Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds

by Greg Milner

Overview

"One of the most mesmerizing and exhilarating, yet alarming modern technology books…an extraordinary tale." —Gillian Tett, Financial Times

Pinpoint tells the fascinating story of a hidden system that touches nearly every aspect of modern life. Tracking the development of GPS from its origins as a bomb guidance system to its present ubiquity, Greg Milner examines the technology’s double-edged effect on the way we live, work, and travel. Savvy and original, this sweeping scientific history offers startling insight into how humans understand their place in the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393244991
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/03/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Greg Milner is the author of Pinpoint and Perfecting Sound Forever, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His writing has appeared in Wired, New York, Slate, Village Voice, Salon, Spin, and Rolling Stone. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Whisper from Space xiii

Part I Calculating Route

1 Tupaia Goes Home 3

2 The When and the Where 24

3 Global Reach, Global Power 46

4 Ranging the Perfect Beet 73

Part II You Have Arrived

5 Death by GPS 111

6 The Hornet's Nest 138

7 Better Living Through Tracking 170

8 Return from Mid-Ice 202

9 Tied Together (40.74375° N 73.9835° W) 235

Epilogue: Direction Home 263

Afterword to the Paperback Edition 267

Notes 273

Acknowledgments 295

Index 301

Editorial Reviews

Dramatically illustrating just what the GPS might be taking from the human race, Milner recounts the feats of early Polynesian seafarers who traversed wide Pacific expanses guided by nothing but their dauntless minds. . . . [A] fascinating probe into an increasingly ubiquitous technology.

Bryce Christensen - Booklist (starred review)

[A] welcome guide to where [GPS] came from, what it does and where it might be taking us.

Damian Whitworth - The Times

In this startling and persuasive book, American journalist Greg Milner shows how [GPS] saturates our existence... [Milner] suggests that GPS is as potent and pervasive a force as the Internet – if much less well understood.

James McConachie - Sunday Times

Through a multitude of examples—from Polynesian navigation to precision agriculture to the U.S. military—the world according to GPS emerges, and with it a new way to understand our own sense of place and time... Milner's detailed examples will leave you questioning the ways in which GPS has infiltrated our lives.

Renee M. Blackburn - Science

[A] compelling exploration of how GPS became so ubiquitous—and what we lose when it's all we know of navigation.

Matthew Daddona - Outside

[A] suitably precise and fascinating account of the modern evolution of [GPS]... Milner expertly deconstructs the implications of this monumental shift in human life.

Tim Adams - Observer

A deeply researched book with fascinating interludes... [Milner] explains the technological principles lucidly.

Stephen Poole - New Statesman

[A]ssured technological history.

Nature

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Gillian Tett - Financial Times

[A] joy to read… It will be a strong contender for my science book of 2016.

Clive Cookson - Financial Times

An informative yarn.

James Anthony - Evening Standard

No technology has transformed the human landscape so completely, yet been taken for granted so quickly, as GPS. The reason that brains are so good at storing maps is because the brain is a map, and our collective internal map is now migrating somewhere else. Greg Milner’s Pinpoint is a fascinating chronicle of how this happened and why—captured before the details had a chance to escape.

George Dyson

Milner is a brisk and funny guide.

Konstantin Kakaes - Wall Street Journal

Seldom have I learned so much so effortlessly. . . . Every page was a treasure-house of fascinations: my temptation after finishing was to begin the book all over again, there being so much to absorb, all of it crucially important to understanding our world's dependence on one of modern civilization's new-made fundamentals.

Simon Winchester

Whenever people theorize about the collision of technology and culture, the Internet tends to consume all the oxygen in the room. But there is another global system that's taking over our lives in an even more insidious fashion, with stranger implications for the future of humanity. Pinpoint dissects the modern age of mapping and shows the hidden dangers of a world where nothing is hidden at all.”

Chuck Klosterman

In Pinpoint, Greg Milner gives us a much-needed account of GPS, its history, philosophy, and the overwhelming consequences of its success. Funny, scary, and tremendously readable, Pinpoint will be an eye-opening thrill for anyone who has watched their blue dot dance around an online map.”

Andrew Blum

GPS guides our world. Here at last is the amazing and well-told story of where it came from, how it works, and where it—and we—are going.

Richard Rhodes