It's fascinating to see how reliant our world is on GPS services (GNSS more precisely, not only location, but especially time) and how we still get even more reliant every day while at the same time we can see how fragile all of this is in the conflict zones of the world.
Maybe there is room for a stalker like lost art in navigation in places where it all breaks down but I doubt it.
The future I see is more one of autonomous navigation systems. Ones that pick up locations cues wherever they are and build a local map that helps you or your vehicle to find your way.
I still keep a paper map in my car, and I still know how to use it. I even update it from time to time; once every year or two. It covers my usual area in broad strokes.
I just haven't used it for a very long time, and I no longer have the constantly-accumulating pile of them that I used to have (for details in Chicago and Detroit and Pittsburgh and anywhere else where I've ever needed a map).
Almost every part of the US that is East of the Mississippi is stored offline in my phone with Google Maps. I can peruse that if necessary, even in the absence of cellphone service and GPS. I just need my particular phone and a way to power it up long enough to write down some directions.
If the cell network is still up but orbital GNSS is kaput, it can even do automatic offline navigation using other location providers (as in that which can be derived from wifi and bluetooth observations). The resolution sucks, and so does the update interval, but it's better than a kick in the pants.
For a decade or so, the built-in Maps program on Windows would allow maps to be downloaded and used offline, too, so I used to have updated maps stored in my laptop as well. (That whole system was killed (thanks, MSFT) so I should probably find an alternative; maybe something based around OSM would be good.)
> The future I see is more one of autonomous navigation systems. Ones that pick up locations cues wherever they are and build a local map that helps you or your vehicle to find your way.
Sounds neat, but the impetus to create such a thing doesn't seem to exist at the present time.
In the 1979 Tarkovski film the "Stalker" is a person who knows the lost art of safely navigating a particularly dangerous area. People pay the Stalker to guide them.
Maybe there is room for a stalker like lost art in navigation in places where it all breaks down but I doubt it.
The future I see is more one of autonomous navigation systems. Ones that pick up locations cues wherever they are and build a local map that helps you or your vehicle to find your way.