British military developing GPS navigation that works without satellites

Did you know that GPS doesn't work underwater? Neither did we. But apparently it's a big enough problem that the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense is working on a futuristic solution that will allow more precise navigation by the Royal Navy's submarines and surface ships, while eventually trickling down to consumer-grade mobile devices. That all sounds great, but its abilities aren't anywhere near as cool as its name - the quantum compass.

Using subatomic particles that interact with the Earth's magnetic field (which is a phrase I never though I'd write while working at Autoblog), the accuracy of submersible navigation could be drastically improved. When a boat surfaces, pinpointing its exact location can be off by as much as half a mile. With a quantum compass, its location would be accurate to just three feet.

Not only is the quantum compass highly accurate, but it's also virtually impossible to tamper with, unlike the overworked system of GPS satellites. Because quantum mechanics. Not surprisingly, the applications for the civilian world could be immense. Cars and phones would be able to deliver pinpoint-accurate navigation information in a form that is totally constant. Hop over to GPSDaily for the details.
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How Charlotte lost to Plano without even knowing it was dealing with Toyota

With Toyota set to relocate its North American headquarters to the Dallas, TX suburb of Plano following a top-secret, 100-city search, the cities that missed out can now begin asking themselves what happened during a process they apparently knew little about.

That's a particularly brutal task for Charlotte, which, according to North Carolina's Secretary of Commerce, Sharon Decker, finished second to Plano. While Toyota has been fairly open about what it was looking for in a new headquarters city - direct flights to Japan, proximity to its US production facilities, a lower cost of living, high-quality educational facilities and finding a neutral site suitable to the California, Kentucky and New York-based employees that would be relocated - it's been less open about how the finalist cities, which also included Atlanta and Denver, stacked up against each other.

The Charlotte Observer has a few ideas. Part of the problem is the distinct lack of direct flights between Charlotte and Asia. US Airways, which operates a hub at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, doesn't fly to Asia.

Toyota, for its part, seems to be placing most of the blame on location.

"With manufacturing locations in many US states, Canada and Mexico, we chose a location that better supports our diverse geographic footprint, in a time zone that allows us to communicate better with most of our operations, and has direct flights to all our North American operations and Japan," Mike Michels, Toyota's VP of product communications, told The Observer via email.
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