According to Slontech a new GPS related technology breakthrough may become available. In contrast to GPS live mode, where the coordinates are required in time of receiving (e.G. for navigation scenario) geo-tagging does not require them. As described in Geotagging with GPS Whitepaper the new device could just store the raw GPS signal. Later this signal can be used to recompute the coordinates from the timestamp and the satellite positions and write them to EXIF. The general idea behind this approach is to minimize the the energy consumption. A standard GPS device needs about 30 seconds to calculate its position. The most time it uses to download the satellite position and only 200ms are needed for the position determination of the device itself. Other approaches exist to improve the precision of GPS and transmit the additional data using radio or the Internet.
In general, I think the approach could have some impact on GPS usage, because the device is cheap and the usage is easy. In the same time, it is not the first device that can be sensefull build in in any device. A bluetooth chip is also very cheap and could be used in any digital camera for photo synchronization, but it is mostly an exception…
Technorati tags: GPS, geotate, no fix, geotagging, geocoding