You Are Here

From the Compass to GPS, the History and Future of How We Find Ourselves

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By Hiawatha Bray

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$17.99

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$22.99 CAD

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  1. ebook $17.99 $22.99 CAD
  2. Hardcover $27.99 $31.00 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around April 1, 2014. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

The story of the rise of modern navigation technology, from radio location to GPS-and the consequent decline of privacy

What does it mean to never get lost? You Are Here examines the rise of our technologically aided era of navigational omniscience-or how we came to know exactly where we are at all times. In a sweeping history of the development of location technology in the past century, Bray shows how radio signals created to carry telegraph messages were transformed into invisible beacons to guide ships and how a set of rapidly-spinning wheels steered submarines beneath the polar ice cap. But while most of these technologies were developed for and by the military, they are now ubiquitous in our everyday lives. Our phones are now smart enough to pinpoint our presence to within a few feet-and nosy enough to share that information with governments and corporations. Filled with tales of scientists and astronauts, inventors and entrepreneurs, You Are Here tells the story of how humankind ingeniously solved one of its oldest and toughest problems-only to herald a new era in which it’s impossible to hide.
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On Sale
Apr 1, 2014
Page Count
272 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780465080984

Hiawatha Bray

About the Author

Hiawatha Bray is a technology reporter for the Boston Globe, where he has been on staff since 1995. He has also written for Wired, Black Enterprise, Fast Company, and Christianity Today. Bray lives in Quincy, Massachusetts.

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