Back in December 2006, I wrote about the momentum of Galileo (Europe's planned satellite navigation system) in an article discussing GNSS trends. It's been discussed off and on for well over a decade. It was a hot topic for a number of years. In fact, back around 2001, the U.S. really didn't want the European Union to embark on the project. read more
Ok, a little later than other folks out there, but I’m in Belgium and the beer is good. Here’s my Ten Big Ones in the geospatial industry for 2011. Ten Big Ones 1. Open Street Mapping (OpenStreetMap.org) Yes, this is real and its gaining traction. This is a Wikipedia-like effort to create a digital map of the world,... read more
By Art Kalinski, GISP Looming budget cuts, the uproar against grossly overpaid “public servants” such as in Belle, California, and the growing number of accidents involving elderly drivers have encouraged me to get up on my soapbox in hopes that some of you in the GIS and transportation communities can advance an old idea that may now be right for... read more
It appears that the Consumer Electronics Show is back to its pre-2009 doldrums as hotels, restaurants, cab lines, and registration numbers were up. Despite large wireless carrier presence, CES seemed to continue to be a place where aftermarket navigation providers are hawking their new units. Either way, it still is possible for LBS players, after fighting their way through miles of 3D-capable TV screens, car speakers, and dozens of entities hawking electronic tablets, to find companies still adding location to their consumer electronics offerings. read more
Don Jewell (DJ), our Defense Editor, caught up with Colonel Bernard Gruber (BG), the newest director of the newly renamed Global Positioning Systems Directorate at SMC in Los Angeles, California. They discussed the current status of the GPS program and the way ahead. Don caught Colonel Gruber just before he departed for the East Coast for an Executive-Level Acquisition Course at the Defense Acquisition University at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. read more
If you’ve been around GPS mapping for any length of time, I’m sure you’ve heard of post-processing, and you may have even experienced it yourself. If you used GPS for mapping in the '90s, you almost certainly post-processed your data. In fact, sometimes you had to pay for access to GPS base-station data for post-processing. That’s hard to imagine given the widespread, worldwide availability of GPS base-station data on the web today. read more
Geodesy is a suite of powerful Earth-observation techniques, associated methodologies, and analysis tools that today are making a vital contribution to science and society. Yet geodesy is not a new, child-of-technology sciaence. It dates back hundreds of years — some would claim thousands of years, and that the ancient Greeks and other pre-Christian cultures shaped its direction. This is illustrated by its classical definition as the science of measuring and mapping the geometry, orientation in space, and gravity field of the Earth; these days we also include their variations over time. At a practical level, geodetic practice forms the foundation for surveying, navigation, and mapping, and the digital datasets underpinning these activities. read more
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