Yamaha develops world’s smallest mobile compass

Thanks to new technology, it keeps getting harder and harder to get lost these days. GPS is showing up everywhere, but Yamaha has come up with something to make navigation even simpler.

Their new YAS529 is a three-axis Geomagnetic Sensor IC Chip. In other words, it’s a compass. The world’s smallest mobile compass, in fact – it measures just 2mm x 2mm x 1mm. The company hopes that the device will be in demand for devices like mobile phones and small navigation systems.

One major complaint that people have about GPS systems is that they are uni-directional – the map is oriented in the same direction regardless of which way you are facing. That can make it harder for people to orient themselves using the GPS map. With this tiny compass chip in place, devices would be able to orient the map so that the orientation of the map matches the orientation of the world around you.

The chip will be available to manufacturers at the beginning of October for about $9.30 each.