Feeling worldly It's Sunday, so let's lighten it up a bit :-).

The best gadget I've purchased in a long time is a Garmin GPSMap 60C handheld global positioning receiver (about $300). I've always been fascinated by the idea that you could pinpoint your position on the planet to within a few feet but I didn't anticipate the value it would have in everyday life.

On a practical level, having a GPS in the car is saving me time and aggravation. I never get lost any more because I know almost immediately when I'm off track. I've also started experimenting with finding shorter routes to places I routinely visit, which has cut down on time and gas consumption. I can even plan longer trips by punching in coordinates before I leave and then following the route the unit calculates (you need to invest in special software for this). You can look up the coordinates to any address on the globe, BTW, at Maporama.com.

For recreation, the GPS opens a few new doors. I've started geocaching, which is kind of an online global scavenger hunt that has turned out to be way more fun than I thought it would be. Not only do my kids and I get a kick out of finding the secret treasure hidden in forests and cemeteries but the activity has taken me to nature preserves, walking trails and public parks that I didn't even know existed. I'll even take the GPS on the road with me and take a break for an hour here and there to geocache in another city. Such a geek I am...

Travelers can download specialized maps of routes and locations around the globe to create a sort of digital TripTik. If you have a lousy sense of direction, you have to get one of these things. It will make your life so much easier.

I've been interested by commercial applications of GPS since I first noticed a unit being used as a range-finder on my golf cart years ago. GPS are already routinely used in fleet management applications. You can imagine why UPS would value this information but there are other cool ideas as well. A friend contacted me just the other day who works at a small company, Everyday Wireless, that specializes in tracking school buses. School administrators and nervous parents can pinpoint the location of a bus at any time and display it on a web page. Any parent who's stood in the cold with their child for 20 minutes waiting for a late bus can relate to this application. I've long wondered what would happen if you could shrink the size of a GPS receiver to something that could fit in a cell phone or a tooth. Imagine the uses of a technology that could track anything's position on earth to within a few feet. Imagine the abuses if privacy limitations weren't respected.

One more GPS-related item in my morning ramble: I listened to an interesting podcast of a presentation by Todd Young of Rosum Corp. This startup has figured out a way to use broadcast TV signals to pinpoint locations in dense urban areas or inside buildings where GPS doesn't work. I have no idea how effective this technology really is, but the founder of Rosum is one of the inventors of the GPS system. For sheer innovation, this idea is tough to beat.  ¶ 7:37 AM