Whilst most people have heard of GPS, what most don’t realise is it is actually a US-owned satellite technology designed purely for military applications, not for finding your nearest restaurant or quickest route home. As a result Europe has spent the last couple of decades designing and developing a counterpart, Galileo, which just this month provided its first positional readings. In future Galileo will offer European users a more accurate and reliable service to underpin a new generation of highly intuitive and sophisticated apps and consumer technologies.