| ||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Featured Research Report
Also Recommended:
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| |
Saturday, December 31, 2005
With positioning services becoming increasingly important for the mobile world, we've provided a brief tour through some of the better Location-Based Services (LBS), Location-Enabled Business (LEB), Enhanced 911 (E911) emergency services and Mobile Positioning resources on the net.
nce again, Technology Futures, Inc. (TFI) provides important emerging technology trends for 2006 and beyond developed through our 27 years of forecasting, strategy, and analysis work. Popular futurist and technologist David Smith (Vice President, TFI) states "These trends are of great consequence to those involved with global business, technology business process, science and universities, government agencies, federal labs, corporate labs, and technology savvy consumers."
Austin, TX (PRWEB) December 31, 2005 -- Once again, Technology Futures, Inc. (TFI) provides important emerging technology trends for 2006 and beyond developed through our 27 years of forecasting, strategy, and analysis work. Popular futurist and technologist David Smith (Vice President, TFI) states "These trends are of great consequence to those involved with global business, technology business process, science and universities, government agencies, federal labs, corporate labs, and technology savvy consumers." He adds, "Comparing this year's trends to TFI's list of trends for 2005, we see the trends as being still on the mark, with continuing progress being made in all the areas outlined last year. Below we have outlined some of the developments and provide some new trends and enhancements."
SIGNIFICANT TECHNOLOGY TRENDS FOR 2006:
(1) Traditional media continues to change as the impact of the democratization of the Internet and the increased penetration of global broadband coverage expands the Internet even more.
As we noted last year, “Broadband and high-speed wireless penetration reach a large enough market for new classes of applications to emerge. These new products will explicitly take advantage of what broadband and wireless networks have to offer in terms of mobility and accessibility to the global marketplace. Location-based services is one class of service that will emerge.” The impact of VoIP extends beyond the business users and will become common place in the new digital home. 2006 will see the first impact of mobile VoIP in connected devices.
(2) The threat to security and privacy continues to grow and to expand to other devices besides the wired Internet such as . mobile devices and device-to-device networks.
Last year we talked about the dramatic escalation in device-to- device communication versus people-to-people communication. This trend continues, and the increasing threats to security and privacy also increase in tandem.
(3) The digital home is entering the next level of acceptance, with the expansion of the electronic gaming and MP3 marketplace being a major driver.
High definition TV and digital recording at home are important drivers, but increasingly a major driver of the digital home is the electronic gaming and MP3 marketplace. The devices have become more than just a video game or a portable audio experience, with integration into many different devices and vehicles, and the addition of video to the MP3 devices. One of the next phases of growth is that of individual content creation. This do-it-yourself (DIY) content creation will vastly expand on P2P networks and will ride on the back of expanding computing power, storage expansion, broadband penetration, and Reed’s law of community building. The power of the games will expand beyond PCs and game consoles to many other forms and devices. On-demand gaming will become part of many households. IPTV will see a new acceptance and because of both broadband penetration and new business models become part of many households.
(4) Public relations and marketing expenditures and projects continue their shift to the public networks.
Not only the Internet, but wireless and cellular networks and the new smart, location aware devices will play an increasingly important role in the transition to public networks. The usage and proliferation of mobile commerce keeps expanding.
(5) The timeframe of the product life-cycle continues to decrease.
In a continuation of the trend from last year, by the time a product hits the market, its shelf life is half what it used to be. So, to remain competitive, science and research time will become more intensive and innovative earlier as product development time continues to compress at an unprecedented rate. Innovation and a future focus will be necessary to remain in the game. Technologies such as grid technology, mid-weight computer clients, and collaborative computing play large roles in making every device a server.
(6) Globalization and outsourcing continue to be paradigms of success.
Again, as in last year, to be successful in a real-time, global marketplace, businesses must understand and adapt to the new source of competitive advantage by connecting to the core competencies and customer interaction on a global scale. In the business world, global collaboration is imperative. Outsourcing becomes more strategic--it's not all about price.
(7) The age of bio enters a new stage of production as advances in the technology continue.
Continuing the trend from 2005, national and global collaboration is enhancing potential bio commercialization. Bio is beginning to see a pay-off in 2006, and the first wave of consolidation takes place.
(For a complete listing of last year's trends, please see "TFI Provides 2005 Trends that will Catalyze the Future," http://www.tfi.com/pubs/w/ti_2005-trends.html.)
Author Mr. Smith would be glad to be interviewed for an article on trends for 2006 and beyond. We also welcome the press to use this material, citing David Smith and Technology Futures, Inc. as sources.
Mr. Smith has been actively involved in technology management and forecasting for more than 30 years. Since joining TFI in 1996, he has assisted in creating and implementing plans for such organizations as Boeing, CIA, Coca-Cola, Department of Defense, Embraer, Hughes, Intel, Compaq, Kodak, Kyocera, Lockheed Martin, National Security Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and Sun Microsystems.
Recent national and international presentations include Keynote Speeches for the U.S. Senate Conference on Emerging Technology, Information Management Forum, Kodak's Global Leadership Forum, the Photography & Imaging Manufacturing Association (PIMA), 7-11, and the Society of Telecommunications Consultants (STC) Conference.
Mr. Smith's views on technology trends have been prominently featured in Business Week and American Demographics, among other publications. His complete bio can be found at http://www.tfi.com/staff/bios/smithd.html. Many of his citations and activities can be found under "TFI News" at http://www.tfi.com/pressroom/tfinews.html. An electronic copy of his photo is located at http://www.tfi.com/pressroom/materials.html.
For more than 25 years, TFI has helped organizations plan for the future by offering outstanding technology forecasting, strategic planning, trend analysis, and strategic market research services in high-technology and telecom technologies. Drawing on proven, quantifiable forecasting methods and strategic applications, we combine the vision of the futurist with the down-to-earth judgment of the technologist. Let us be "Your Bridge to the Future."
PRESS CONTACT: Please contact Ms. Carrie Vanston at (800) TEK-FUTR, (512) 258-8898, or by e-mail with questions or comments or to arrange an interview with Mr. Smith, or other experts at TFI. We are always happy to comment on the subjects of technology and telecom trends. We welcome you to visit our website at http://www.tfi.com and our "Press Room" at http://www.tfi.com/pressroom/index.html.
Technology Futures, Inc.
13740 Research Boulevard, Building C
Austin, TX 78750
(800) 835-3887 or (512) 258-8898
Fax: (512) 258-0087
www.tfi.com
# # #
ecember 28, 2005 -- Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) has introduced a new family of precision, micro-power operational amplifiers (op amps) from the company’s Burr-Brown product line. The OPA379 family operates within a 1.8-V to 5.5-V supply voltage range and features high performance single-supply operation, very low quiescent current (2.9µA) and low noise (80nV/rtHz) relative to the quiescent current. The micro-size packages make the devices ideal for battery-powered applications.
This product family offers an impressive unity gain bandwidth/quiescent current ratio of 90kHz on 2.9µA and has significantly lower noise than products with similar current consumption. The combination of DC precision specifications - Vos (1.5mV max), CMRR (90dB min), PSRR (10uV/V max) and AOL (100dB min) - make this product family very attractive for designs requiring precision with low power consumption.
The reduced package size of the OPA379 allows compact designs in a variety of applications including designs with TI’s MSP430 low-power microcontrollers, as well as handheld medical instruments, remote sensors, gas detection and wireless metering.
Pricing and Availability
The OPA379 (single) and OPA2379 (dual) are available now from TI and its authorized distributors in SOIC packages. SOT-23 and SC70 versions will be offered in 1Q 2006, along with a quad version, the OPA4379 in a TSSOP package. The single and dual versions are priced at $0.75 and $1.10 respectively in 1,000 piece quantities (suggested resale pricing).
Profile
GeoTango is a privately held company that delivers truly innovative solutions for 3D Internet visualization, 3D modeling, and location based services. We are the developer of SilverEye, the only software in the world for rapid 3D modeling and analysis using single satellite images or aerial photos. SilverEye is the fastest approach to build 3D models of any location in the world. GeoTango also provides high quality services for fast generation of 3D urban and facility models. The GeoTango service team will acquire the appropriate image data, create 3D models for your area of interest, and deliver the information in the format you require and in the timeframes you need. GeoTango GlobeView allows users to explore the world from the globe to street level in an immersive 3D digital earth environment. Gain immediate access to information anywhere on the planet including images, maps, 3D views and fly-overs. GlobeView offers a wide range of location-based services including local search, place finder, driving directions, weather, and traffic. Unlike other solutions GlobeView allows you to explore any image and location-based information available on the internet, using our web services oriented architecture. GeoTango clients include organizations and agencies in defense; intelligence; homeland security; visualization and simulation; emergency response; telecommunications; municipalities; health; media; utilities and energy; and the United Nations.
Contact Information
| Web Site: | http://www.geotango.com |
| Email Address: | contact@geotango.com |
| Phone: | 416-665-5467 |
| Fax: | 416-665-2032 |
| Address: | 4850 Keele Street Toronto, Ontario M3J 3K1 Canada |
Microsoft Corporation Acquires GeoTango, Inc.
December 31, 2005
Company: GeoTango International Corp.
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Toronto,Canada-December 23, 2005 - MSN today announced that it has acquired Toronto-based GeoTango International Corp.
The acquisition furthers MSN's rapid push into creating an immersive mapping and local search framework that enables users to easily find, explore, discover and share information and content for anywhere on earth.
GeoTango's technology assets and expertise enhance MSN's ability to deliver this experience in the areas ranging from rich real-world visualization to location-centric community content.
GeoTango's product suite will be integrated over time into MSN's product and service offerings assets.
Current GeoTango customers and partners can make inquiries to: contact@geotango.com.
Press inquiries can be directed to: rrt@waggeneredstrom.com.
rrt@waggeneredstrom.com (rrt@waggeneredstrom.com)
Phone: rrt@waggeneredstrom.com
By Jonathan Amos BBC News science reporter |
A new era in satellite navigation has begun with the launch of Giove-A. 
Watch the launch The 600kg spacecraft was lifted into orbit on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, at 1119 (0519GMT).
Giove-A will demonstrate key technologies needed for Galileo, the 3.4bn-euro (£2.3bn; $4bn) sat-nav system Europe hopes to deploy by 2010.
The new network will give EU states guaranteed access to a space-borne precise timing and location service independent of the United States.
The perfect launch was a moment of celebration for the small British company, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), which had been given the prestigious task of building the demonstrator.
Europe's 'vanguard'
SSTL staff had gathered at their Guildford base to watch the lift-off on a TV link from Baikonur.
The company put the spacecraft together in less than three years, a remarkably short timeframe for what is essentially an experimental platform. 
"Three years ago I did a sketch of what I thought we could do. To go from that sketch to what we have now is amazing," recalled John Paffett, projects director with SSTL.
"It's not over yet - there's a lot of hard work to go ahead - but it's definitely a monumental occasion," he told the BBC News website.
Professor Sir Martin Sweeting, the CEO of SSTL, added: "This is going to be Europe's largest space project. As a relatively small company - we're an SME of 200 people, specialising in small and rapid-response spacecraft - to take the vanguard of such a large programme is quite an experience."
First signal
Giove-A will check out the in-orbit performance of two atomic clocks - critical to any sat-nav system - and a number of other components that will be incorporated into the 30 satellites of the fully fledged Galileo constellation.
These spacecraft - four of which have already been ordered - are expected all to be in orbit by the end of 2010.
Giove-A also has the important job of securing the radio frequencies allocated to Galileo within the International Telecommunications Union. 
To do this, a sat-nav signal of the correct structure must be received on Earth by June 2006. The SSTL team believes it can complete this task within the first couple of weeks of flight.
Galileo is a joint venture between the European Union and the European Space Agency (Esa).
Once fully deployed, the new system should revolutionise the way we use precise timing and location signals delivered from space.
"We are aiming to provide one-metre, worldwide accuracy through Galileo's 'open' service - this is not possible today without regional or local augmentation," said Esa's Galileo project manager, Javier Benedicto.
"With the use of three signals, we will have access to centimetre accuracies, and with these you will see many more services than you have today; and European industry is working to develop those applications."
Future growth
In few years' time, a small Galileo chip will be integrated in mobile phones, giving users the ability to pinpoint restaurants, hotels, movie theatres, hospitals or car parks.
Bushey Watford, UK
Galileo will deliver the tools national governments need to introduce wide-scale road charging.
The network will also underpin Europe's new air-traffic control system. The single European sky initiative will overhaul current technologies used to keep planes at safe separations, and allow pilots to fly their own routes and altitudes.
SSTL hopes a successful mission for Giove-A will bring more orders for sat-nav and other spacecraft.
"This is very good for our development," explained Max Meerman, a principal engineer with the company.
"It's the biggest satellite we've done so far, it's got big deployable tracking-arrays that we haven't done before, and it cost 28m euros (£19m; $33m)."
Globalsat Launches Wrist Mounted Training GPS
The GlobalSat GH-601 and GH-602 look similar to the Garmin Forerunners only in colored casings. The GlobalSat GH-601 comes with a good set of features including waterproof casing, a SiRF star III chipset for accuracy and lo power consumption, pace alerts and a rechargable Lithium ion battery. Garmin is soon announcing the ForeRunner 205 and 305 that upgrade several features including using the SiRF star III chipset, a new configuration that makes it more comfortable and more reliable - see our article. The GH-602 adds an electronic compass and a barometric altimeter.
The units come in red, green and yellow.
The features are:
*Built-in SiRF Star III high performance GPS chipset. Excellent sensitivity for fixing the position even at a weak signal status.
*With an omni-directional GPS antenna, it can receive the signal from all directions.
*With built in rechargeable lithium-ion battery.
*Large LCD for easy reading.
*Waterproof design to avoid damaging with carelessness.
*Recording all history of self training by defined day.
*Coach mode : Define a target performance to be achieved.
*Pace Alert : While user is slower / faster the define performance.
*Navigation : Map the location ; mark the trace point ; find the marked point ; backtrack mode ; Ahead / North Direction.
*Electronic Compass : Resolution≦0.6uT/count (For 602).
*Barometric Altimeter : 15~115 kPa (For 602).
Receiver: 20 channels
Number of Waypoints: 100
Lap History: Automatically records up to 1000 laps by day or week
Np. of Routes / No. of waypoints per route: 10 / 125
Battery Life: 16 HR (Rechargeable lithium ion)
Display Size (H x W in inches): 0.98 x 1.57
Display type: Black & White LCD
Area Calculation: No
Pixels (H x W): 80 x 120
Standard GPS Antenna: Built in patch
Return to Origin: Yes
Unit Weight: 2.57 oz.
Audible Alarms:Yes
Waterproof Standard: IPX7
Unit Size (H x W x D in inches): 1.8 x 3.2 x .7
Backlit Display: Single level
Training Software: With Software included
Simu-runner: Yes
Auto-wait: Yes
Self-loop: Yes
Pace Alert: Yes
Time/Distance Alert: Yes
Interval Training: Yes
Ext. Ant. Hookup: Yes
Voltage Range: Yes
Waypoint Icons: Yes
FineDrive M700D GPS
No news on availability in the US, but the price is expected to be in the range of $649 - This would be a great price if the unit came pre-loaded with maps for the US. The Garmin 7200 is expected to be well over $1000.
Core Blogs, Aggregators and Blog Content Stealing
What Mike brought out for me was that blogs that reprint or consolidate blog enties (like SlashGeo) are a different animal than those that find/create/add value to content. He explains in response to the argument that those who do reprint are "taking money" from the original sites: "The people who would find such content interesting almost definitely are reading the original sources, and will know immediately that the site in question is ripping people off. " I'd perhaps say it this way: those who are seriously into a topic read the top blogs in that industry. Those who have cursory interest read aggregated ones. (That's likely true of in depth analytical writing and headline sites, too.) Only the "good" aggregators stay in business, because they add value as good filters (I got my start in Web writing at such a site, tenlinks.com). Core blogs (that "find/create/add value to content") get most of their traffic/best comments/most referals from the hard core readers.
Let me use myself as an example. I'm a GIS weenie. I read lots of GIS blogs. I don't spend much time reading the aggregators (SlashGeo/Planet Geospatial) because I've already culled out the best blogs for me and don't need their help. I'm not a general technology weenie so I read but two tech blogs - Slashdot and TechDirt. I count on them to fish out the stuff I need to know and if they miss something, I'm ok with that. I have to believe there are those only vaguely interested in GIS who read the geo aggregators and might eventually get to APB that way.
Welcome to OGC
The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) is a non-profit, international, voluntary consensus standards organization that is leading the development of standards for geospatial and location based services. Through our member-driven consensus programs, OGC works with government, private industry, and academia to create open and extensible software application programming interfaces for geographic information systems (GIS) and other mainstream technologies. Adopted specifications are available for the public's use at no cost. Learn More.
What is GeoserverGeoserver is a fully functional open source WFS-T and WMS server that follows the OGC With Geoserver you can publish data as maps/images (using the WMS), as actual data (using the WFS), and allow users to update, delete, and insert features (using the WFS-T). GeoServer's focus is ease of use and support for open standards, in order to enable anyone to quickly share their geospatial information in an interoperable way. More information on specific features of GeoServer can be found here . Geoserver is built on Geotools Read more about what GeoServer is here. |
|
The eagle-eyed crschmidt and drumm spotted, while looking at NYC maps both via mfrumin's flash overlay tool for plotting vectors over GMaps and via the main Google Maps site... the base maps look quite different. Specifically, there are many features and enhancements missing in the maps that come out of the API.
They reasoned out that the basemap data you get via the API is only from TeleAtlas, but if you look at the maps through Google's branded gateway, they are enhanced with NavTech data too. As rich pointed out, there's a long discussion about this on the Google Maps API Google Group, or usenet group as it was once known.
Conspiracy theories fly! Do people really care enough about very high quality base maps to pay for a premium API service? Or are geodata licensing costs driving this decision on the part of GMaps? If quality of service continues to deteriorate, will this provide a boon to collaborative mapping in the land of the free geodata, augmenting the accuracy and currency that Google's maps may be losing? Answers on a postcard to the population of irc.oftc.net#geo ...
Thu, 06 Oct 2005
A couple of readers pointed out that i seemed to have upset Ed Parsons, the CTO of the Ordnance Survey, not a little bit with my reference to the display in his presentation of viably unnecessary, easily outsourceable techno-toys, at the recent Society of Cartographers conference session on Public Access to Maps/Data
Ed's slides showed a 1 million pound plus plane for collecting high-resolution aerial imagery of the UK. Yet getmapping provide an equivalent service, up to 12.5 centimetre resolution, on the market. Acquisition of aerial imagery could be put out to tender, with the OS doing subsequent orthorectification and production work on the imagery - although this would probably be outsourced to Delhi anyway.
Ed also showed a schematic of a GPS rig for the Ordnance Survey's 'stringers', ground-truthers, which costs 20-30 thousand pounds, and needs constant maintenance and service. I would like to know how much of the OS's ground-truthing activity actually takes place in areas that would be regarded places of market failure. The OS receives a handsome supplement from the state in the form of the National Interest Mapping Service Agreement and the Pan-Government Agreement. There is talk of putting both sets of services out to commercial tender when the current set of agreements expires.
The Ordnance Survey's R'n'I department is producing GPS videogames as part of its innovation development. To me they looked like bland versions of art and academic originated projects i'd seen a couple of years before.
OK Jo - why don't you try and capture some data to the OS specification the details are here (3mb pdf), without access to the "toys" of the trade.
As I have noted before I think there is a place for open geodata and await developments with interest, but this is a case of somebody without a true understanding of the professional geographic information industry pushing an agenda despite the facts.
As of writing, almost 450 people have signed the Open Geodata Manifesto. They are academics, economists, small business owners, professional GIS developers. These people share a lot of the ideas that i emit. Are they all subject to an agenda which reflects no true understanding of professional and commercial concerns in the domain of GIS?
I am an enthusiastic amateur who writes software, yes, not a GI industry professional. I've never engaged with the Open Geospatial Consortium's standards base other than through application servers. On the web and the semantic web there are specialised domain vocabularies; there are simplified expressions which translate into more complex ones; there are a myriad ad-hoc standards in different domains. Applications built on the geospatial web have been described as the "long tail" of geographic information science; an effort which helps grow the ecology for everyone. Here in the UK, i cannot help grow the ecology, unless by participating in grassroots map-making efforts like OpenStreetmap, because i cannot freely use and redistribute the data that is collected by the Ordnance Survey in any form.
The needs i have, the needs shared by the people i hope to help to make maps, are not for bay-window-level building detail, nor for 'Spatial Data Infrastructure' level of application complexity. A generalised data set which gives a good outline of street features and points of interest would be enough for Google Maps mashup level of activity; a KML profile would enable amazing applications on Google Earth. Like it or not, this activity is bringing into the public mind what can be done with maps and spatial information; a sense of how we all become mapmakers.
Maps have tremendous social value, the ability to make one's own maps confers a kind of power. Geodata has tremendous economic value; attempts to toll its distribution are choking innovation. The Ordnance Survey has probably the highest-quality vector map data available anywhere in the world, of this small corner of it. Release a generalised version of it for civic information mapping; this will not impact the OS's core business model severely; it will enable a flourishing of research and commercial mapping applications that would enrich society and the economy. Is the role of the National Mapping Agency in the 21st century to make maps, or to vouch for maps, and facilitate their free and fair use by government and citizens alike?
The OS is conferred protected status in the market by Crown Copyright. With the erosion of its public services and innovation role by the market, this protected status becomes less meaningful, more open to inspection. Ed Parsons states the rationale, "we must recover costs from our users because we need to support this infrastructure investment". I believe that a combination of market action, and state sponsorship cheaper that present commitments to map areas of market failure, obsoletes the role of the traditional National Mapping Agency. I think there is still a role as a broker, but this should aim to facilitate the flow of information to where it is needed by citizens and government, not impede it in pursuit of greater intellectual property rights.
Crown Copyright is impeding a valuable debate on reuse and redistribution of public sector information. The OS is a 'Trading Fund', neither in government or out of it. As 'e-government' really materialises its role will also change materially. The INSPIRE proposed Directive going through the EU process aims to consolidate the role of the NMAs in an immensely complex European Spatial Data Infrastructure, to get onto which will involve the reading of more than several 206-page specifications. Research and industry oriented solutions to immense problems of correlation and analysis would emerge if the geodata were open. Instead, debates over IP rights of different kinds delay the process; the public is granted the prospect of a 'view' of information; and nothing gets done.
Sorry, you can't leave comments on the Mapping Hacks blog; as i think Danny O'Brien put it, that's why you get your own blog.
Tue, 04 Oct 2005
At the recent World Summit on Free Information Infrastructures i organised a series of Open Geodata activities. We held some small workshops on practical implementations and standards. I'd hoped to do something on a bigger scale with more EU attendees, but i was very happy with what we ended up with. There was also a long panel and discussion session at the weekend.
Schuyler did a lot of work on setting up the Free Map System which CRIT are using for the Mumbai Free Map. It's going to become a public hosted service for nonprofit, free of copyright mapping applications. Chris Holmes talked him into replacing the demo with mapbuilder, which is now being redistributed with geoserver.
I did some work on the spatial modelling inside nodel, my sort of meta-application framework. This is the aggregation based local information service that i've been trying to sync up with Ile Sans Fil's WifiDog, the captive portal / community network service, which i talked over with its designer Benoit Gregoire. With nodel and bbox on the free map system, i'd like to extend the openguides and other RDF models onto the geospatial web.
The sessions on location portals and what to build on them, kindly shepherded by Mike Lenczner of Ile sans Fil, produced an interesting technical wishlist/roadmap and on the second day a more user-oriented look at systems.
We talked with Steve Coast and Ben Gimpert about their progress on OpenStreetmap's new RESTful interface which is running into things that the GPX format won't currently express. A better transport, preferably (from my point of view) RDF compatible, simpler than GML for basic expressions, is needed.
On the Sunday we held a panel and discussion session as part of the main Wsfii weekend; there is an mp3 recording of the open maps panel available. (warning, 18mb and choppy at the beginning) It features: Ben Gimpert talking about OpenStreetmap's plans, Nick Whitelegg talking about his hobbyist approach to digital map storytelling with free-map.org.uk , Schuyler, standing in for Shekhar Krishnan on the Mumbai Free Map and Free Map System; Chris Corbin on the re-use of public sector information and the constraints on it; and Chris Holmes on spatial data exchange, ad-hoc common standards development and the 'geospatial web' compared to 'spatial data infrastructure'. I found Chris's rallying cry to open and transform spatial data access (around 73:30 in the recording) particularly moving:
"A vision for the geospatial web: an explosion of geospatial data to rival the internet, as we all become map-makers; citizens and governments collaborating to maintain base layers in a commons of information; this is especially relevant in places of market failure...
Geospatial data should be an infrastructure, something that is taken for granted as a base for further free information infrastructures: open source traffic modelling, open source environmentalism, natural open source resource management. The geospatial web should be a texture, just like the internet is the basis of many other infrastructures on top of it.
We're only going to only get there together, we need to build this, we need to free the spatial data infrastructures from the powers that be, tailor them to our uses and build something better than they could even possibly imagine."
Francois Proulx put some very nice photos of our workshop at Wsfii on flickr, it looks like we are having a good time.
Geospatial Semantic Web Bookmarks
I’ve created a page with geospatial semantic web links. I hope readers of this blog will find these bookmarks to be useful.
http://www.geospatialsemanticweb.com/bookmarks/
If you have other links to suggest, please let me know — email me or add comments to the page.
Folksonomy in Geospatial Applications
I came across an article that talks about the use of folksonomy in geospatial applications. It reminded me of a post that I have written. Today folksonomy is in the roots of many interesting web applications, e.g., flickr and technorati. I agree with the authors on that future geospatial applications could explore similar ideas. For example,
- Geospatial folksonomies perhaps one day could help the standardization of FGDC (Federal Geographical Data Committe) metadata, which is aimed to improve the organization, search and sharing of geospatial information
- Folksonomies may be used by geo-workers to annotate images and layers, so that information can be ranked and sorted.
- RSS feeds could also exploit geospatial folksonomies. News items and blogs that are tagged with geospatial information can be used to develop location-based search engines and directory services.
Few other thoughts that come to my mind.
- How to develop shared ontologies is a big problem in buliding geospatial semantic web applications. Different agencies use different vocabularies. It’s often difficult for them to agree on a shared ontology in the begining. Maybe folksonomy can help to solve this problem — build systems that can accomandate the evoloution of ontologies.
- While folksonomy can help us to build better geospatial applications, geospatial technology can also help to improve the use of folksonomy. For example, geospatial reasoning can improve the quality of search results. Knowing the zip code 90210 is located in Los Angeles, CA., when a user searches for blogs in LA, blogs that are tagged with "90210" will also be returned.
Goolge Moon
Since Google has conquered the mapping of the Earth, it’s working on the mapping of Lunar surface. Google Moon is a project that maps the landing sites of our first travel to the moon on July 20, 1969.
What’s more? Google’s Copernicus Center is hiring.
Geospatial Technology for the Everyday People
During this holiday season, while people are busy with holiday shopping and travels, companies and government agencies are busy with new geospatial applications for the everyday people. For example, both Google Earth and NORAD provide interactive map services that track the journey of Santa Claus.
This is a healthy sign that shows geospatial technology is not only valuable to the secretive government agencies but also to the everyday people.
Quick links:
- Google Earth Santa KML file.
- NORAD tracks Santa (since 1955)
Governments Tremble at Google Earth
People love Google Earth, but their governments may not. New York Times reports that the growing popularity of Goolge Earth has many governments worried. For example,
India, whose laws sharply restrict satellite and aerial photography, has been particularly outspoken. "It could severely compromise a country’s security," V. S. Ramamurthy, secretary in India’s federal Department of Science and Technology, said of Google Earth. And India’s surveyor general, Maj. Gen. M. Gopal Rao, said, "They ought to have asked us."
I believe in the free use of information, including geospatial data. Should new technology enables everyday people to become GIS specialists, that would be great. If geospatial technology can solve many of our everyday problems, there is no reason to keep them behind the closed doors.
Should new technology threaten national security, we will develop new solutions to overcome this problem. That’s how we as a society has advanced in the past, and I believe that’s how we will continue to do so in the future.
A New GPS Device that Does Caching
Mobile computing is a big market for GPS navigation. According to this IHT article, as the price of powerful mobile devices descreses, the demand for GPS-enabled mobile devices will increase.
Signal loss is a major problem for the existing GPS devices. In cities, tall buildings sometimes can break the links between the mobile devices and the satellies.
TeleNav is working on a new technology to solve this problem.
Hassan Wahla, senior director of business development at TeleNav, said the system calculates where a user is and then - based on speed, as determined by an internal accelerometer - indicates where the user is likely to be whenever satellite signals are interrupted.
"If you lose signal while traveling under a bridge or because of a tall building, you keep navigating," Wahla said. "The entire trip is downloaded in the first minute of a trip and is stored on your phone or BlackBerry as you’re driving. If the GPS goes off line, you will continue to be given guidance. It knows your last known location and speed."
Sometimes the easiest way to solve a network connection problem is by caching.
Geospatial Semantic Web Challenges
Prof. Max Egenhofer has written a short paper, "Toward the Semantic Geospatial Web", that discusses some key issues in building a new Web that can exploit geospatial semantics. He believes that in order for Semantic Geospatial Web (or geospatial semantic web as I call it) to take off, it will require the development of standard geospatial ontologies for representing data and standard query languages for accessing data.
I believe standard ontologies and query languages only solve part of the problem. In real world geospatial applications, building standard vocabularies and queries langugaes are the easy part of the tasks. The hard part of the problem is how to integrate mass amount of geospatial data that already exists.
- How can we integrate existing geospatial data without needing to create new databases that basically replicate the existing ones?
- How can we query the semantic knowledge that is fused from heterogenous data sources without needing to know the specific representations of these data sources ?
- How can we track the pedigree and provenence of geospatial data in a Web-based information space in which anyone can say anything about everything?
- How can we faciliate the sharing of different types of geospatial data (images, videos, maps etc) in a Web-based environemnt?
Think Geospatial Semantics Not Maps
In the past, when the term "geospatial" is mentioned, people immediately think digitial maps. Today most people think Google Maps and Google Earth when the same term is mentioned. To me, seeing mapping technology as the sole component of geospatial technology is a nearsighted vision.
Geospatial technology is more than just pretty maps. A recent IDC study shows that the spatial information management industry is undergoing radical technology changes, which is likely to impact many IT ecosystems.
Fundamental shifts in the spatial information management industry include basic changes in the nature of geospatial work, and transitions in the broad IT environment toward easier integration and support for business processes.
The study finds that geospatial data, and not the map, has become the raw resource for creating location-specific information. Therefore, efforts to convert paper maps to digital data have been replaced as geospatial data is used to generate new maps, decisions, and automated processes.
Let me take things one step further. I think a wide adoption of geospatial technology in IT is only the begnning. Some of the most exiciting applications in the future will be the ones that exploit geospatial semantics, not just geospatial data.
The Need for Image Annotation Software
At present, analysts rely on text reports to share intelligence information. Often this makes the sharing of intelligence information very difficult. Let’s take imagery analysis as an example. An analyst typically studies satellie images and analyzes the geographical features that are depicted in these images. Based on his/her knowledge, the analyst attempts to extract useful intelligence information from the analysis. For example, seeing the development of new military arm forces in a previously abandoned nuclear facility in North Korean, the analyst concludes that the country is attempting to reopen the nuclear facility.
Now, let’s assume the analyst writes down his/her conclusion in the report, and passes on this report to some other analysts. Based on the report, why should these analysts believe the author? Why should they believe that there is new military arm forces in the target region? What exactly are those geographical features or changes depicted in the pictures that made the analyst to draw his/her conclusion?
Even if we assume the author did write down a comprehensive description of his analysis, how easy would it be for this report and its content to be searched by different analysts in a later time?
It’s clear that plain text is not the best format for building up machine processable knowledge. To better facilitate this kind of intelligence analysis, there is a need for image annotation tools.
Some interesting image annotation tools and resources:
- PhotoStuff — an application that allows the user to annotate different parts of an image with RDF descriptions.
- iPhotoRDF — an Mac iPhoto plugin that allows the user add RDF annotations
- DOM Image Annotation Guide — a guide that reveals how Flickr builds its photo annotation capability using DHTML and Flash
- ESW Image Annotation Archives — a list of image annotation tools that build on Semantic Web technology
Semantic Representation Matters in GIS
GML is a language that attempts to provide standard vocabularies for sharing and exchanging geospatial information. The definition of the language is very comprehensive. GML can be used to express extremely complex geospatial concepts.
However, GML falls short in being the right language for semantic representation. The root of the problem is that the expressiveness of GML is limited by the expressiveness of the XML language. For example, you can use GML to express a particular time instant. However, it’s no easy to reference this defined time instance from a different context (e.g., in a different document).
On the other hand, if you use RDF/OWL to describe a time instant. It’s very easy to reference the defined instance from a different document. This makes easy for extending the description. For example, in one document you define a time instance (e.g., urn-x:t1), and in the other you describe the same time instant as an instance of some event (e.g. (urn-x:t1, rdf:type, evt:Event)) and specify its a calendar/clock value (e.g., (urn-x:t1, tm:hasCalendarClock, "2005-12-02T12:09:93")).
I believe the ability to represent geospatial semantics is of great importance when building geospatial applications. Not only it will enable applications to share information, but also it will allow applications to better reuse information.
Geospatial Semantic Web
What’s Geospatial Semantic Web? It’s part of the future Semantic Web that helps people and computing machines to discover and share information by exploiting geospatial technology. It’s also a web-centric information space that lowers the barrier for the dissemination of geospatial information by leveraging semantic web technology.
Why should we study Geospatial Semantic Web? Breakthrough technologies often result from the cross-fertilization of technologies that originate from distinctive domains. By studying the Geospatial Semantic Web, we hope to gain new insights on the applications of the Semantic Web technology and how semantics will play a role in future geospatial information systems.
