Galileo Positioning System

In order to compete with America's GPS, Europe gave its satellite navigation system the name of a famous victim to Christian fundamentalism, Galileo Galilei. Despite the infiltration of endless meetings by Uncle Sam's experts in standard gasfactorization, Galileo seems back on tracks (sed movet). It will leverage on Europe's EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service), Russia's GLONASS (Glown Ass ?) and even China's PATHOS. The promoters of the technology consider themselves joint undertakers*, which gives you an idea of how much they believe in what they do.
To find the EU's home page for the Galileo program, you have to go down to http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/galileo/index_en.htm. The path to the NASA's Galileo space program looks much shorter : http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/. So short indeed the Americans crashed Galileo on Jupiter. Acte manqué ?
Galileo.org leads to the Galileo Centre in Calgary, AB. They are into networking, but of the educational kind. The program locked the URL back in 1997.
Galileo.com has been preempted since 1994. The owner is no other than Cendant Corporation, the owner of Avis and Budget Rent a Car, not to mention Century 21, Sotheby's International Realty, Days Inn, HoJo, Ramada Inn, Travelodge & co... Location based services if any, but located in Englewood, CO.
On the other hand, GPS.org leads to the homepage of a gay couple. Locating your mate as the killer app ?
But guess to whom belongs GPS.com ? A certain Microsoft Corporation - 1 Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052 US...
How to square the circle or from triangulation to quadrature...

* For the Galileo Joint Undertaking, type http://www.galileoju.com. Sounds like a Korean alcohol to me.

Count your beams

NTT DoCoMo's expansion strategy has always been clear : globalizing, diversifying beyond voice and widening the reach of mobility itself.
Internationalization's been quite shaky for DoCoMo the investor, and rather disapointing for DoCoMo the Application Service Provider / Licensor : FOMA remains basically local and i-mode subscriptions remain minor overseas. Yet, step by step, more spots are covered. Israel and Russia are joining the i-mode community and even if the service manages to limit it's penetration to 5 to 10% everywhere it exists, that's sustainable. Not the massive revolution many dreamt of but DoCoMo didn't leverage on their 1999 momentum. By the time i-mode reached Europe, WAP was back on tracks with decent services and a better business model.
Diversification beyond voice is no more a strong asset for DoCoMo, who don't even rule in the area. They're better at widening the reach of mobility. The collapse of Simpay definitely means good news for FeliCa but I'm not sure ToruCa™ can make it overseas. This information-capture concept requires handset upgrades (coming up soon in Osaifu-Keitais), but also specific writers / readers at the other end. Asking consumers to wave their handsets in front of new devices doesn't appeal as much as leveraging on RFID or even improving the good old beaming system so that they can transfer pictures or videos from their handsets to their TV sets.
Just like FOMA with W-CDMA, IrSimple is supposed to be an IrDA improvement - in other words : DoCoMo gains a TTM advantage in the short term and potential fees in the longer term. ITX E-Globaledge Corporation and Sharp joined this new "global standard". Simplicity is very much needed. Humility could help too.