Dubai Municipality’s satellite location system Makani will be a significant breakthrough in finding our way around quickly and accurately when it spreads across the entire city. We have all experienced those frustrating phone calls, guiding visitors to our residence.

Now all that will be replaced by technology that will give every building a unique number linked to the GPS systems, which will allow anyone to locate a landmark in Dubai with ease.

This rapid physical connectivity will apply to a vast range of activities, including ambulance and fire services and maybe also to courier companies and delivery systems. Dubai is unusual among the world’s major cities in that there is no-door-to-door delivery of mail, which will now become possible.

It is also important that all the UAE’s different location services in different emirates are compatible with one other, which will be best done by making them all compatible with global market leaders like Google and HERE maps as announced yesterday. This will also encourage the more hesitant technophobes to start using the system properly.