SkyBitz was founded in 1993 in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area under the name Eagle Eye Technologies, Inc. and used both DARPA and the United States Air Force SBIR funding to develop its patented Global Locating System (GLS). GLS technology differs from traditional Global Positioning System (GPS) technology in that positioning calculations are done centrally and automatically at an operations center instead of locally on each device. In early 2002, the company—now called SkyBitz—announced the commercial launch of its GLS technology.