With Lake Powell drying up, maybe some of the canyons Edward Abbey wrote about will be visible again?
From what I’ve read, this is mostly due to attempts to grow cotton in an arid environment.
At least one good thing has come from the war.
My thesis in grad school was about deforestation in Rhondonia.
Who doesn’t want to live on a palm-shaped archipelago?
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Well, I took a little time off from maintaining this blog; I was a little busy with my day job. Haha. I’ve updated the map section with things I’ve been working on over the past few months.
Now that summer is here (and DC seems to shut down during this time of year), I should have a little bit more time to work on it. So, please check here early and often…
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The videos below were created by using pictures taken on my iPhone.
Here is where I took the pictures:
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An interesting open-source database of cell-tower identifications and locations can be found at OpenCellID.org. This project currently has over 90,000 records and it aims to create a complete database of worldwide Cell IDs.
Although the coverage is very limited, as it grows, it should provide a crowed sourced alternative to proprietary databases such as Skyhook and Navizon.
Project is headed by a mysterious company named 8Motions, a provider of geolocalized solutions for mobile devices.
Below is a density map I created from the 91,017 cellular identifications provided in text format from OpenCellID.
Predictably, the highest density of recorded locations is in western Europe; this is likely due to the prevalence of smartphones for the past few years and due to the fact that the software used to record the cellular identifications is currently designed to work primarily with Nokia and Eriksson devices. Surprisingly, over 10,000 locations were recorded in Pakistan.
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A unique site that combines multiple spatial datasets is San Francisco-based MapJack, a sponsor of the Where 2.0 Conference. Unlike Google Street View, MapJack has more of a sharp, immersive feeling. Although it has fewer coverage areas than Google Street View, it also includes walking areas such as parks.
Founded in June 2007, MapJack is a privately held San Francisco-based company. It requires Adobe Flash Viewer to view the seamless interactive panoramas.
Although MapJack only has very limited coverage primarily coverage of Bay Area cities and resort town in Thailand, they plan on extending their covering the USA, Europe, and Asia.
While it has become a crowded field street-level view applications with Google Street View, Microsoft’s Live Search Maps, and start-ups like Earthmine and EveryScape, MapJack is distinctive because it looks so good that you almost think you’re there.
Yesterday, Microsoft joined Amazon and Google and unveiled its cloud computing program called Windows Azure that runs and stores subscriber’s data and programs on its computer-server farms.
As cloud computing evolves, it will allow device and location independence; users will be able to access their personal data and application regardless of where they are or what device they are using. It’s apparent that we are already shifting from a “device centric” world to an “information centric” world.
Companies have fallen behind consumers in using collaborative cloud-based services; blogs, wikis, and social networks have been in use for years. However, it appears that cloud services are flourishing with start-ups, even the smallest of companies can now benefit from the same infrastructure of large companies.
Most applications will no longer be out-of-the-box, discrete software; it will likely be made up of a amalgamation of services from many different servers. Even now, many of the iPhone’s applications connect to the cloud, including 3rd party navigation programs, news feeds, and even multi-player games.
As billions more electronic devices are inevitably connected to the web, GPS devices will be constantly uploading coordinates and downloading points of interest, digital cameras will automatically upload pictures, smart meters will be able to send readings of everything from the oil level of a person’s car to how much electricity a house consumes.
It is possible that up in the cloud, there will be a unique dataset for each individual that will follow them through life and it will not be tied to any particular device. Users will be able to use their applications and data on any gadget that might have at the moment. Devices such as mobile phones will record variables such as movement, temperature, barometric pressure, even measure and record the user’s heartbeat. A person’s life can be chronicled as a lifelog.
Cloud computing will become more ubiquitous as desktop and laptop computers continue to lose their monopoly for interacting with web. As electronic devices become better at gathering and sharing information, there appear to be countless geospatial opportunities in cloud computing.
The electronic cloud appears to adapt to whatever it engulfs.
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Yesterday, Germany-based RapidEye AG released the first images from its 5-satellite constellation. Each of the dishwasher-sized satellites contain identical 5-meter resolution, 5-band multispectral sensors and travel on the same orbital plane, allowing for a unique combination of large area coverage, high spatial resolution and the possibility of daily revisit the capability of imaging any point on Earth every day.
Along with DMC (Disaster Management Constellation) satellites, the RapidEye satellites have the unique capability of acquiring punctual multi-angle imagery of an event.
Presently, most satellites contain several scientific instruments on comparatively large platforms that tend to be rather expensive and must be built with redundant components. The use of smaller, more generic, less expensive satellite constellations (such as RapidEye) would create a system that is more resilient than relying on one customized large satellite.
As the SensorWeb evolves, it may start to resemble the internet with a network consisting of two layers. The first layer would contain small, inexpensive, low-orbiting satellites consisting of group leaders and member satellites. The member satellites would act as computer terminals and the group leaders would act as a servers, communicating externally and managing the local network.
The second layer could be composed of geostationary satellites responsible for communication with the group leaders, worldwide users, and ground control centers. Analogous to ground-based data-processing centers, these geostationary satellites could process data and create value-added products, and data could be transmitted directly to end users.
Imaging satellites are becoming less expensive to produce and prices should follow a Moore’s Law trajectory. Furthermore, as satellites they are reduced in size and weight, launch costs decline. This should allow for an expontential increases in the number of satellites in orbit.
In the near future, there could be thousands of satellites circling the earth; it may take only minutes in acquire information on any surface on the planet.
Some satellites will be deployed in identical orbits, others will deployed in clusters. There will likely be unique combinations of sensor capabilities, some clusters will have spectral sensors (RapidEye), along with separate and SAR and Lidar satellites.
RapidEye satellites are only the second of many planned privately financed satellite constellations. As these constellations become more numerous, it will be interesting to see how the SensorWeb develops as satellite networks become more integrated.
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