GPS uses 10 bits to store the week. That means it runs out... oh heck – April 6, 2019

The Register ^ | Feb 12, 2019 | Shaun Nichols

[dayglored]

Y2K deja vu....

[dayglored]

Your GPS might go bonkers this April ... PING!

You can find all the Windows Ping list threads with FR search: just search on keyword "windowspinglist".

[dayglored]

Candidate for a Tech Ping *ping*

[ShadowAce]

[dayglored]

Now, it's hopefully true that devices with firmware written after 2010 or so will be okay.

But how many cars are out there with vehicular GPS units with firmware older than that???

[I want the USA back]

Some people will follow their GPS right off a bridge or into a river. Let the lawsuits begin.

[Robert357]

Bump for reference.

any mfg site so you can see if your GPS works after April of this year?

[VA_Gentleman]

My 2006 Acura does. Runs like a charm.

[RayChuang88]

If you have a newer iPhone, this should NOT be a problem.

[Made In The USA]

Hopefully my 2012 Lincoln Navigator will not be affected, because if it is the irony would be too much to handle...

[ConservativeMind]

Why does the “week” affect GPS location?

[Tenacious 1]

Nicely played. You could end up having a Navigator that doesn’t navigate.

[ConservativeMind]

It’s like saying my garage, depending on the day, is either on the west of my home, separated only by a wall, or 10,000 miles south of my home, due to this rollover error.

No, it’s still one wall west of my home.

[ShadowAce]

Hopefully my 2012 Lincoln Navigator will not be affected...

Is that an Aztec 2012 Navigator?

[ShadowAce]

Maybe I meant Mayan.....

[Robert A Cook PE]

Thank you.

[Yo-Yo]

This alreay happened once before in August of1999. The world didn’t end then, either.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Beware! Your old Aztec Navigator Mayan run out of Inca’s shortly, because they do need a new cartridge every two Venusian millennium cycles.

[zeugma]

We keep shooting ourselves in the foot over stuff like this. Apparently, their ‘fix’ isn’t much better, as it will have a rollover issue in a hundred years or so. We really need to start thinking about longer-term timeframes for our technology. If it can’t handle dates 10,000 years into the future, it should be a non-starter.

[freeandfreezing]

Why does the “week” affect GPS location?

GPS devices determine their location by calculating the distance from multiple GPS satellites based on the time of arrival of timestamped messages. So, if you were really far away from one or more of the satellites relative to the others, then in theory their timestamped packets could arrive with a time difference more than a few seconds.

Of course that can't actually happen in normal circumstances since the entire set of GPS satellites is close together in earth orbit.

But it is possible that some extraterrestrials with a super sensitive GPS receiver that have a black hole between us and them could see radically different apparent path lengths to their receiver. No doubt they would figure out the discrepancy and not get lost on the way to Galactiburger in their hovercars.