Australia sits on a fast-moving tectonic plate and is drifting north several inches a year. As its GPS coordinates haven't been updated since 1994, the discrepancy has grown to six feet and has begun causing trouble. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the continent's location is being fixed.
On January 1, the Victorian and NSW governments updated the coordinates of every road, property and geographical feature in their states, essentially moving the south-eastern seaboard 1.8 metres north-east overnight. Official government road maps and property boundaries will now line up perfectly with GPS location data.
"The real importance with data is it all lines up. Roads, people's property boundaries all line up," says Ms Underwood. It will take some time for companies like Google to pick up and implement the new data. But when they do, you will enjoy slightly more accurate satellite navigation.
