GPS

Contributed by: The James Bond Movie Encyclopedia by Steven Jay Rubin

Acronym for Global Positioning System, a worldwide radio navigation system formed from a constellation of twenty-four satellites and their ground stations, allowing the average person on the street to establish his or her exact position on the planet at any moment. Widely available today in everything from smartphones to cars to planes, it was introduced to the world of James Bond in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies, as a plaything of billionaire media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce). It’s actually one of Carver’s employees, ace computer terrorist Henry Gupta (Ricky Jay), who tampers with a GPS satellite, throwing off a British warship’s ability to establish its actual position and allowing its crew to think they’re in Chinese territorial waters when they’re not.

In addition, although it wasn’t identified as such, the tracking device built into the dashboard of James Bond’s Aston Martin in Goldfinger was an early form of GPS.

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