When I wrote last week that we need a people-friendly GPS, I really didn't have any idea how this might work.

I just know that we need something that works better than the people-unfriendly GPS that we have now.

I have thought about the domain-name registrars and domain-name servers of the internet — every website gets a specific device-friendly numeric IP address but people don't use those numbers. They use the URI. (Well, think about it: internettablettalk.com is way easier to remember than 74.86.202.247).

Why don't we do the same thing for GPS locations?

Why can't I put in a name and have a GPS name server (GPS-NS) look up the specific latitude and longitude the way it works with the web?

OK, it shouldn't be slavishly the same. I live in Montclair, NJ, and I would want some parameter to default to "locations near Montclair" when I put them in. So I could enter "Starbucks" and a star would appear at 572 Valley Road, without my having to enter "Starbucks-Montclair-ValleyRoad". And, yes, Starbucks Corp. would register the "Starbucks" GPS the same way it registered "starbucks.com". And just as that site has a "starbucks.com/ourcoffees/" page, it could set up the names for each of its locations.

And, heck, maybe I have to download the GPS-NS table to my device and update it daily or weekly. Maybe it's extremely detailed only for a specified area, not the whole world. So I can put in "Golden Gate Bridge" or "Sugarloaf" because those are level-1 locations, but not "Starbucks-Brazil-Rio de Janeiro-Ipanema". (Unless I say, "Get me Brazil too.")

I expect software would let me filter results too, so that if I entered a name like Xanadu that is used in different states/countries in different types of business, I'd see only the few possible entries — the restaurant near me and not the surfboard designer in San Diego, the clothing store in Milwaukee or the restaurant in Baltimore.

Well, just thinking aloud . . .