“The GPS receiver in some of next year’s smartphones will be accurate to within about 30cm or 1ft, instead of five meters or 16.4ft, according to IEEE Spectrum,” Liam Tung reports for ZDNet. “That new level of accuracy will be in phones equipped with Broadcom’s new BCM47755, “the world’s first mass-market, dual-frequency” global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver. Broadcom said the chip has been included in the design of some phones set for release in 2018, according to IEEE Spectrum.”
“The new GPS receiver offers phones traffic lane-level accuracy, which should vastly improve vehicle navigation while benefiting location-dependent apps, such as ride hailing services, augmented reality, and fitness apps,” Tung reports. “Better yet, it should mean longer lasting phone batteries as the BCM47755 uses less than half the power of Broadcom’s previous receivers, according to the chip maker. The chip is equipped to receive signals from GPS satellites, Russia’s Glonass, Europe’s Galileo, and China’s BeiDou navigation satellite systems.”
“Broadcom says it’s testing the new chip with partners and customers but hasn’t revealed their names,” Tung reports. “The chip will be available for phones, tablets and wearables.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: More accurate run-tacking – if they can fit into future Apple Watches (that “wearables” are mentioned is promising). The days of hauling our iPhones along on runs are over forever.