GPS enabled Solar Panels and other GPS News

AllSun Tracker is a Complete Solar Electric System

The AllSun Tracker is a dual-axis active solar tracker which uses a motor and GPS (Global Positioning System) to turn the solar PV panels both from east to west and up and down to ensure the panels always follow the sun’s elevation.

I guess it's cheaper to use GPS than another sensor, like a light detector?

- All Earth Renewables via @gletham

GPS receivers in China are not passing inspection.

Over 70 percent of GPS navigation devices on the Chinese market failed to pass a recent sample inspection carried out by experts, reports Xinhua News Agency.

Out of a total of 18 different GPS devices, produced by 13 major firms, only 5 devices produced by three different factories, have passed the inspection and are deemed fit for use. The pass rate was below 30 percent.

Among the 18 different types of device, 17 failed to locate a particular position, or were unable to find a path to a specified location. Some devices used outdated map data that was first published ten years ago.

There are more issues with the less expensive devices.

- CRI English

In other Chinese GPS news, an Ameican was fined just over $3000 for illegally collecting survey data with a GPS back in 2010.

Illegal surveying and mapping by foreigners in Xinjiang is "a threat to national defense andeconomic security", Liu Geqing, head of the [surveying and mapping bureau, told China Daily on Tuesday.

"As our ancestors say, an atlas is the key to a country, which cannot be shown to others," Liusaid, calling for the public, especially those working in foreign-related companies andorganizations, to realize the significance of surveying and mapping work.

About 10 foreigners have been prosecuted for illegal mapping in Xinjiang in the last 5 years.

- China Daily

The Bentley Systems State of the Union 2012

Officially, Bentley's unnofficial earnings call (since it's not a public company) is titled an Annual Corporate Update Conference Call. This was the second one, though the company has offered an annual recap for more years than that.

Remarks

Let's start with the numbers. CEO Greg Bentley shared that revenue growth was up 10% to a record $523 million for 2011. Asia contributed 19% of that, up from 16% in 2010. Software subscriptions accounted for 72% of revenues.

In general, explained, building and plant revenues were up since they are typically privately funded. Geospatial and construction revenues were down, since they are publicly funded. Still, the company has weathered the economic storm and expects 6% organic growth in 2012. The products that drove growth in 2011 include: ProjectWise, STAAD, Bentley Map, ProSteel and AutoPLANT.

Bentley holds its rank as #2 in AEC behind Autodesk, which had $626 million in revenues last year. Bentley had record research and development and acquistion spending in 2011 of more than $1 billion. the company has been repurchasing stock, some of which was Intergaph's and that of the equity firm that acquired Intergraph before selling it to Hexagon. Now the Bentley family and eployees own 92% of the stock. Bentley has been redo-ing its financing and now has a credit line of $350 million at a low cost of about 3%.

Subscriptions are a success story. Subscriber levels are now back up where they were before the downturn and last year's Portfolio Balancing program, which allows subscribers to swap seats for what's in need at any time, has been popular. Enterprise License Subscriptions are also popular and serve 29 emmber of the ENR top 50 and 21 of the Bentley Infrastructure 100.

Bentley Learn, the company's on-demand learning has revenues up 36% and has overtaken the revenue lead from "ad hoc" education.

The big news is the growth in China. Last year Greg Bentley reported doubled growth in three years in China. This year that time frame is down to two years. Bentley also detailed an enterprise impelementation with the London area Crossrail high frenquency train network.

The company did announce an acquitision: elco Systems of Germany. The company specializes in electric sector offerings and will now lead the company's electric portolio.

Q &A 

There really were no specific questions related to geosptial, but these were the interesting more general ones. Questions and answers are paraphrased.

Q: How are point clouds and PoinTools (acquired last year) doing?
A: A new release of ProjectWise sill support streaming point clouds. Soon, point clouds will be treated like any other data type. [It's worthy noting that the term LiDAR did not come up.]

Q: Cloud?
A: We are working with Micrsoft on an Azure-based solution for transmittals.

Q: What other geographies beside China are hot?
A: BRIC countries, Middle East, Africa, Chile (where the company has its latest direct operations offie, its 50th country to have one), Southeast Asia... anywhere extractive resource reside.

U.S. Urban Tree Cover Down and other Remote Sensing News

Results indicate that tree cover in urban areas of the United States is declining at a rate of about four million trees per year, according to a U.S. Forest Service study of 20 U.S. cities published in Urban Forestry & Urban Greening.

Forest researchers David Nowak and Eric Greenfield of the U.S. Forest Service's Northern Research Station used satellite imagery to find that tree cover is decreasing at a rate of about 0.27 percent of land area per year in U.S. cities, which is equivalent to about 0.9 percent of existing urban tree cover being lost annually.

- Environmental Protection

Conservationists are using UAVs to gather data to protect land, plants and animals.

Using seed funding from the National Geographic Society, The Orangutan Conservancy, and the Denver Zoo, Lian Pin Koh, an ecologist at the ETH Zürich, and Serge Wich, a biologist at the University of Zürich and PanEco, have developed a conservation drone equipped with cameras, sensors and GPS. So far they have used the remote-controlled aircraft to map deforestation, count orangutans and other endangered species, and get a bird's eye view of hard-to-access forest areas in North Sumatra, Indonesia.

- MongoBay

Scientists from the University of Maryland and Beijing Normal University are partnering to track and predict the impact of climate change internationally. ...

At the University of Maryland today, officials from both institutions and representatives from the Chinese government officially launched the new Joint Center on Global Change and Earth System Science, which will conduct the research.

The key tool? A remote sensing database.

Creation of an international remote sensing database will be one of the new center's first projects, and the interdisciplinary work will take place in both countries. In addition to monitoring agriculture, it will also track land use and land cover.

- News Medical

The Department of Homeland Security plans to award up to $50 million in contracts for aerial remote sensing services to support incident management.

- GovConWire

Sundosoft Brings GIS to Korea and other International GIS News

The Korea Times has a feature on Yoon Jay-joon (Jay Yoon), CEO of Sundosoft, a large GIS player in the country. One of the graphics is of a box of ArcGIS 9. I guess 10 is not yet out there.

- Korea Times

Panasonic's new GPS enabled cameras may not work quite right in China. How and exactly why is not clear, but apparently geotagging is illegal in that country.

- GPS Tracklog

Mackenzie District Council in New Zealand is fight against bad GIS data.

"During the last revaluation, it was discovered the information we sent to our valuers was incorrect. This was due to multiple users creating different copies of the data, manipulating the information and treating it as correct," Mr Morris said.

"If council chose to do nothing, the GIS information will get progressively worse.

But the local government does not want to put a dedicated outside person in charge of cleaning up the data. Instead, it's looking into a shared position.

- Stuff.co.nz

The Doolin Coast Guard team in Co Clare Ireland will be the only such unit in the country with a GIS. It'll be run on tablets to increase efficiency in response and planning.

The system also contains up to date information on the locations of caves, popular surfing spots and other areas where the team might be requested to respond to an incident.

It will also aid in incident planning as it contains information such as radio reception blackspots, access routes and helicopter landing sites.

- Clare Herald

Google Loses French Lawsuit for Its Free Maps and other Google Geo News

Google is guilty of abusing its dominant position with Google Maps per a court in France. It was ordered to pay  €500,000 in damages and interest to the plaintiff and a €15,000 euro fine against Bottin Cartographes. The company, until it was put out of business, offered online maps.

- GPS Biz News

February 1 is the cut-off for companies with onine mapping websites to have a license from the  State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping. Google has applied for one, but does not yet have approval. That suggests its ok to keep running as is, but can't launch anything "new."

- China Daily

After Google launched its Ocean extension for Google Earth back in 2009, oddly well laid-out features on the floor of the Atlantic had been speculated by some to be evidence of the existence of Atlantis, the legendary ancient civilization said to have vanished into the sea thousands of years ago. Those theories have been sunk, though, with NOAA's sobering clarification on exactly what those features are: errors in sonar rendering caused by assembling multiple data sets together, which is exactly what Google Earth does to create a global picture of Earth's oceans. It's a fairly common problem — students at UC San Diego have spent the last three years removing those types of errors from the data by hand, and as of last week, "Atlantis" has been once again wiped off the map, so to speak.

- The Verge

In Korea, Google's December enhancements to Maps, including showing the insides of some 1000 stores in Seoul, has meant competitors had to scramble. They are adding more routing options, more data, easier to use icons on mobiles to try to compete.

- Korea Times