First we should discuss what the Global Positioning System (GPS) is before we go any further. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a Satellite Navigation System consisting of a collection of 24 satellites; developed, owned, operated, and maintained by the U.S. Government Department of Defense; which orbits 10,900 Nautical Miles or 12,535 Miles above the earth. These satellites complete two orbits in 24 hours. These satellites transmit precise time and their position is space signals back to earth 24 hours a day. GPS Receivers on the earth surface, collect these signals from the satellites. The Receiver on earth can calculate its location and position on earth,with a high degree of accuracy, by calculating its distance and position from three to four of the satellites. The Receivers do this by determining the time it takes the signal to travel from the satellite's known position to the receiver.

We will start with the Clarion AutoPC. The Clarion AutoPC is an in-dash computer for you car. It allows you to to communicate with the AutoPC with spoken phrases through Voice Recognition. It provides car stereo system, computing functions, navigation system, wireless communication, and e-mail through hands-free voice activation.

Next we will look at NavTech Navigation Technologies Corporation. NavTech Navigation Technologies Corporation makes the map information found inside navigation systems. NavTech creates and markets the world's most widely-used, complete, accurate, and up-to-date navigable map databases in North America. NavTech is a database of maps that can be used for navigation when used with the Global Positioning System (GPS). NavTech is the official supplier for Clarion AutoPC.

Next we will discuss InfoGation Corporation's Odyssey. InfoGation’s Odyssey is the first navigation system to integrate with a car stereo that allows a driver to view and track the car’s location on a map display, easily set a destination and listen to spoken turn-by-turn route guidance with exact street names. Odyssey works with Clarion’s Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and the NAVTECH digital map database from Navigation Technologies Corporation to provide a complete navigation system that combines an innovative graphic display and intuitive Auto PC speech interface. Like more expensive dedicated navigation systems, Odyssey takes into consideration such information as one-way streets and left-turn limitations and provides automatic route recalculations.

The Garmin StreetPilot GPS Combines Global Positioning System technology with detailed electronic maps to bring Garmin GPS navigation to your Automobile. The safety and convenience of knowing where you are anywhere in the world, in any weather, 24 hours a day is as close as your dash.

Using an extensive electronic digital street map, an immense point-of-interest library, and cutting edge navigation technologies, the 750 Nav is the most advanced vehicle navigation and driver information system ever engineered.

The Magellan 750 Nav has detailed street level maps for metro areas and a library of thousands of destinations and points of interest. It will provide both voice and visual driving instructions literally telling you when to make each turn. You can even tell the 750 Nav what roads you DON'T want to travel on, and they will be excluded from the route. If you should miss a turn, don't worry, the Magellan 750 Nav will automatically calculate a new route for you.

The Guardian Backup System is a back-up obstacle detection / collision warning system that is capable of warning a driver of the presence of any object within a defined area behind the vehicle when the vehicle is engaged in reverse gear. The system employs a microwave radar technology and applies the Doppler shift principle to detect the presence of a moving target within a certain defined range to the rear of the vehicle.

And finally, the smartway. Of all the technologies mentioned in our date to Dairy Queen, none has the potential to change our lives so much than this, which is why the U.S. government continues to throw more than $1 billion at the idea every year. You will find smartway-capable testing grounds all over the place -- in San Diego, Chelsea, Mich., and Nagano, Japan.

The smart-road project set to be completed this summer in Blacksburg, Va., comprises two miles of a real interstate and a self-healing fiber-optic data-collection network. Magnetic tape in the middle of the lane and the edge of the road aid automatic steering. And for added realism, the smartway supervisors can supply up to 4 in. of snow and 2 in. of rain. "If you want to test how automated vehicles would work in a blizzard," says Ray Pethel, a transportation fellow at Virginia Tech, "we can do that. We've got 500 hours of snowmaking under contract next year."

The Smart Road is a unique, state-of-the-art, full-scale research facility for the testing, evaluation and validation of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) concepts, technologies, and products. Research projects will include the analysis of: