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Comment by numlock86 | Hacker News Reader

Is GPS a general synonym for GNSS these days? I was always under the impression that GPS is just one specific GNSS among others like Galileo, GLONASS or Beidou. This article is describing a new concept for a GNSS system that has no relation to GPS? Or what am I missing?

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GPS stands for 'Global Positioning System', but if you instead think of it as 'global positioning system', then all these satellite systems are GPS, because yes they are literally all a 'global positioning system', they're just not the 'Global Positioning System'.

That's what happens when you give something specific a very generic name. People shouldn't do that.

>That's what happens when you give something specific a very generic name. People shouldn't do that.

Yeah, but wasn't it named Navstar-GPS?

It's just called Global Positioning System now - they dropped 'Navstar'.

Yes, at least for laypeople. if it tells your position it is "GPS", and nobody knows what GNSS is.

And on the phone, it might as well be cell networks or other sources that tell you the position - not GPS - yet people call it GPS. The phone calls it location service.

It's the escalator of GPS!

This might be a US thing, but probably even wider. "GPS" seems to have taken on the same effect as "kleenex" here. What makes it frustrating is that you can still do research in academic papers, white papers, etc on "GPS" alone!

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