The devices help pilots avoid "terrain" by coupling global-positioning technology with flight data on speed, altitude and other readings, and a database containing the topography of the planet.

FORBES: Cockpit Fight

Once there, they use aerial photography and remote cameras in combination with depth-finding and global-positioning satellite technology (as well as some first-hand testing of the waves) to measure the waves and map the contours of the ocean floor under the breaks.

ECONOMIST: On the beach

Cemex can do this because its trucks are now equipped with dashboard computer navigation terminals that allow tracking by a central dispatch unit using state-of-the-art global positioning satellite technology.

FORBES: Cement meets the cyberworld

Look at Garmin (nasdaq: GRMN - news - people ), which commercialized a technology with roots in defense: satellite-based global positioning.

FORBES: Beltway Bet: Ceradyne

Earlier this year Keiser put out a bullish report on location technologies: mapp Close ing database firms TeleAtlas and Navteq (nyse: NVT - news - people ), dashboard navigation device makers such as TomTom and Garmin (nasdaq: GRMN - news - people ), and global positioning system chip firms like Sirf Technology Holdings.

FORBES: Greenhouse Stocks

Look at Garmin, which commercialized a technology with roots in defense: satellite-based global positioning.

FORBES: Magazine Article

The battery-powered devices, about the size of a videocassette, use Global Positioning System technology to report where a trailer is (Orbital Sciences also owns Magellan, the largest producer of GPS receivers).

FORBES: Iridium for truck trailers

But what starts out as government or military technology often ends up in commercial applications, as packet-switched networks and the global-positioning system demonstrate.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR