Spare a thought for the noble LORAN network. It helped bombers and ships across the Atlantic in WWII and, since then, has served as a reliable system for helping sailors, domestic and otherwise, to find their position. Of course, now that everybody and their kid cousin has a GPS receiver in their back pocket the need for limited, complex, radio-based geolocation is somewhat reduced. So, the US government is killing it off, shutting down most of the towers on February 8, with those that stay online over the summer going decidedly offline this fall. The savings? $190 million over five years. The cost? No backup for our GPS system, meaning we’ll be totally blind when the first wave of EMPs hit — and don’t try to act like they’re not comin’, man.
Government killing off LORAN-C navigation system, deems GPS good enough originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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