Microsoft uses the cloud to cut power-hogging GPS chips’ battery consumption

Microsoft Cloud-Based GPS

One sure way to deplete your smartphone’s battery life is to leave GPS services turned on for a prolonged period of time. But now researchers at Microsoft (MSFT) have come up with a smart way to get phones’ GPS chips to consumer significantly less power by outsourcing some of their key functions to the cloud. Technology Review reports that Microsoft researchers have figured out a way to use the GPS chips to only collect the most important data from satellites while they relying on “public, online databases” to collect other key data “such as satellite trajectories and Earth elevation values, to calculate the device’s past locations.” Microsoft Research principal researcher Jie Liu tells Technology Review that low-powered GPS chips could lead to more “continuous location-sensing applications” that can give users more detailed and accurate information than many of today’s GPS-capable apps.

[More from BGR: Sprint salesman refuses to sell iPhone to customer, says his ‘fingers are too fat’ to use it]

This article was originally published by BGR