Tuesday, February 10. 2009

Indian Ministry or Earth Science Focuses on Developing Tsunami Early Warning System

In an interview conducted with Dr. Shailesh Nayak, Secretary of the Ministry of Earth Science (Government of India), we discussed the use of GIS in developing a tsunami warning system that was begun shortly after the Indonesian tsunami in December 2004. India recognized a need for a rapid response system for tsunami warning. His department instituted a program to develop a three-part system using sensor systems to monitor tides, ocean bottom pressure recorders, and other coastal monitoring stations. He emphasized the need to acquire data in real-time. However, in order to enact a warning system that was accurate, there was a need to establish a huge database of tsunami models.

Posted by Joe Francica in Education, Sensors, Real-Time/Dynamic Data, Map World Forum 2009 at 11:52 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Creating a Sustainable Lens...a Digital Globe: Remote Sensing CEO's Offer Future Vision

Two remote sensing technology CEOs offered provocative insights into how they will conduct their companies in the near future at the Map World Forum in Hyderabad, India today. Jill Smith of DigitalGlobe wants her company to proactively collect imagery of regions of the world where climate change or other problems might be of interest to the global geospatial community. Dr. Robert Moses of PCI Geomatics believes that one day we will use a web service to query and analyze for change detection in a region using not only a time-series of remotely-sensed imagery but advanced classification algorithms to automatically map and highlight the affected areas. "The greatest opportunity is to enable a true model using all of the available sensors," said Moses.

Posted by Joe Francica in Remote Sensing, Sensors, Map World Forum 2009 at 11:25 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Thursday, February 5. 2009

NASA Satellite to Map Earth's CO2 Levels

NASA will soon launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), a satellite that will effectively detect the levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Prior to the launch of the OCO, CO₂ measurements were taken with land-based instrumentation such as FLUXNET and AmeriFlux both of which are management by Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL). The OCO will measure the reflected radiance in both the near IR (.77 µ) and slightly longer wavelengths (2.06 µm) for oxygen and CO₂ bands, respectively, to model the actual CO₂ levels. Chemical and Engineering News reports that the launch is scheduled for Feb. 23. Airborne instruments will support the calibration of the model.

Posted by Joe Francica in Remote Sensing, Sensors at 15:03 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

SiRF Technology’s GPS Solutions in SYNC with Ford Cars…Literally

SiRF Technology is providing the GPS chip set for Ford Motor Corporation’s SYNC technology to support location-based applications. SYNC was developed jointly with Microsoft and was launched 18 months ago on selected Ford vehicles. It is an in-dash system for advanced connectivity, communication and entertainment but, as importantly, functions as platform for many other applications that can be expanded when the demand is needed.  On January 8th at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Ford announced that SYNC’s new features will now include Traffic by INRIX and driving directions supported by TeleNav that leverage SiRF’s technology.

SiRF is working with M/A-COM Technology Solutions, a tier 1 electronics supplier to Ford that is supplying an integrated module to Ford that includes the SiRF chip set with antenna, receiver, and memory as well as a Bluetooth-enabled phone. M/A-Com is responsible for linking location to the car’s architecture bus and making sure it works indoors as well as outdoors.

The technology of M/A-Com and SiRF that is being supplied to Ford will use the car’s architecture bus to take information from the car’s many other sensors to compliment the GPS. Using a SiRF Star II GPS chip set, SiRF developed new software architecture to work with the car’s sensors.  This allows the SiRF GPS chips to calibrate the vehicle’s sensors, such as an internal gyroscope, and the vehicle’s sensors will in turn support location determination if a GPS signal is not available.

When GPS is not reliable, the combined measurements of speed and heading as well as the odometer are used to determine the vehicles location. The vehicle’s internal gyroscope is involved to help also determine whether the car is going forward or reverse so that location accuracy will be maintained. Other vehicle sensors are so accurate so as to detect whether the wheels are drifting and if the car tires are expanding, both of which might affect the vehicle’s position over long distances. In that case, the M/A-COM modules is sophisticated enough to perform the recalibration needed to correct location. 

Posted by Joe Francica in LBS, GPS, Sensors, Traffic, Navigation at 08:46 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, January 27. 2009

Podcast: Hybrid Positioning and Your Future

Hybrid positioning refers to handsets that use GPS and another technology to determine the device's location. Such solutions use Wi-Fi access points, cell towers, TV towers and their related signals, RFID, Bluetooth as a companion for when GPS is not enough. A recent report suggest growing use of hybrid solutions. What might your future and that of geospatial marketplace look like as these solutions proliferate? Our editors share some scenarios and point out gaps in the existing infrastructure, i.e., places to make money.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in RFID, LBS, GPS, Sensors, Directions on the News Podcast, Wi-Fi, Geospatial Business, Routing, Tracking, Logistics, Infrastructure at 01:00 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |

Monday, January 12. 2009

Consumer Electronics Show 2009: A Geo-Highlights Wrap Up

This long-ish post pull together the announcements from the consumer sphere that may relate to geotechnology, or that you shouldn’t miss.

Bottom line themes: more connectedness, convergence and location data. Big geo news? None really. Big device news? Palm’s Pre.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Microsoft, Tracking, GPS, Remote Sensing, Sensors, Real-Time/Dynamic Data, Local Search, Satellite Navigation, Navigation, Social Networking, Apple, Tele Atlas, NAVTEQ, Infrastructure at 06:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |