inertial navigation system to complement GPS. GPS requires four or more satellites to be visible for accurate navigation. The solution of

8658-415: The earliest mobile phone systems by contrast, all control was done manually; the customer would search for an unoccupied channel and speak to a mobile operator to request connection of a call to a landline number or another mobile. At the termination of the call the mobile operator would manually record the billing information. Mobile phones communicate with cell towers that are placed to give coverage across

8775-407: The effect of both SA degradation and atmospheric effects (that military receivers also corrected for). The U.S. military had also developed methods to perform local GPS jamming, meaning that the ability to globally degrade the system was no longer necessary. As a result, United States President Bill Clinton signed a bill ordering that Selective Availability be disabled on May 1, 2000; and, in 2007 ,

8892-496: The end of 2009. In 2014, there were more than seven billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide, a number that is expected to keep growing. Mobile phones are used for a variety of purposes, such as keeping in touch with family members, for conducting business, and in order to have access to a telephone in the event of an emergency. Some people carry more than one mobile phone for different purposes, such as for business and personal use. Multiple SIM cards may be used to take advantage of

9009-531: The ergonomics associated with smaller 16:9 displays. Liquid-crystal displays are the most common; others are IPS , LED , OLED , and AMOLED displays. Some displays are integrated with pressure-sensitive digitizers, such as those developed by Wacom and Samsung , and Apple's " 3D Touch " system. In sound, smartphones and feature phones vary little. Some audio-quality enhancing features, such as Voice over LTE and HD Voice , have appeared and are often available on newer smartphones. Sound quality can remain

9126-420: The expected usage density, and may be much smaller in cities. In that case much lower transmitter powers are used to avoid broadcasting beyond the cell. In order to handle the high traffic, multiple towers can be set up in the same area (using different frequencies). This can be done permanently or temporarily such as at special events or in disasters. Cell phone companies will bring a truck with equipment to host

9243-486: The first quarter of 2016, the top smartphone developers worldwide were Samsung , Apple and Huawei ; smartphone sales represented 78 percent of total mobile phone sales. For feature phones as of 2016 , the top-selling brands were Samsung, Nokia and Alcatel . Mobile phones are considered an important human invention as they have been one of the most widely used and sold pieces of consumer technology. The growth in popularity has been rapid in some places, for example, in

9360-428: The full constellation of 24 satellites became operational in 1993. After Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down when it mistakenly entered Soviet airspace, President Ronald Reagan announced that the GPS system would be made available for civilian use as of September 16, 1983; however, initially this civilian use was limited to an average accuracy of 100 meters (330 ft) by use of Selective Availability (SA),

9477-599: The growth of bandwidth-intensive applications, such as streaming media . Consequently, the industry began looking to data-optimized fourth-generation ( 4G ) technologies, with the promise of speed improvements up to tenfold over existing 3G technologies. The first publicly available LTE service was launched in Scandinavia by TeliaSonera in 2009. In the 2010s, 4G technology has found diverse applications across various sectors, showcasing its versatility in delivering high-speed wireless communication, such as mobile broadband,

9594-407: The highest-quality signal was reserved for military use, and the signal available for civilian use was intentionally degraded, in a policy known as Selective Availability . This changed on May 1, 2000, with U.S. President Bill Clinton signing a policy directive to turn off Selective Availability to provide the same accuracy to civilians that was afforded to the military. The directive was proposed by

9711-569: The influence of European companies had significantly decreased due to fierce competition from American and Asian companies, to where most technical innovation had shifted. Apple and Google, both of the United States, also came to dominate mobile phone software. The world's largest individual mobile operator by number of subscribers is China Mobile , which has over 902 million mobile phone subscribers as of June 2018 . Over 50 mobile operators have over ten million subscribers each, and over 150 mobile operators had at least one million subscribers by

9828-501: The latest MyFord Touch systems (on the 2013 Ford Flex, for example) use capacitive, rather than standard, switches that lack positive feel and are extremely difficult to use with gloves on. Initial reception of the March 2012 software upgrade, which overhauled the user interface and addressed many performance issues, has been largely positive. There has since been several incremental software upgrades, addressing some issues that have plagued

9945-414: The local cell and in the adjacent cells. However, cells further away can re-use that channel without interference as the subscriber's handset is too far away to be detected. The transmitter power of each base station is coordinated to efficiently service its own cell, but not to interfere with the cells further away. Automation embedded in the customer's handset and in the base stations control all phases of

10062-423: The many operational issues that exist. Ford has a strict policy relating to repeated failures of a component and this falls into that category suggesting fitment of a SYNC3 unit where applicable to prevent further failures would be an appropriate solution. An internal document circulated in Q4 2015 stated that any new vehicle from Q1 2016 onwards fitted with SYNC2 upon delivery should be replaced under warranty. This

10179-543: The most significant development for safe and efficient navigation and surveillance of air and spacecraft since the introduction of radio navigation 50 years ago". Two GPS developers received the National Academy of Engineering Charles Stark Draper Prize for 2003: GPS developer Roger L. Easton received the National Medal of Technology on February 13, 2006. Francis X. Kane (Col. USAF, ret.)

10296-440: The new measurements are collected, the receiver uses a weighting scheme to combine the new measurements with the tracker prediction. In general, a tracker can (a) improve receiver position and time accuracy, (b) reject bad measurements, and (c) estimate receiver speed and direction. The disadvantage of a tracker is that changes in speed or direction can be computed only with a delay, and that derived direction becomes inaccurate when

10413-487: The nuclear triad, also had requirements for a more accurate and reliable navigation system. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force were developing their own technologies in parallel to solve what was essentially the same problem. To increase the survivability of ICBMs, there was a proposal to use mobile launch platforms (comparable to the Soviet SS-24 and SS-25 ) and so the need to fix the launch position had similarity to

10530-399: The phone and the point of sale support near field communication (NFC). Enabling contactless payments through NFC-equipped mobile phones requires the co-operation of manufacturers, network operators, and retail merchants. Mobile phones are commonly used to collect location data. While the phone is turned on, the geographical location of a mobile phone can be determined easily (whether it

10647-567: The phone close to the ear. The average phone battery lasts two–three years at best. Many of the wireless devices use a Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery, which charges 500–2500 times, depending on how users take care of the battery and the charging techniques used. It is only natural for these rechargeable batteries to chemically age, which is why the performance of the battery when used for a year or two will begin to deteriorate. Battery life can be extended by draining it regularly, not overcharging it, and keeping it away from heat. Mobile phones require

10764-524: The precision needed for GPS. The design of GPS is based partly on similar ground-based radio-navigation systems, such as LORAN and the Decca Navigator System , developed in the early 1940s. In 1955, Friedwardt Winterberg proposed a test of general relativity —detecting time slowing in a strong gravitational field using accurate atomic clocks placed in orbit inside artificial satellites. Special and general relativity predicted that

10881-694: The primary factor contributing to a decline in Ford's standing in the 2011 "Initial Quality Survey" of new car purchasers. The study ranked 2011 Ford vehicles' initial quality in 23rd position, down from fifth position in 2010. The ranking of Lincoln vehicles, a Ford subsidiary that also uses the Touch system branded as "MyLincoln Touch," declined from eighth to 17th place year over year. Consumer Reports recommends that no one consider buying used 2011 Ford Edges equipped with MyFord Touch systems. As Ford has expanded availability of its MyFord Touch system to more vehicles (e.g.

10998-652: The reason for the ultra-secrecy at that time. The nuclear triad consisted of the United States Navy's submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) along with United States Air Force (USAF) strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Considered vital to the nuclear deterrence posture, accurate determination of the SLBM launch position was a force multiplier . Precise navigation would enable United States ballistic missile submarines to get an accurate fix of their positions before they launched their SLBMs. The USAF, with two thirds of

11115-408: The reference atomic clocks at the ground control stations; any drift of the clocks aboard the satellites from the reference time maintained on the ground stations is corrected regularly. Since the speed of radio waves ( speed of light ) is constant and independent of the satellite speed, the time delay between when the satellite transmits a signal and the ground station receives it is proportional to

11232-552: The second-generation ( 2G ) digital cellular technology was launched in Finland by Radiolinja on the GSM standard. This sparked competition in the sector as the new operators challenged the incumbent 1G network operators. The GSM standard is a European initiative expressed at the CEPT ("Conférence Européenne des Postes et Telecommunications", European Postal and Telecommunications conference). The Franco-German R&D cooperation demonstrated

11349-532: The system since its introduction, such as touchscreen menu lag and voice recognition commands. However, problems remain, and some owners continue to experience difficulties with the system, even with the new upgrade fully installed. As a result of falling reliability rankings and widespread customer complaints, Ford announced they would extend the warranty on the MyFord Touch system to five years with unlimited miles, up from three years and 36,000 miles. Some owners have expressed their hope that Ford will continue upgrading

11466-401: The technical feasibility, and in 1987, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between 13 European countries that agreed to launch a commercial service by 1991. The first version of the GSM standard had 6,000 pages. The IEEE and RSE awarded Thomas Haug and Philippe Dupuis the 2018 James Clerk Maxwell medal for their contributions to the first digital mobile telephone standard. In 2018,

11583-699: The use of native software applications are known as smartphones . The first GSM phones and many feature phones had NOR flash memory, from which processor instructions could be executed directly in an execute in place architecture and allowed for short boot times. With smartphones, NAND flash memory was adopted as it has larger storage capacities and lower costs, but causes longer boot times because instructions cannot be executed from it directly, and must be copied to RAM memory first before execution. Mobile phones have central processing units (CPUs), similar to those in computers, but optimised to operate in low power environments. Mobile CPU performance depends not only on

11700-403: The user carrying a clock synchronized with the satellites. Foremost is that only three satellites are needed to compute a position solution. If it were an essential part of the GPS concept that all users needed to carry a synchronized clock, a smaller number of satellites could be deployed, but the cost and complexity of the user equipment would increase. The description above is representative of

11817-572: The user is moving within a telephone service area, as opposed to a fixed-location phone ( landline phone ). The radio frequency link establishes a connection to the switching systems of a mobile phone operator , which provides access to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Modern mobile telephone services use a cellular network architecture, and therefore mobile telephones are called cellphones (or "cell phones") in North America. In addition to telephony , digital mobile phones support

11934-448: The very slow download times for the update and the low success rates causing total failure of the unit. Only certain technicians are trained to perform the upgrade leading to limited knowledge and natural avoidance in performing the upgrade in case of problems. A service bulletin regarding the software update suggests that unless specific problems are encountered with the device then the software update should not be performed. Once updated it

12051-579: Was allowed from the 1980s. Roger L. Easton of the Naval Research Laboratory , Ivan A. Getting of The Aerospace Corporation , and Bradford Parkinson of the Applied Physics Laboratory are credited with inventing it. The work of Gladys West on the creation of the mathematical geodetic Earth model is credited as instrumental in the development of computational techniques for detecting satellite positions with

12168-412: Was attributed to the desire to obtain the lowest calling costs. When the removal of a SIM card is detected by the operating system, it may deny further operation until a reboot. Feature phones have basic software platforms. Smartphones have advanced software platforms. Android OS has been the best-selling OS worldwide on smartphones since 2011. A mobile app is a computer program designed to run on

12285-420: Was concerned with the curving of the paths of radio waves ( atmospheric refraction ) traversing the ionosphere from NavSTAR satellites. After Korean Air Lines Flight 007 , a Boeing 747 carrying 269 people, was shot down by a Soviet interceptor aircraft after straying in prohibited airspace because of navigational errors, in the vicinity of Sakhalin and Moneron Islands , President Ronald Reagan issued

12402-587: Was demonstrated by Martin Cooper of Motorola in New York City on 3 April 1973, using a handset weighing c. 2 kilograms (4.4 lbs). In 1979, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) launched the world's first cellular network in Japan. In 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was the first commercially available handheld mobile phone. From 1983 to 2014, worldwide mobile phone subscriptions grew to over seven billion; enough to provide one for every person on Earth. In

12519-490: Was destroyed in a launch failure). The effect of the ionosphere on radio transmission was investigated in a geophysics laboratory of Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory , renamed to Air Force Geophysical Research Lab (AFGRL) in 1974. AFGRL developed the Klobuchar model for computing ionospheric corrections to GPS location. Of note is work done by Australian space scientist Elizabeth Essex-Cohen at AFGRL in 1974. She

12636-703: Was discontinued, GPS was accurate to about 5 meters (16 ft). GPS receivers that use the L5 band have much higher accuracy of 30 centimeters (12 in), while those for high-end applications such as engineering and land surveying are accurate to within 2 cm ( 3 ⁄ 4  in) and can even provide sub-millimeter accuracy with long-term measurements. Consumer devices such as smartphones can be accurate to 4.9 m (16 ft) or better when used with assistive services like Wi-Fi positioning . As of July 2023 , 18 GPS satellites broadcast L5 signals, which are considered pre-operational prior to being broadcast by

12753-555: Was followed in 1981 by the simultaneous launch of the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) system in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Several other countries then followed in the early to mid-1980s. These first-generation ( 1G ) systems could support far more simultaneous calls but still used analog cellular technology. In 1983, the DynaTAC 8000x was the first commercially available handheld mobile phone. In 1991,

12870-625: Was inducted into the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame at Lackland A.F.B., San Antonio, Texas, March 2, 2010, for his role in space technology development and the engineering design concept of GPS conducted as part of Project 621B. In 1998, GPS technology was inducted into the Space Foundation Space Technology Hall of Fame . On October 4, 2011, the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) awarded

12987-626: Was launched in 1969. With these parallel developments in the 1960s, it was realized that a superior system could be developed by synthesizing the best technologies from 621B, Transit, Timation, and SECOR in a multi-service program. Satellite orbital position errors, induced by variations in the gravity field and radar refraction among others, had to be resolved. A team led by Harold L. Jury of Pan Am Aerospace Division in Florida from 1970 to 1973, used real-time data assimilation and recursive estimation to do so, reducing systematic and residual errors to

13104-455: Was launched in Finland in 2000, and subsequently many organizations provided "on-demand" and "instant" news services by SMS. Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) was introduced in March 2002. The introduction of Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch in July 2008 popularized manufacturer-hosted online distribution for third-party applications (software and computer programs) focused on

13221-455: Was market leader in mobile phones. Nokia was the market leader in mobile phones from 1998 to 2012. In Q1 2012, Samsung surpassed Nokia, selling 93.5 million units as against Nokia's 82.7 million units. Samsung has retained its top position since then. Aside from Motorola, European brands such as Nokia, Siemens and Ericsson once held large sway over the global mobile phone market, and many new technologies were pioneered in Europe. By 2010,

13338-549: Was never considered as such by the GPS Joint Program Office (TRW may have once advocated for a different navigational system that used that acronym). With the individual satellites being associated with the name Navstar (as with the predecessors Transit and Timation), a more fully encompassing name was used to identify the constellation of Navstar satellites, Navstar-GPS . Ten " Block I " prototype satellites were launched between 1978 and 1985 (an additional unit

13455-530: Was seen as justification for the billions of dollars it would cost in research, development, deployment, and operation of a constellation of navigation satellites. During the Cold War arms race , the nuclear threat to the existence of the United States was the one need that did justify this cost in the view of the United States Congress. This deterrent effect is why GPS was funded. It is also

13572-416: Was to safeguard the batch building and storing of vehicles being equipped with the older option and making it to market during the cross over period. This also safeguarded against dealerships pre-ordering vehicles and storing against possible future orders. Mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while

13689-529: Was ultimately used to determine the orbit of the GPS constellation. On February 12, 2019, four founding members of the project were awarded the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering with the chair of the awarding board stating: "Engineering is the foundation of civilisation; ...They've re-written, in a major way, the infrastructure of our world." The GPS satellites carry very stable atomic clocks that are synchronized with one another and with

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