Monday, September 9th, 2013
It’s a time of great disruption within the technology space, with a great deal of change taking place in how geospatial data is collected, stored, visualized, and analyzed. There are new technologies and new approaches that have allowed new companies to emerge, and that have empowered existing players. Much more disruption is on the
Sunday, August 25th, 2013
By now, surely you’ve heard of Google’s balloon-based Internet networking idea, where they are set to increase global Internet access with a network of low-orbit and low-cost airborne wireless stations. This ambitious effort has each balloon that flies at 20 km above Earth serving an area of roughly 25 miles in diameter, meaning there
Tuesday, August 6th, 2013
Geospatial systems and data are a form of augmented reality already, providing insight into assets and operations in the context of the broader world. However, there’s a new level of augmented reality that is coming about that promises real-time insight, juxtaposing our models and asset information onto what we can see where we’re standing in
Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013
Lessons from the largest GIS event of the year (the Esri International User Conference) are still sinking in, and some of the takeaways from the ubiquitous platform approach of Web GIS give pause for the geospatial vendor community as a whole. The issue central to the need to defend and assert the value of a
Tuesday, July 16th, 2013
There is an ever-increasing number of satellite imaging companies and satellite constellations, with higher resolution sensors and/or broader global coverage. Satellite imagery is also more quickly and readily accessible within image processing, analysis and visualization platforms thanks to better streaming technologies and increasingly web-based workflows. These combined trends are spurring new business insight and analysis
Monday, July 1st, 2013
Geospatial vendors in the United States wait rather impatiently as the Federal Aviation Administration works on regulations that will allow the use of drones or unmanned aerial systems for commercial applications. While research and development is ongoing, other countries stand to make a leap ahead where there are fewer regulations, despite the fact that much
Tuesday, June 25th, 2013
The ongoing desire to own the whole ecosystem is an IT trend that spans across multiple scales and domains. At the top level, there are Google, Apple and Microsoft with their operating systems, software, hardware and mobile devices that aim to lock in the users with a full breadth of services, trying to fill all
Tuesday, June 18th, 2013
Our collective notion of privacy, whether via mobile or online interactions, took a giant hit a few weeks ago with the revelation of the lengths that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has gone to collect and analyze personal communications. The daily reports of user location that the NSA has collected from our telephone providers,
Monday, June 3rd, 2013
The latest reveal of Google Maps takes a more proactive approach to creating maps around customer queries for a ‘personalized’ view. This shift meets with the company’s goal to organize all of the world’s information, yet it also is a much tighter tie to the company’s core business of advertising. The custom maps are complete
Tuesday, May 28th, 2013
GIS has proven itself time and again as an integral tool in planning and responding to disasters, and we’ve come a long way in our capabilities to communicate and incorporate up-to-date details about unfolding events. The trend is for more frequent and intense natural disasters worldwide due to increased populations in vulnerable areas, and heightened
