To set the stage of this essay I would ask each reader to think back to a time in their life when they were asked “what do I want to do when I grow up?” This simple but powerful question has been recurrent for centuries with varying answers, to the demise…
Wearable Computing and the Internet of Things
It is hard to go anywhere now and not see individuals or whole crowds of people staring at their “device”. I was walking past an outdoor café the…
Does the term GIS mean anything at all?
I have recently been reading a series of national and state GIS articles and user needs documents, all of which talk about the need for a National GIS…
Indoor Location: The Mobile Revolution Starts Now
The future of mobile location-based services lies in its rapid adoption of indoor technologies. For more than 20 years, the use of global positioning system, or GPS, has been the gold standard for outdoor navigation. The satellite-based navigation system has…
Hitting the Point: A Simple Guideline for Contracting 3D Mapping Professionals
Recently, a few technologically specific themes have surfaced in the contemporary business world that all of us can relate to. Whether you are a surveyor, engineer, analyst, or somewhere in gray the topics of “the cloud”, “big data”, and “data mining”…
Sensor Sensibility: Communications Design Considerations for Energy Efficiency
One of the key design constraints in the deployment of a sensor network is the optimization of power consumption and energy efficiency. A problem familiar to those working with embedded devices is the need to eke out every possible capability while working…
Open Data Means Registries
The municipal world has been buzzing with the concepts of Open Data. Many regions and municipalities have declared their support for the idea, and a Global Open Data Day was declared on February 22, 2013. Organizations have formed and principles declared (see…
The Future of Urban Planning: Interactive 3-D Visualization
In many cases, the software used by urban planners and architects is nearly as complex as urban planning itself—especially for owners and operators of the project, who may not have design backgrounds. However, unlike the old, manual method of sorting though…
Mapping Local Resources Helps San Jose Battle Food Insecurity
Food security is a growing social and economic challenge that knows no political boundaries. Even in the United States, an astonishing 18 million households were labeled ‘food insecure’ in 2011 because they lacked the means at some point during the year…
Location-enabled Smart Planning and Community Development
The economic downturn impacted many nations around the world including the US. In particular, decreasing home values left many Americans underwater on their mortgages and many companies and organizations struggling to survive. Companies downsized or went out…
