"It's tremendous news for us because it means this is one step further on restoring the canal to link up with the national network and the River Wey navigation in Guildford, Surrey, " she said.

BBC: Wey and Arun Canal restoration: Boats back in Surrey

Researchers in the field, such as Ernest Robinson, the head of the Aerospace Corporation's picosatellite project, dream of a day when swarms of nanosatellites (weighing less than 10kg) and picosatellites (weighing less than 1kg) might be used to establish a global navigation and communications network around Mars.

ECONOMIST: Picosatellites

The UI supports a rich set of services, including phone calls, text messaging with vocal read-out, navigation, object recognition, social network services, remote assistance, audio-book reading, and other leisure and entertainment offerings.

ENGADGET: Qualcomm develops eyes-free smartphone for the blind and visually impaired, calls it Ray

As our eyes have now been opened to what is possible with technologies such as Siri, though, we can imagine a more interactive but no less distracting kind of navigation experience, one that responds naturally to questions with network intelligence.

ENGADGET: Switched On: A road trip with Siri

Each comes with GPS navigation and can access 3G speeds on Sprint's broadband CDMA network.

ENGADGET: Where you at? Sprint Direct Connect Now brings push-to-talk to select Android devices

From within the Blink Network, consumers will be able to locate Blink charging stations complete with GPS navigation, check charging station availability, and receive notifications of charge interruption and completion.

ENGADGET: ECOtality teams with Sprint to connect Blink EV charging network

He said it was compatible with the world's other major global satellite navigation systems, and encouraged Chinese and foreign enterprises to help develop terminals that could use the Chinese network.

WSJ: Beijing Launches GPS Rival