New Delhi, Oct. 23 -- What if your smartwatch tracked every footstep with pinpoint precision, right down to a few centimetres? That isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Researchers collaborating with Google's Android team, the University of Otago, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have taken fitness tracking on wearables to professional survey levels. With carrier-phase algorithms now in testing, some smartwatches can achieve GPS accuracy within just eight centimetres, a giant leap forward from the several metres' margin we're used to on everyday devices.

So, how does this high-precision magic actually work? Instead of adding bulky antennas, it comes down to smarter maths and software upgrades. Recent breakthroughs use signals from multi...