Articles

November 06, 2009

Podcast: A Hallway Conversation with Maarten Oldenhof, CEO, Automotive Navigation Data
by Adena Schutzberg
Adena Schutzberg interviewed Automotive Navigation Data (AND) CEO Maarten Oldenhof about the state of commercial geodata, the licensing challenges and the role the community can play in keeping data up-to-date. This is the third in a series of interviews with geospatial insiders and outsiders.

October 30, 2009

Product Overview: Matrox TripleHead2Go
by Hal Reid
Hal Reid is a multi-screen enthusiast, and he pursues his obsession with a look at the Matrox Triplehead2Go. According to Reid, "Once you use a multi-monitor set-up, the applications are endless and it is difficult to go back to one monitor."

October 29, 2009

Quick Takes on Companies and Ideas at the 2009 Location Intelligence Conference
by Adena Schutzberg
Here are some tidbits about several companies and key ideas from presentations Editor Adena Schutzberg found at the Location Intelligence Conference held at the beginning of October. Organizations mentioned include Seaglex Software, Trillium Software, Yuri Software, SpatialKey, Infusion Development, eSpatial, Appistry, Zipano Technologies, WeoGeo, AND, PBBI, OpenStreetMap, Waze and Inrix.

October 16, 2009

Spatial Information in the New Zealand Economy
by ACIL Tasman
This report, commissioned by Land Information New Zealand, the New Zealand Department of Conservation, and the Ministry of Economic Development New Zealand, was released in April 2009. It shows that in 2008, the use and re-use of spatial information is estimated to have added $1.2 billion in productivity-related benefits to the New Zealand economy. The executive summary is reprinted here, with a link to the full 153 page report.

October 05, 2009

Under the Hood of Rand McNally's IntelliRoute TND 500 - Truck Navigation Device
by Directions Staff
In August, Rand McNally introduced a new portable navigation device specifically for professional truckers. The IntelliRoute TND 500 has more truck-specific road attributes and truck-related points of interest. Information that impacts routing, such as construction areas, is updated every two weeks. Directions Magazine asked Rand McNally to comment on some of the specific functionality of the product.

September 29, 2009

Podcast: To Tweet or Not to Tweet-Advice for your Business on Social Networks and New Media
by Joe Francica
Should you be using Twitter for your business? Do you have a duty to respond if someone says something negative about your company on social networks? How often are you maintaining your blog and do you have the resources to support it? What's the right social network and what corporate policy do you have in place today? Editor in Chief Joe Francica explores these questions and offers advice for marketing and communications professionals.

September 28, 2009

Photographers Have Several Camera Options for Geotagging Pictures with GPS Points
by Rick Bobbitt
From the weekend camera buff to the sophisticated GIS user, "geotagging" photos with location coordinates has become a popular application of GPS technology. This review, by GeoSpatial Expert's Rick Bobbitt, reviews the geotagging abilities and readiness for cameras for both professional and recreational users.

September 23, 2009

IDC Squeezes Spatial into the Broader Business Analytics Marketplace
by Joe Francica
In a recent IDC market research study entitled "Worldwide Business Analytics Software 2009-2013 Forecast and 2008 Vendors Shares," a few geospatial technology companies popped up on the report under the category of "business analytics." While Oracle is the overall market leader of the top 10 companies in the survey, ESRI and Intergraph appeared in the second tier (11 through 35) of this list. For greater detail on where spatial information management and spatial analytics technology truly fit into the mix, and to discuss IDC's work on geospatial market sizing, Editor in Chief Joe Francica spoke with IDC's spatial analyst, David Sonnen.

September 15, 2009

Podcast: The Gov 2.0 Summit and Geospatial
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Last week's Government 2.0 Summit held in Washington DC put GIS front and center as a key tool in a vision of government as a platform for itself and for citizens to use. Why the fuss at this time over GIS, which has been a part of government at all levels for decades? What's new in this vision? What changes can we see in this new embrace of the technology?

August 26, 2009

Determining Anchor Points for Sex Offenders Using GPS Data
by Philip D. Mielke
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) tracks more than 6,000 sex offender parolees using GPS. That's quite a lot of data, data that must be correlated with current crimes and restricted areas to be sure offenders are following the rules of their parole. The department turns to GIS for a solution. ESRI's Modelbuilder and a kernel density tool developed from ecological studies that tracked animals are essential for analysts who track the offender movements. Redlands Police Department Philip Mielke explains.

August 06, 2009

LBS and Field Service: Current Trends
by Sumair Dutta
Sumair Dutta shares the results of The Aberdeen Group's latest LBS-related research. Does increased consumer use of location related technologies reflect the same growth in the enterprise? The research offers some insights.

August 04, 2009

Podcast: In the News - State Stimulus Sites and User Generated Corrections
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
This week two news items peaked our interest: Good Jobs First, a Washington research center, released a report giving mediocre grades to state websites that aim to be transparent about the distribution of federal stimulus dollars. One of the criteria considered? Maps. Second, is there a trend in local news related to sat nav? Is there a move away from "two techs capturing data" stories to how users can get involved with collection and update?

June 23, 2009

Podcast: Why not code the real world?
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
The attributes of physical objects in the real world are commonly noted on paper maps or in electronic files, but these are frequently of limited use in the field. Why do we not simply encode key information onto the actual objects, themselves? For example, in Akron, Ohio the domes of fire hydrants are color-coded to denote their water pressure. Though we need to put all this information into databases, can we not also put it right exactly where it's needed?

June 16, 2009

Podcast: Location-based Advertising... It's Not Working... Here's Why
by Joe Francica
In the much-hyped, Madison Avenue world of mobile location-based advertising, the Holy Grail seems within the grasp of retailers looking for that one-to-one marketing nirvana oft cited in the early nineties. But in its current model, it’s not working the way it should or can. Today's business model uses "push" advertising to mobile devices. But what if the model should be "pull," thus allowing consumers to determine when, where and how they should receive ads? Editor in Chief Joe Francica explores this model and more. ...

June 12, 2009

GPS System, Challenges in Sustaining & Upgrading: Challenges Yes, Panic No
by Kanwar Chadha
A recent Government Accounting Office (GAO) report on the future of the GPS constellation stated: "It is uncertain whether the Air Force will be able to acquire new satellites in time to maintain current GPS service without interruption. If not, some military operations and some civilian users could be adversely affected. In recent years, the Air Force has struggled to successfully build GPS satellites within cost and schedule goals." In this editorial, SiRF Technology founder Kanwar Chadha offers a more rationale assessment of the situation.

May 21, 2009

Advice from Geospatial Startups
by Adena Schutzberg
A reader had an interesting idea: Why not have startups and early stage companies in the geospatial arena offer some advice to those who may be heading in that direction? Directions Magazine invited responses from a dozen companies; today we share a few responses.

May 20, 2009

GIS Helps Find Profitable Locations for Schlotzsky's Deli
by Karen Richardson
"Location intelligence is the key to a successful franchise," says Mark Whittle, vice president of real estate, FOCUS Brands, Inc., in Atlanta, Georgia. "It isn't just anecdotal." The company operates more than 2,200 restaurants, bakeries and ice cream shops in the United States and several other countries including Schlotzsky's Deli, Carvel, Cinnabon and Moe's Southwest Grill. Read more about how Schlotzsky's is using location technology to help their real estate department become more "location intelligent."

May 13, 2009

WaveMarket's Joel Grossman Addresses Privacy and Location-based Advertising
by Joe Francica
Worried about the privacy of location-based advertising? What are some of the options for those who don't mind the advertisements, but only want what's of interest to them and only want to be identified at an aggregate geographic level? Editor in Chief Joe Francica poses these questions and more to Joel Grossman, vice president of marketing for WaveMarket. The company recently announced a partnership with Millennial Media which is believed to be an important step in protecting the privacy of consumers.

April 06, 2009

Podcast: Any Game Changers in LBS Yet?
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Many announcements related to location-based services came out of the CTIA show last week, including winners of the NAVTEQ LBS Challenge. Were any truly game changing? Our editors look at the current state of LBS and what may be ahead.

March 30, 2009

Podcast: ArcGIS Online Now Provides Access to Microsoft Virtual Earth-An Interview with Rob Shanks, ArcGIS Online Manager
by Joe Francica
Editor in Chief Joe Francica speaks with ESRI's Rob Shanks, senior product manager of ArcGIS Online. Rob came to ESRI in July 2007 after many years as president and CEO of GlobeXplorer. Shanks discusses the new agreement with Microsoft that gives ArcGIS users access to Microsoft Virtual as part of ArcGIS Online at the ArcGIS 9.3.1 product release. Shanks provides more details on how ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Server users will be able to connect directly to Virtual Earth and quickly start their GIS projects with ready-to-use content.

Making Digital Maps More Current and Accurate
by CORDIS
The European Union is looking at ways to make the data in satellite navigation devices better. It has backed ActMAP, which assumes the data supplier provides updates. FeedMAP, a new endeavor, is designed to work with ActMAP. It automatically detects when travel on the ground does not match that on the device and compiles a report which is picked up by roadside sensors and relayed back to the supplier. It seems to work and the trick now is for the companies behind it, Daimler, BMW, Volvo Trucks and FIAT to figure out how to bring it to market.

March 19, 2009

The View from Here: Location Matters, but Does the SXSWi Perspective on Location Matter to Professionals?
by Adena Schutzberg
Location played such a key role in new offerings rolled out at South by Southwest Interactive that Om Malik declared: "At SXSW, location awareness is the new black." The event tapped into a "try it and use it here" energy that put several new geo-enabled products on many iPhones and generated buzz across the world. All of this got Executive Editor Adena Schutzberg thinking: What should we in the professional geospatial community make of this energy? These technologies? These techniques? Should we be drawing upon these ideas, technologies and resources or do they have little to do with our work and goals?

March 16, 2009

Podcast: Interview with John Graham, President, Intergraph's Security, Government & Infrastructure Division
by Joe Francica
Last August, John Graham took the helm of Intergraph's Security, Government and Infrastructure Division (SG&I), which provides geospatial technology products and services. Graham spoke to Editor in Chief Joe Francica about his evaluation of the worldwide geospatial marketplace as he looks to restructure his division to work with a more global perspective. He also commented on the competitive landscape in the GIS sector, as well as how the company continues to see opportunity in spite of the current economic downturn.

March 10, 2009

Podcast: Exploring Three Geo-related Lawsuits
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
This week we look at several lawsuits within the geospatial community that have made news in the past few weeks. While we are not legal experts or lawyers, we will explore what they may "really" be about. Microsoft is suing TomTom; the Borings of Pennsylvania are going after Google once again and Pictometry and GEOSPAN continue to duke it out about patents.

March 02, 2009

Un grand projet de coopération en information géographique en cours au gouvernement du Québec
by Nathalie Michaud et Réjean Gagnon
L’information géographique est essentielle au bon fonctionnement de tout État. Au Québec, elle est à la base des activités de plusieurs ministères et organismes (MO), qui la produisent, l’utilisent et la diffusent pour mieux accomplir leurs missions. Pensons par exemple aux activités liées à la gestion intégrée des ressources naturelles et du territoire (forêts, faune, mines, etc.), à la planification et à l’entretien des milliers de kilomètres de routes qui sillonnent la province et aux services d’urgence rendus à la population, qui reposent toutes sur une bonne connaissance géographique du territoire.

February 17, 2009

Podcast: Lessons Learned from Brave Geo Entrepreneurs
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
This week Directions Media editors take a sober look at the obstacles that prevent geo startups from garnering expected success. We'll tap into the "lessons learned" from the brave entrepreneurs that launched businesses in recent years as well as what we've learned watching companies come and go.

February 12, 2009

The View from Here: So Much News, So Little Time
by Adena Schutzberg
The past few weeks have been particularly busy for geospatial technology. It's been so busy, in fact, that Executive Editor Adena Schutzberg has not been able to comment on everything that's been formally announced, or just trickled out. She does that here, addressing news about Apple, California, API trends and Google.

February 02, 2009

NavDog Offers Solution at the Intersection of Search and Location-based Advertising
by Joe Francica
Startup company NavDog has a solution in beta mode that uses an AJAX-powered mapping system and location intelligence based on its Geographic Business Intelligence Engine (GBIE) technology to support better results for local search. The intent is to provide more relevant advertising to users of local search. GBIE uses expert system rules and data mining models and is integrated into NavDog's Ad Delivery System. The impact of this type of technology may help retailers to better reach a local clientele. For NavDog... "everything is local."

January 30, 2009

Podcast: Spatial Infrastructure-A Critical Part of the Stimulating the Economy and Protecting the Nations Assets
by Joe Francica
Last week, The Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) announced the release of Spatial Infrastructures, the second white paper to be published in the Geospatial Dimensions of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Response (CIP-ER) White paper series. In this interview, Directions Magazine Editor in Chief Joe Francica speaks with John Moeller of Northrop Grumman the paper's author and Bob Samborski, executive director of GITA. The discussion focuses on driving awareness of geospatial technology to a broader audience, especially Congress, as well as the initiatives by the Coalition of Geospatial Organizations (COGO) and others to do the same. Listen now...

January 27, 2009

Podcast: Digital Planet on the Geographic Web
by Gareth Mitchell
The BBC's radio program Digital Planet explores the "Geographic web" in this week's episode. The 26 minute podcast covers three topics: (1) Google Maps in Brazil with a focus on Android and maps on mobile phones, (2) geocaching, and (3) the wonder of "travel bugs," trinkets that travel the world making pit stops in geocaches.

Podcast: Hybrid Positioning and Your Future
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
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 and/or Bluetooth as a companion for when GPS is not enough. A recent report suggests 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.

January 21, 2009

Podcast: Location and its Relevance to Mapping and Social Networks
by Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Meetup Group
This podcast features Chris Butler, Independent LBS Evangelist. Butler discusses "Location, Awareness" and the context in which it applies to mapping and social networks. It is a high level, compelling, but inherently intuitive lecture on how context - who, when, where, why, what, and how - is valuable to your application, product or service. Listen now...

January 16, 2009

A Collaboration Portal for a Humanitarian Emergency
by Deborah Davis
When Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar in May 2008, governments and international relief agencies were faced with a humanitarian emergency that required swift action. Because of the size and complexity of the emergency, the United Nations deployed a Humanitarian Information Center (HIC) website to coordinate relief efforts. To effectively share information on weather, travel, flooding and available health care resources the site included an interactive Map Center, created in a single week using Visual Fusion by IDV Solutions. IDV's Deborah Davis describes the solution.

January 06, 2009

Podcast: Four New Year's Geotechnology Challenges
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
With the new year sixdays old and economic challenges expected for every sector we explore four big challenges and opportunities for those in geospatial technology: (1) how U.S. investment in infrastructure may propel geotechnologies; (2) marketing geotechnologies in tough times; (3) the growth/contraction of location-based services; and (4) the renewed interest in "openness."

January 05, 2009

Geospatial Perspectives on the Global Economic Meltdown: Industry Executives Offer Advice
by Joe Francica
Should you invest in or pull back on your investments in geospatial technology and mobile location-based technology? Do you look beyond 2009 or take advantage of an opportunity not seen in anyone's "business" lifetime? We asked geospatial and LBS executives to answer this question: "What specific advice regarding geospatial technology would you offer to users and potential buyers during this down economy?" Their answers may surprise you.

December 30, 2008

Podcast: What Can the Geospatial Community Learn from Top Ten Lists?
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
This week the podcast takes a look at some top ten lists - some from the geospatial world but mostly those from the broader tech Web space. Both sets of lists reveal quite a lot about where geospatial is as we come to the end of 2008.

December 23, 2008

Podcast: Big Geo News in the December Lull
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
The year is just about over so why did so many organizations announce new products, updates, agreements and developer opportunities this week? The distraction of the upcoming holidays may mean "few are paying attention" but we are! This week's podcast shares some of announcements you don't want to miss and why they are important.

December 19, 2008

Santa Hal's 2008 Geo Gift List
by Hal Reid
Santa Hal's been shopping again and reviews three geo-friendly items: MSN Direct, historical maps from Texas and a geopolitical simulation game.

December 04, 2008

The View From Here: Thoughts on the Perennial Right/Left Problem
by Adena Schutzberg
How many "spatially attuned" people like those who read this newsletter face the proverbial problem of not being to tell right from left? Adena Schutzberg admits she uses all manner of crutches and devices to deal with this issue. To this day she has to move her right hand in a writing motion to distinguish that one from her left.

November 24, 2008

Podcast: Geo and the Worldwide Economic Downturn
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Whatever you choose to call the current economic situation, it's clearly impacting everything worldwide in one way or another. This week we look into the crystal ball to think through the impact on the geospatial technology industry. More than one company in the industry has seen its stock not just fall but plummet, and some are cutting jobs. But what about those in government positions? What about software vendors? Consultants? What's the prognosis for gadgets and phones? Join us to see if you agree with our editor's perspective.

November 23, 2008

U.S. National Grid Simplifies Mapping
by Kurt Schulz
In this era of GPS, homeland security and geospatial support to disaster relief operations, the civilian sector is beginning to realize what the military has known since World War I: for land navigation, the geographic coordinate system using latitude and longitude is not well-suited for referencing locations. This article, reprinted from the NGA's Pathfinder, describes a simple rectangular X, Y coordinate system for domestic location referencing, the U.S. National Grid (USNG).

November 18, 2008

Podcast: What We'd Tell the World on GIS Day
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
GIS Day provides a chance for geospatial practitioners to tell the world about what they do and why it matters. Our editors share the key themes they'd want to get across to the public on this special day.

November 12, 2008

Five Questions with Tom Churchill, CEO of Earthscape
by Joe Francica
What do you want to do with your iPhone? If it's "social photogeotagging," then Earthscape has the answer. But Tom Churchill has discovered that the application he's built does so much more. First he thought about building a "nav system" but he wanted a nav system that made driving interesting! Plus, Churchill believes that "crowd-sourced" information is becoming more than a trend; even he's not sure just where his users will take him. But Earthscape is making it easy to point, shoot, geotag and upload all in one push of the iPhone button. Joe Francica interviewed Churchill to learn more.

November 03, 2008

Podcast: Earthscape - A Virtual Globe Application for Mobile Devices
by Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Meetup Group
What do you want to do with your iPhone? Well if it's "social photogeotagging," then Earthscape has the answer. But that's not the only thing that Tom Churchill is finding out about the application he's built. He first thought about building a "nav system" but then he wanted a nav system that made driving across Kansas interesting! Plus, Churchill believes that "crowd-sourced" information is becoming more than a trend and even he's not sure just where his user's will take him. But Earthscape is making it easy to point, shoot, geotag, and upload all in one push of the iPhone button.

October 28, 2008

Podcast: PNDs vs. Smartphones
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
deCarta announced its connected navigation platform last week. At the same time the expectations for portable navigation devices is looking dim as for-fee smartphone solutions for navigation appear to grow. What is the future for these devices and what about the connected car of the future? Our editors look at what the experts say and share their own predictions.

October 21, 2008

Podcast: Protecting Ourselves from Geographic Data and Technologies
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
There's no question there's currently an abundance of location information out in the world. How do we "protect ourselves" from that very information and those technologies? How much can we rely on automated systems to protect us from the dangers? How much must we do on our own? What types of protection do we not have that should be invented?

October 15, 2008

Value in the Location Value Chain
by Peter Crocker
The market for wireless data applications in the enterprise has entered a transformational phase, and growth is accelerating. A major component of the change is the integration of location into mobile applications to provide context to mobile data and increase their utility. VDC Research recently asked enterprise IT managers if they had integrated, or were planning to integrate, location data into their applications; 18.9% reported that they already had, while 20.7% said they planned to do so. Peter Crocker explains.

October 14, 2008

Podcast: Peeling Back the Layers of the Firefox Geode Location Add-on
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
The announcement of a geolocation add-on for Mozilla's Firefox last week prompted lots of discussion around its role in the browser, its support of standards, and its use of Skyhook's wi-fi solution for location determination. Our editors peel back the layers to take on these and other issues including, does such a broker belong in the browser?

October 09, 2008

PON Codes - a New Geographic Post Code System for Ireland
by Gary Delaney
As Ireland's economy continues to develop, its quaint mail delivery system is no longer adequate. Gary Delaney of GPS Ireland describes an addressing solution (PON Codes) devised to more efficiently deliver mail and packages. PON Codes are seven character alphanumeric codes which have a mathematical relationship to an address's latitude and longitude.

October 08, 2008

Podcast: NAVTEQ's Mapping Positioning Engine - "The Heartbeat in the Car"
by Joe Francica
This podcast introduces NAVTEQ's Mapping and Positioning Engine or MPE. The MPE, a subset of the NAVTEQ database that is coupled with a microprocessor assembly, including a GPS chipset, was designed to support a variety of applications that assist the driver of a car or other vehicle to, for example, reduce gas consumption. It is more or less an alternative to a navigation system that is cost effective enough to go into most all vehicles regardless of price. According to Bob Denaro, NAVTEQ's vice president of advanced driver assistance systems, it's "a heartbeat in the car."

October 01, 2008

Location is the Ultimate Context: A Review of the Major Developments from Three LBS Conferences in San Francisco - CTIA, SiRF Location Summit & NAVTEQ Connections
by Joe Francica
Where is LBS headed? Three conferences in September provided ample information that location will be embedded in most every mobile device that will be manufactured. Location technology is now expected to be part of the mobile ecosystem and many of the services we can expect from cellular carriers, including those on new 4G networks, will be driven by location-based data.

September 23, 2008

Podcast: Spatially Enabled Data Warehouse Appliances
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
This week two different vendors, Netezza and Teradata, announced spatial extensions for their data warehouse appliances. Our editors explain the new offerings and explore what the questions these solutions prompt for geospatial practitioners as well as traditional database administrators. Is one of these solutions in your future?

September 15, 2008

Podcast: Three LBS Events, One Takeaway - One Device for Work and Play
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Editor-in-Chief Joe Francica ran the LBS gauntlet last week by attending NAVTEQ Connections, CTIA and the SiRF Location 2.0 Summit. The big takeaway is the power of a single device to manage one business and personal life on a single location-enabled device. In the last year, Francica explains, LBS has become part of the enterprise. He and Executive Editor Adena Schutzberg explore the changes that have come with this growth.

September 11, 2008

The View from Here: Questions and Follow Ups for Fall 2008
by Adena Schutzberg
As we settle in for the last quarter of the year many are back or heading back to school and work. Adena Schutzberg offer this news update on geospatial issues based on questions she's received over the summer months. Among the topics: the Census Bureau and handhelds, MAPPS' legal plans, DOI's GIO, GIS certificate options and more.

Placecast's Solution for Location-based Advertising
by Joe Francica
Location and relevance are the hallmarks of location-based advertising. The ad message must be targeted specifically at an audience within proximity and convenience to a retailer. This is what 1020 Inc. has developed with itslaunch of Placecast. Directions Media spoke with founder Anne Bezancon about how the company will support an advertiser to get its message out in time and on target.

September 09, 2008

Podcast: KQED Quest - Northern California’s PBS Affiliate Educates Viewers About Global Environmentalism and their Local Geography
by Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Meetup Group
Craig Rosa, interactive producer of KQED, San Francisco, presents the "cross-platform, cross-editorial program" KQED Quest. Craig explains how KQED Quest reinforces the message of global environmentalism by educating viewers about their local geography. Craig says Quest's mantra is: "geo-tag everything." This podcast comes to us from Back Five Productions and Endpoint Environmental LLC, the producers of the Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Meetup Group, a group that meets monthly in Silicon Valley.

September 03, 2008

Podcast: Eye-Fi Produces Fascinating New GPS-enabled Digital Camera
by Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Meetup Group
This podcast provides a look at a new GPS-enabled digital camera memory card that instantly uploads pictures to your online map of choice. Ziv Gillat, vice president of Sales and Marketing for Eye-Fi, discusses why the technology is useful for backpackers who want to capture their travels both on digital images and a map.

September 01, 2008

Tracking Hurricane Gustav
by Joe Francica
Maps from a variety of sources provide coverage of Gustav

August 20, 2008

Podcast: Outdoor gear purveyor REI Presents on the Company’s New User-generated Maps Campaign
by Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Meetup Group
REI's Rico Simpkins, Online Community Development Manager, speaks about the past, present and future of REI. Up until now, REI's Internet presence has been merchandise-based. REI's new goal is to bring the community they foster in their stores, to the Web, part of which is getting users to share vacation information such as user-generated maps of their travels. In Rico's words, he wants to develop an "online" community that gets people "offline."

August 06, 2008

Podcast: LBS Infrastructure Market Predicted to Grow to $2.2 Billion by 2013 by ABI Research
by Joe Francica
In this interview, Editor-in-chief Joe Francica spoke with Dominique Bonte, Principal Analyst, Telematics & Navigation for ABI Research in London, England. ABI Research released a report (July 2008) stating that Location Based Platforms and Infrastructure Licensing Revenues would reach $2.2 billion by 2013, sizable growth from that of today which ABI estimates at only $111 Million. Francica spoke to Mr. Bonte to get more information on the LBS infrastructure market specifically.

July 22, 2008

Podcast: MISO and ESRI: Current Status and the Future
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
"MISO" stands for Microsoft, IBM, SAP and Oracle, the big enterprise players in the market today. All have a toe or more in GIS, but all also have a tie to ESRI. What's the state of those relationships and what new players also want and need to hook up with the big E? Our editors explore these questions and toss in a few other letters, G, A and B into the alphabet soup.

July 15, 2008

Podcast: You are a Sensor
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Clever researchers have determined that you, even without a portable device can be an effective geographic sensor. This week we explore examples of how individuals, sometimes along with their electronic gadgets, can act as effective sensors for disease or natural disaster. Our editors share some proven techniques and explore how this type of data collection might play out in the future.

July 07, 2008

Podcast: Tracking Fleets...On Land and Water - An Executive Interview with Pointer Telocation's Israel Ronn
by Joe Francica
In today’s executive interview podcast we spoke with Israel Ronn, General Manager of Pointer Telocation's products division. Pointer Telocation is based in Isreal and is a supplier of Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) and asset management solutions for fleet management and they are working with G4S Telematix S.A. of Greece to provide tracking technology for live coverage of a series of Mediterranean sailing races. Editor-in-chief Joe Francica spoke with Mr. Ronn about the event and about Pointer’s technology.

July 03, 2008

Skyhook's XPS 2.0 - Location Solutions for Truly Converged Devices
by Joe Francica
For a cell phone user living in a deep urban canyon, a GPS signal is often difficult to obtain and if you are indoors, nearly impossible. Location determination often requires other means if a clear GPS signal can't be acquired. Assisted GPS provides a backup to a clear line of sight based on triangulating cell tower locations but sometimes the accuracy falls short for some applications. Since its inception, Skyhook Wireless offered the ability to triangulate position based on a database of Wi-Fi hotspots to help solve both problems. Now, the company is offering a way to incorporate all three location determination technologies to solve the problem of indoor positioning and improving accuracy.

July 01, 2008

Podcast: Location Determination Goes Hybrid
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Skyhook announced a hybrid location determination software solution that can tap into GPS, Wi-Fi, and cell towers to locate devices. What does that mean for knowing where you are anytime, anywhere? Is this step forward accompanied by an increased sense of location privacy comfort? Our editors explore the new technology and offer a suggestion for tackling the privacy bugaboo.

June 26, 2008

Naming Names
by Adena Schutzberg
On Monday, Nokia reported it would acquire Plazes for an undisclosed sum. Plazes is reasonably well-know in the geospatial arena for its location-tagged messaging offering. Outside our community, Plazes' geospatial focus and clever location-related name didn't necessarily come into play in reports about the acquisition. Adena Schutzberg explores how the media understands this small, but increasingly important company, and what it says about the terms the geospatial community holds dear.

June 16, 2008

Podcast: Who is #1 in GIS...and Does It Really Matter?
by Joe Francica
Who's #1 in GIS? How big is the GIS market? Is the impact of Google affecting the sales of GIS vendors? These questions are asked all the time and the answer is...nobody really knows. But more to the point, does it really matter? With the fragmentation of the geospatial technology market during the last few years, it is difficult to place a number on the total size of the market, despite the best efforts of market research firms. Editor-in-chief Joe Francica lays out a framework for the sectors of the geospatial market and what really needs to be considered when trying to size the market...but as importantly, why the numbers today are irrelevant.

June 12, 2008

Podcast: Exclusive Interview with Judson Green, President & CEO, NAVTEQ
by Joe Francica
In an exclusive interview, Judson Green, president and CEO of NAVTEQ spoke with Directions Media Editor-in-chief Joe Francica about a broad spectrum of topics related to the growth of the location-based services market and the ability of NAVTEQ to address an exploding market for digital map products. Green spoke of the opportunities for NAVTEQ not just in terms of its current ability to serve a variety of market segments but provided some insights in what may be possible in the future with NAVTEQ data. "Don't think of our map going into a nav system in the front seat of the car; think of our map going into the engine of the car to help drive the car ... and therein you find dozens and dozens and dozens of applications which would fundamentally improve the safety of the car, the productivity of the car, the efficiencies, and we think that's a very exciting area," he said. Green, once the president for Walt Disney Attractions, now has the challenge of sorting through the opportunities that range from real-time dynamic content to advanced driver assistance systems.

June 11, 2008

Serendipity in News and Travel
by Adena Schutzberg
Are you the type who grabs the latest cell phone with GPS? Or upgrades to the latest tools for tracking your hiking expedition or bike ride? Not all geospatial professionals are geo-gadget people. Executive Editor Adena Schutzberg isn't one when it comes to satellite navigation devices - she doesn't have one. In this editorial she explains the choice in one word: serendipity. She puts it this way: "It's my contention that if you follow a track too closely you are not open the wonders you may find along the way."

June 09, 2008

Podcast: Speedy Browsers for Web Mapping ... Which Ones Are Faster?
by Joe Francica
It's always about speed. In the early days of geospatial technology, the argument was about getting things done faster with speedier computers: VAXes, mini-VAXes, and those "wiz-bang" 486 PCs! Now the discussion has changed. With geospatial solutions being delivered by Internet-based mapping programs some of the bottleneck with speed is tied up in browsers. Is Internet Explorer faster than Mozilla? What browser best renders maps and which is tops in security? Editor Joe Francica explores the options.

June 03, 2008

Seven Questions about Contigo's New Mobile Items Monitoring Patent
by Joe Francica
Contigo received a patent earlier this year for monitoring the locations of mobile items. The patent is not linked to a specific location technology, meaning it applies to existing and perhaps future technologies. Editor-in-Chief Joe Francica asked company representatives to share insights on the implications of this patent for the company's existing fleet tracking and future solutions.

Podcast: Wither Paper Maps in a World of Satellite Navigation?
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
This week the California State Automobile Association announce it would end its production of road maps due to falling demand. The slack will be picked up by the national Association. At the same time police and response organizations are warning the public and their staffs to keep a paper map on hand. What is happening to paper maps as GPS devices become part of our daily lives? Editors Adena Schutzberg and Joe Francica share their thoughts.

May 29, 2008

Issues and Ideas from the New York State Geospatial Summit 2008
by Adena Schutzberg
Did you ever attend a regional GIS conference that really was not about the region's GIS or even about the work you do day to day? Adena Schutzberg did; she spoke at the New York State Geospatial Summit, an eclectic event held in the wilds of New York State. It's a small, all-plenary event designed to get geospatial professionals to think outside their daily work "boxes." The 2008 edition did just that as she explains in this event wrap-up.

May 28, 2008

Podcast: (Geo)technology 2008 - Findability, Accessibility, Portability
by Adena Schutzberg
This week Adena Schutzberg offers a condensed version of the presentation she gave last week at the NYS Geospatial Summit, in Skaneateles, NY. It focuses on the challenges of finding, accessing and moving Web-based content both geospatial and otherwise, and highlights some technologies and tools addressing those challenges. She also looks into the future and predicts what she expects to see in these areas in the coming months and years.

May 21, 2008

Five Questions About Avencia's Sajara
by Adena Schutzberg
Avencia launched a new version of its Web-based digital asset management (DAM) software, Sajara, earlier this month. Why are consulting firm offering products? How is the revolution in online mapping changed demands on digital asset management? We posed these and other questions to company president and CEO Robert Cheetham and the Sajara team.

May 16, 2008

Addressing Fire
by Carl Hancock
England's fire services are tapping into many location technologies to get the right information to the right people at the right time. Many partners have come together to outfit vehicles across the region with Mobile Data Terminals complete with data from the National Land and Property Gazetteer. Carl Hancock explains how it all comes together.

May 12, 2008

Podcast: Four Technologies That May Soon Impact Geospatial - Are You Ready?
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
The editors look outward to find technologies that will impact how geospatial products and practices will change in the next 12 to 24 months. Some of the suggestions are already appearing in cutting edge products, others are not yet implemented in geospatial solutions, but we expect them to be soon.

May 09, 2008

The LI 15 Minute Update: Short Conversations with Geo Technology and Data Providers – Part 2
by Adena Schutzberg
Executive Editor Adena Schutzberg challenged exhibitors and attendees to provide updates on their organization's latest news and products in just 15 minutes. She shares a sampling of interesting tidbits from WeatherBug, WeoGeo, Seisan, MapQuest and Quova in part two of a two-part article.

May 07, 2008

The LI 15 Minute Update: Short Conversations with Geo Technology and Data Providers – Part 1
by Adena Schutzberg
Executive Editor Adena Schutzberg challenged exhibitors and attendees to provide updates on their organization's latest news and products in just 15 minutes. She shares a sampling of interesting tidbits from Tele Atlas, Europa Technologies, Ubisense and Microsoft in part one of a two-part article.

May 06, 2008

Location Intelligence 2008: Maturing Market Players Look for New Relationships
by Adena Schutzberg
Directions Media hosted the fifth annual Location Intelligence Conference last week in Santa Clara, California. Adena Schutzberg shares how a location-savvy audience reacted to the possibilities for indoor location tracking, discusses a lightning panel, and details BP's work implementing location intelligence across the entire 100,000 person company. She also offers up the key themes of the event.

European Mobile Mapping Trends
by Michael Fisher
Where is Europe compared to the rest of the world with location-based services? What cultural differences suggest a preference for "locate services" or "friend finders" versus turn-by-turn navigation that is a staple of the U.S. market for LBS? And why does the word "free" raise skepticism in some parts of Europe? Michael Fisher explores some of these difference and adds his own forecast for location-based advertising.

May 05, 2008

Podcast: Why is it so Hard to Sell Geospatial Technology to the Enterprise?
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Senior executives from leading technology companies, speaking at our Location Intelligence Conference last week shared that the entire value proposition for spatial enablement is a "push" to the market rather than a "pull" or demand for the technology. Our editors ask: Are we doing an adequate job of selling the technology to more of the people who will eventually implement geospatial tools with other IT solutions? Why is it still so hard? What are we not doing well? Will it take another "Google Earth" to push the technology deeper into corporate computing or a new crop of graduates to be more geospatially enlightened?

April 22, 2008

Pitfalls of SDI's Hierarchy
by Asmat Ali
A spatial data infrastructure model must serve many constituents. Asmat Ali, the Assistant Director of the Survey of Pakistan, explains how the data may be developed by corporate, local, state, national, regional or global interests, and each potential creator imbues them with different characteristics "due to different needs at these different levels." That, he suggests, presents a potential pitfall, which he aims to address via a new SDI hierarchy model for federated nations.

April 20, 2008

Cost-effective Information Interoperability for All-Hazards Events in Spite of Decreasing Preparedness Funding - Part Two, The Solution
by Ric Skinner
Ric Skinner follows up on last week's article describing the environment of diminishing all-hazards preparedness funding, with a vision for a solution. He offers the concept of the "Disaster Management Interoperable Information System" (DMIIS) that would provide participating towns, agencies and other resources with a cost-effective capability for enhanced situation awareness, disaster response, resource request and allocation, and a collaborative environment for training and exercises.

April 17, 2008

Cost-effective Information Interoperability for All-Hazards Events in Spite of Decreasing Preparedness Funding - Part One, The Environment
by Ric Skinner
Emergency management agencies are expected to do more with less. The scope of responsibility is increasing at the same time as budgets are decreasing - and are likely to decrease even more sharply as federal and state agencies cut funding. Ric Skinner describes the environment and need in part one of this two part article, presented here. In part two, he will review a potential solution for how agencies can become better prepared for "all-hazards" events by implementing a cost-effective information interoperability solution.

April 14, 2008

Podcast: Technology of Indoor Location Tracking
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Editors Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg explore the technology of indoor location tracking and real-time locating systems (RTLS) . From asset tracking to location-based marketing, radio frequency technology is fast evolving for use in confined spaces such as grocery stores, hospitals and manufacturing plants. This technology will be in place for attendees and exhibitors to experience at Directions Media's Location Intelligence Conference in Santa Clara, April 28-30.

April 08, 2008

Podcast: BI and Web 2.0 and the Latest in Location Privacy Lawsuits
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
This week our editors revisit two themes that continue to pop up as geospatial technology, ideas, visualization and data move into the mainstream IT world and popular culture. First we look at two announcements regarding the integration of Business Intelligence or BI, with online mapping. Then, we'll pick apart the latest data capture privacy lawsuit - where a couple is suing Google over StreetView images of their house.

April 03, 2008

Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging Rebrands as ERDAS and Takes Aim at the Enterprise Geospatial Market
by Joe Francica
Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging announced yesterday that it is rebranding the company as ERDAS. The new tagline, "The Earth to Business Company," is a clear signal ERDAS wants to be a more aggressive player in the enterprise geospatial market. Unshackling itself from the Leica name allows the company to develop a stronger, more focused software brand. Read more in this report from Editor-in-chief Joe Francica.

April 02, 2008

Podcast: Deep Dive into Real-Time Traffic and Location-based Advertising on Mobile Handsets
by Joe Francica
What's new in receiving real-time traffic information on your mobile handset? What's the latest in location-based advertising? Discover the latest information in Editor-in-chief Joe Francica’s interview with Tim Lorello of TeleCommunications Systems. This is the second part of an interview conducted on March 20, 2008.

April 01, 2008

Podcast: EU Investigates Geodata Acquisitions; Pitney Bowes Plans Growth, Rebranding
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
This week the European Union extended its investigations into the acquisition of Tele Atlas by TomTom and NAVTEQ by Nokia causing stocks to drop and some to wonder what's ahead. Here in the United States Pitney Bowes CEO talked up his plans for growth for its recently acquired MapInfo, along with a rebranding of the corporate parent. Our editors explore what's ahead on all three fronts.

March 26, 2008

Podcast: Location-based Emergency Alerts
by Joe Francica
In times of a natural disaster how will local authorities alert you to potential danger? Or, how will you be alerted in case something happens on the campus where your son or daughter is in school? Tim Lorello of TeleCommunications Systems talks with editor-in-chief Joe Francica to discuss short messaging services as well as other mobile alerting technology that his company and the wireless carriers are implementing to comply with WARN Act.

March 25, 2008

Podcast: Google Map Edits, ESRI Dev Summit, RFID in the News
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Google's opened up "Point of Interest" editing to all. ESRI gives its third party developers new application development environments. China and Wal-Mart push the envelope on RFID. Our editors look at these developments and what they may mean to the geospatial community and beyond.

March 19, 2008

Oracle Pushes Deeper into the Enterprise with Vertical Applications: Highlights of the Oracle Spatial Users Meeting 2008
by Joe Francica
Oracle conducted its annual users group meeting following the GITA conference in Seattle on March 13. From the outset, it was clear that Oracle is continuing its rapid move from simply supporting core spatial data types for spatial data management to offering "full blown" application suites. Last year's meeting revealed the beginning of this trend. This year's customer and partner presentations further illustrated the move. Joe Francica reports.

March 18, 2008

Podcast: GITA 2008 - A Post Conference Interview with Bob Samborski, Executive Director
by Joe Francica
Just after the final session at GITA's Annual Conference, Executive Director Bob Samborski sat down with Editor-in-chief Joe Francica to review the association's new emphasis on infrastructure and its special track dedicated to emergency response. Samborski shared his thoughts on how the change affected this year's event planning and the conscious effort to highlight the importance that GITA members bring to solving the challenges brought on by the world's aging gas, water, electric and telecommunication utilities.

March 17, 2008

Podcast: Broadcasting Your Location on Social Networks, Blogs and Mobile Devices
by Joe Francica
The MyLoki service from Skyhook is location-enabling social networking websites like Facebook. Ted Morgan, CEO and founder of Skyhook provides his insights into the new service and the hurdles that must be addressed regarding privacy concerns as well as cultural barriers that come with publishing your location. Listen to this brief podcast with editor-in-chief, Joe Francica.

March 11, 2008

Podcast: Apple iPhone SDK and Yahoo! Fire Eagle Open Doors to LBS Apps
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
This past week two of the many tech players with a toe in the geospatial waters, Apple and Yahoo, announced new developer offerings that will add to the twists and turns location based services have taken on the road to maturity. One of the services of the iPhone SDK is Core Location, meaning developers can develop native applications that take advantage of the pseudo-location abilities. We'll have a look at the iPhone SDK and Fire Eagle from a geospatial perspective plus explore what the real reason is for wanting navigation on your mobile device.

March 10, 2008

State of Delaware to Deploy a Public Health Preparedness System
by Martin Jakobsson, Larry Mayer and Andrew Armstrong
The state of Delaware tapped a team of three organizations, Integrated Warehousing Solutions, ESi and Towson University's Center for Geographic Services, to assemble and provide a "public health preparedness" system. Integrated Warehousing Solutions' (IWS) President Carl Brewer shared details of the project in this brief article.

February 26, 2008

The FBI's GIS Initiative - iDomain
by Joe Francica
Until 2005 the Federal Bureau of Investigation depended on a "thick client" approach to GIS that included ArcGIS deployed at 12 field offices with limited means for sharing information. Despite recognition by the FBI's director of intelligence that GIS was a key technology for its work, no coordinated efforts to manage the GIS initiatives were forthcoming. That changed in 2005 with the Domain Management Initiative, iDomain. The initiative grew, and in January 2007 the FBI's goal was to provide specialized training and equipment for two or three users per field office. Joe Francica reports.

February 22, 2008

Autodesk Positions Itself for 2008 and Beyond
by Adena Schutzberg
Autodesk invited journalists from all over the world to learn about its vision for 2008 and beyond at Autodesk World Press Day in San Francisco last week. Executive Editor Adena Schutzberg highlights how the company positions itself as a provider of prototypes, its success in utilities and, perhaps most interestingly, what's going on in Autodesk Labs that will be valuable to geospatial practitioners.

February 14, 2008

Capturing Speed and Location Yields New Applications
by Joe Francica
TCS was just awarded a U.S. patent for geographic monitoring that provides information on when a mobile phone or device user enters or exits an area, as well as the speed of that user. Joe Francica explains what this capability offers consumers and why it's exciting.

February 08, 2008

Podcast: Super Tuesday, Geographic Alerts, and Maps in Election Coverage
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Super Tuesday was a day of severe weather in the South and some high tech mapping and analysis across the media airwaves and wires. Our editors examine the state of warning systems for severe weather and other hazards and praise the use of maps in election coverage.

February 06, 2008

Spime's PositionOne Benefits GPS Chip Manufacturer
by Joe Francica
PositionOne from Spime is a Secure User Plane Location (SUPL)-compliant middleware solution that resides on the phone device. The technology acts as a gatekeeper between the GPS chip and the LBS application as well as accelerating the time to fix with it’s A-GPS capability. Joe Francica gives an overview of the new offering.

February 04, 2008

Podcast: News roundup on Nuvifone, Microsoft Bid for Yahoo and OS' OpenSpace
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
It was a big week for news from a variety of sectors. Our editors take a look at Garmin's announcement of its nav-phone, the Nuvifone, Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo and the Ordnance Survey's opening of it's API for developers, OpenSpace.

February 02, 2008

GPS and GIS Technology Changing the Culture of Navigation
by Eva Dodsworth
Time, technology and user needs are constantly changing the way we do things, often making them easier and less expensive. When two great technologies are combined, a new innovation is created. Such is the case with GPS and GIS - into a fabulous little tool called the Personal Navigation Device. As is the case with many inventions, it changes the way we traditionally did things forever. But is that a good thing? Eva Dodsworth, Geospatial Data Services Librarian at the University of Waterloo Map Library, wonders.

January 30, 2008

Podcast: Going Down the Wrong Road?...Using MapShare by TomTom to Update PND Maps
by Joe Francica
Is your street in the wrong place on your personal navigation device (PND) or maybe not there at all? Did you see a McDonald's restaurant that's located on the wrong side of the road? Users of TomTom's PNDs can now make changes to the street network database from their in-vehicle PND and upload changes to TomTom via the Internet. Editor-in-chief Joe Francica interviews Tim Flight, editor of GPS Review, who has been performing an independent analysis on TomTom's MapShare program to see how soon updates are making it into the hands of consumers.

January 24, 2008

2007 Year-end Stock Performance Analysis of Public Location Technology Companies
by Joe Francica
Joe Francica takes a look at the wild ride that was the geospatial stock market of 2007. It would have been prescient to sell stocks on December 31, 2007 believing that the stock market gods had blessed the location technology sector with abundant gains during the year and so investors could be excused for taking some much-deserved profits. And perhaps some of you did just that. Despite the current tumultuous situation in the stock market, 2007 was a superb year for location technology stocks.

January 16, 2008

West of Ireland Town Goes 3D
by Joe Francica
It's no secret that Ireland is in the process of transforming itself from Europe's sleepy backwater into a vibrant economic powerhouse many have taken to calling the Celtic Tiger. Technology is playing a major role in this transformation, and here is an interesting geospatial example. The quiet hamlet of Westport in the West of Ireland recently received support from Google to create an interactive 3D digital town on Google Earth. With its advanced visualization capabilities, the model will drive both economic development and tourism.

January 14, 2008

Mobile Today becomes What Tomorrow?
by Christopher J. Andrews
Chris Andrews takes a few minutes to imagine futuristic uses of geospatial technology and wonders how far off these kinds of applications really are. Mobile computing devices are rapidly becoming ubiquitous in our daily work and personal lives. Andrews looks at how technology drivers are pushing the integration of geospatial and mobile technology into the future.

January 02, 2008

Top Ten of 2007
by Adena Schutzberg
Each year for the past seven Adena Schutzberg has picked out 10 events, ideas, themes, products, etc. that have stood out in over the preceding 12 months. There were many recaps of 2007 (including our Year in Review podcast and thoughts on the matter from insiders) so she's tried to pick out some items that were more subtle, more hidden, for this list.

Podcast: Holidays Kick LBS in Right Direction...More to Come in '08
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
GPS devices were one of the big tech sellers this holiday season. More than likely you or a family member or friend gave or received one that's now settled into a single car, or caught in play between two or more vehicles. What might the large number of sales of these devices mean for the growth of location-based services in 2008? Editors Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg look into the crystal ball.

December 20, 2007

Product Review: Pharos Drive GPS 250
by Hal Reid
Hal Reid got a chance to put the Pharos Drive GPS 250 through its paces in the big city and the outskirts of town. He found quite a lot to like in the mid-range ($299) offering including some cool features such as the appearance of large black arrows when it is time to turn and crossed victory flags when you have reached your destination. Could this be the satellite navigation device for you?

December 19, 2007

GPS Pioneer Addresses LBS Market Fundamentals
by Joe Francica
Kanwar Chadha, founder and chief marketing officer of SiRF Technologies speaks to editor-in-chief Joe Francica about the ongoing hyperbole in the location-based services marketplace, the potential disruption of the Open Handset Alliance and the new paradigm facing device manufacturer for LBS. Chadha says, "The fact that location is native into all of these emerging platforms is a very strong indicator that people are serious about enabling multiple applications with location…there are some things that are fundamental to the nature of your business or your life in a mobile world…and location is one of those core elements."

December 18, 2007

Sea Changes and Ripple Effects of 2007 - Full Comments
by Directions Staff
These are the full comments of the contributors to the Sea Changes and Ripple Effects of 2007 article.

Qualcomm Enables Laptops with LBS
by Joe Francica
Gobi is a new chipset and reference design for notebook computers from Qualcomm that allows manufacturers to build a module that incorporates many types of cellular technologies like Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Wideband CDMA (WCDMA), or General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), which allows the consumer to not only choose what carrier he will subscribe to but provide a location-aware computer. Those buying laptops can pick the wireless carrier and the plan they want. Then, as they travel, consumers will be able to access cellular communications and location-enabled searching wherever and whenever, similar to today's wireless cards from the carriers.

Sea Changes and Ripple Effects of 2007
by Directions Staff
A few weeks ago we asked a number of industry insiders and executives to Directions Magazine to discuss the big sea changes and the ripple effects they saw in 2007, and where they expect those to take us next year. The responses roughly divided into three general categories: GIS, LBS and 3D/BIM.

December 17, 2007

Podcast: 2007 Year in Review
by Directions Staff
It's time to look back on the year with Directions Media's editors Joe Francica, Adena Schutzberg and Nora Parker. The industry watchers pick out a few themes and explore what they mean today and look a bit into the crystal ball. Among the topics: the value ($$$) of geo, the new geodata, "neogeography," convergence, the quick-deciding user and the GPS-enabled ski jacket.

December 15, 2007

Facet Builds New Street Centerline Database - How Does It Match Up to Current Digital Street Data?
by Joe Francica
Facet Technology Corporation could be the next NAVTEQ or Tele Atlas, at least for U.S. The company's new offering "includes the public roadways in the U.S. at high accuracy and includes full routing and connectivity." How do the data compare? Joe Francica questioned Andy Munyon, vice president of Business Development to find out.

November 27, 2007

The New Surveyor - Geospatial Wise and Technology Savvy
by Joe Francica
The surveyor of today is not just the guy in a hard-hat you see along the road taking control points for road or building construction. In fact, you might say that surveyors must be as equally skilled at determining site measurements as they are at managing the resulting geospatial data they collect. Both the technology and business climate are pushing them to be just that. This article provides insights and ideas about an evolving type of survey professional that will leverage an expanding array of skills.

Getting the Right Field Service Person to the Right Job at the Right Time Servigistics Style
by Nora Parker
Field service management involves sending technicians or other staff into the field to install or repair systems or equipment - for example, appliance repair. Servigistics offers field service solutions and serves the needs of automobile manufacturers, computer hardware providers, appliance companies and medical equipment companies. Nora Parker reports on a demo of the product.

November 25, 2007

What I learned at deCarta's devCON 2007
by Adena Schutzberg
Adena Schutzberg attended deCarta's third devCON event for its partners and customers a few weeks ago in San Jose. deCarta, formerly Telcontar, provides a geospatial platform that serves the Web and mobile devices. Here are some of the key themes and takeaways.

Podcast: Black Friday and Cyber Monday from a Location Intelligent Perspective
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Retailers are reveling in the news that Black Friday saw a better than expected boost in consumer spending with Cyber Monday taking on a life of its own. Directions Magazine editors Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg try to make sense of the current retailing environment with an eye on the location technologies that are contributing to the way consumers think about getting to the mall or shopping online.

November 15, 2007

Microsoft Readies SQL Server CTP-5 with Spatial Datatype Support
by Joe Francica
Directions Media has learned that Microsoft has just released, internally, the first public beta of SQL Server 2008 (code named "Katmai") with support for spatial. This Community Technology Preview (CTP) is the long-awaited CTP-5 and should show up on the Microsoft web site as the "November CTP." Read more...

November 14, 2007

devCON07
by Adena Schutzberg
Adena Schutzberg is attending deCarta's developers conference (devCON07). deCarta (once Telcontar) provides a geospatial development platform. It’s used by the likes of Google, Ask.com, NIM (developer of phone-based navigation system VZ Navigator for Verizon) among others. More than 200 of the company’s partners and customers gathered in San Jose to learn about new developer tools and what their peers are doing at devCON 2007. While the majority of the attendees are technical, their colleagues in business development and marketing are represented. Schutzberg offers these report.

November 06, 2007

Company Overview: GeoAge Helps Capture Location-based Business Intelligence with GPS Application
by Joe Francica
GeoAge of Jacksonville, FL serves a growing audience of mobile professionals who are generally not GIS professionals. GeoAge offers a toolkit for non-GIS professionals to rapidly capture information by building mobile forms and integrating GPS information as well as digital images, video etc.

November 01, 2007

Consumer Awareness Driving GPS-enabled Device Adoption
by Owen Shapiro and Bob Yovovich
Today's online mapping tools have achieved striking penetration into the everyday lives of Americans, and new GPS-enabled personal navigation devices (PNDs) are leapfrogging past early-adopter growth and surging almost directly into widespread, mainstream usage, according to data from a just-completed study by the Leo J. Shapiro and Associates (LJS) research firm.

October 31, 2007

Perspectives on the LBS Ecosystem - Notes and Observations from SiRF's Location 2.0 Summit
by Joe Francica
SiRF Technology convened a conference to address the "ecosystem" for location-based services (LBS). SiRF's Location 2.0 Summit, held on October 23rd at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco, drew approximately 300 stakeholders representing carriers, application developers, content providers and device manufacturers. Kanwar Chadha, founder of SiRF, envisioned and created the event and Andrew Seybold, a wireless technology analyst and consultant, hosted it. Joe Francica reports.

Heard and Seen On the Floor at CTIA
by Joe Francica
Joe Francica reports on what he saw on his tour of the CTIA exhibition floor.

October 27, 2007

Mobile LBS Applications are Growing and Networks in Motion is Benefiting
by Joe Francica
Market awareness of location-based services is driving a high adoption rate for applications on mobile devices. Of the $118 million in revenue that downloadable mobile applications such as LBS, weather applications, chat/community, and personal organization tools generated during Q2 2007, LBS represented 51 percent. Networks In Motion (NIM), an LBS navigation publisher for products including Verizon Wireless' VZ Navigator, secured a 27 percent share of carrier revenue from mobile applications and leads all mobile application publishers. Unlike buying an "off-board" navigation system like a Garmin or TomTom, "leasing" your navigation system from a carrier that uses a solution from NIM or others compares quite favorably in cost. In addition, the smaller form factor for a phone versus a wider screen navigation device provides some additional convenience. Editor-in-chief Joe Francica spoke with Steven Andler, Director of Marketing for NIM to get his take on why LBS applications are attracting such a large percentage of the growth in downloadable mobile applications. The podcast is 14:05 and was recorded on October 18, 2007.

October 24, 2007

CTIA Wireless 2007
by Joe Francica
Editor-in-Chief Joe Francica is attending the CTIA Wireless 2007 conference in San Francisco and offers these reports.

October 05, 2007

NAVTEQ Purchased by Nokia: Implications for LBS and Related Markets
by Mike Ippoliti
In a deal announced October 1st 2007, Nokia declared its intention to acquire NAVTEQ for $8.1 billion. Most of the industry had been waiting for the other shoe to drop after PND-maker TomTom purchased TeleAtlas, but the majority had expected another of the PND makers (Garmin, Magellan), or the big internet mapping portals (Google, Microsoft) to be the purchaser. ABI Research Director of Telematics & Automotive, Mike Ippoliti explains more about the deal and prospective market implications.

October 01, 2007

Podcast: Exploring Nokia's Acquisition of NAVTEQ
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
On Monday, Finnish company Nokia announced its plan to acquire Chicago-based map provider NAVTEQ. Speculations were rampant after TomTom announced its plan to acquire "the other" global map data provider, Tele Atlas, earlier this year. Editors Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg listened to leaders from both companies offer their reasoning for their excitement for the newly expanded Nokia in an investor call and offer their insights into the announcement and its impact.

September 25, 2007

Product Review: TomTom GO 720
by Hal Reid
Whenever Hal Reid gets a new toy, he's inclined to devote all the hours necessary to a thorough exploration of all its features. The problem with many toys is that there is too little to explore, leaving him disappointed and wanting more. Not so with the TomTom GO 720. For the month he had it, he was continually discovering new features and capabilities that he wanted to try out, experiment with and explore. Returning it to TomTom was difficult.

September 23, 2007

Real-Time Traffic Moving Into More Applications - An Interview with Bryan Mistele, CEO of INRIX
by Joe Francica
If the president is in town, how do you avoid his entourage? Although this is an extreme example, real-time traffic information to avoid traffic tie-ups due to sporting events, major accidents, or simply the slow downs that may be predicted on a daily basis are now available from a number of services. But the penetration of this service is very low...only about 8% of vehicles have in-vehicle systems and most don't have a way to inject real-time traffic. This is rapidly changing. By this Christmas about 30 PND's will offer real-time traffic as a service. The following interview with Bryan Mistele, CEO of INRIX, a company that was formed by former Microsoft employees that offer both real-time and predictive traffic analysis.

August 22, 2007

Podcast: Cellular Carriers Face Possible Rule Changes by FCC for Emergency and LBS Applications
by Joe Francica
TruePosition's Mike Amarosa, vice president for public affairs, and Brian Varano, marketing director, spoke with Editor-in-chief Joe Francica about the Notice of Proposed Rule Changes submitted to the Federal Communications Commission regarding its existing mandate to cellular carriers to more accurately locate wireless phone calls to E911 public safety answering points, or PSAPs. There are obvious differences of opinion about whether the changes should be adopted and what technologies can be used if such changes were authorized. With some phone manufacturers including GPS chips to support emergency and other location-based services while others rely on network-based technologies such as multilateration, there is much debate about the best location-determination methods. TruePosition is one company offering a hybrid solution which is discussed in this interview.

August 21, 2007

AAA Mobile Launched
by Nora Parker
Last week the American Automobile Association (AAA) announced that "AAA Mobile," a new service that makes many of AAA's services available via cell phone, is available on nine models of GPS-enabled Sprint cell phones. The service is brand new and expected to be available via other carriers in the near future.

The Evolution of Mobile Positioning
by Gerry Christensen
As true as it was in 1999 when author Gerry Christensen went to work for LBS (Location-based Services) middleware industry leader, SignalSoft (now a division of Openwave), location remains a strategic asset to mobile network operators. One of the main differences between 1999 and 2007 is that today all network operators have deployed mobile positioning infrastructure including Control Plane middleware such as Mobile Positioning Center (MPC) and Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC) equipment for CDMA and GSM networks respectively.

August 20, 2007

Podcast: The Infotainment Industry Seeks LBS Partners
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
SiRF is collaborating with Intel and the Travel Channel is partnering with Tele Atlas. What do these two seemingly unrelated announcements have to do with each other? "Infotainment." The marriage of location-based services, travel and entertainment is heating up and both the chip and entertainment industries are in overdrive vying for new and different in-vehicle experiences.

August 16, 2007

Street-level Routing: Where the Rubber Meets the Road
by Simon Morris
Customer service representatives at service organizations have a difficult job. They spend much of their day listening to customers complain while scheduling service calls - trying to balance schedules, expertise, availability and travel time. At least estimating travel times and re-scheduling has become easier and more accurate by incorporating street-level routing and location-based services information into the decision making process. ClickSoftware's Simon Morris explains.

August 13, 2007

Podcast: Beyond Local Search
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Three announcements this week point to the next steps beyond local search. We look at a new mobile shopping service, a patent for pay-per-location-based ads, and a "who's buying what" mapping soloution. Are these warrented? Will they make money? What do they say about the future?

August 10, 2007

Podcast: WaveMarket Looks to Connect Parents and Kids by Expanding LBS Technology to Social Networking Market
by Joe Francica
"Security created the mobile industry," says Tasso Roumeliotis, CEO of WaveMarket. "This is the reason you get your kid a phone." In this interview by Editor-in-chief Joe Francica, Roumeliotis describes how his company is looking to connect parents with kids and help create the next big wave in mobile location services by offering products that support social networking. Roumeliotis draws clear distinctions between the applications for "friend finder" and "family finder" which pose certain barriers with respect to personal security.

July 25, 2007

TomTom Community Event
by Hal Reid
Recently Hal Reid attended a day-long press event at TomTom's Watertown, New York offices to talk about the company's vision and customer support. He also previewed TomTom's new product, the TomTom GO 720. In addition to the TomTom staff, personnel from Tele Atlas and Spring International were also in attendance. Tele Atlas is TomTom's primary data vendor and as of Monday, July 23, their potential new acquisition. Spring International is the company that provides TomTom's primary customer support.

Podcast: Tipping Point for Personal Navigation Devices?
by Joe Francica
Darren Koenig, Wireless Market Director for Tele Atlas, provided insights on how the market for personal navigation devices is set to exponentially explode and why we are perhaps at a tipping point. He explained how both the in-vehicle and personal navigation devices markets will benefit from wireless network infrastructure development and why certain market segments, of varying demographic composition, are likely to buy both types of devices, and why generational differences are not a hindrance to widespread market indulgence.

Product Review: Magellan Maestro 4040 Portable Navigation Device
by Joe Francica
Editor-in-chief Joe Francica takes the Magellan Maestro 4040 in-vehicle navigation device for a spin. He found the Maestro's big touchscreen has a great user interface and the AAA points of interest database a huge advantage, the maps are still not displayed at a resolution that would please the mapping enthusiast.

July 23, 2007

Podcast: TomTom to Snap up Tele Atlas: Monopoly or Better Data?
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
This week Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg explore Monday's announcement of the planned acquisition. Will regulators let it through? Will the combination of TomTom's Mapshare and Tele Atlas' prowess at maintaining spatial databases mean better data delivered in more timely fashion? What will investors receive? And, how are geospatial professionals impacted?

July 06, 2007

MAPPS vs. US: Finding Common Ground
by Adena Schutzberg
Directions Magazine continues coverage of the suit brought by the Management Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors (MAPPS). A ruling was handed down by the U.S. District Court of Eastern Virginia on June 15th. MAPPS, as the plaintiff, and others issuing amicus briefs, such as the American Association of Geographers, have issued subsequent statements. This article reviews the judge’s ruling and what might be expected in the next round of litigation

June 26, 2007

Quova Digs Deeper To Identify Location of Web Traffic
by Joe Francica
Location-based Internet subscriptions, alerts to detect Web fraud, and geotargeted advertising are all applications needed by today's Web-savvy marketers. Quova's latest release of their GeoDirectory Server provides these capabilities and Directions Magazine Editor-in-chief Joe Francica spoke with Quova CEO Marie Alexander to get more details. Read more...

Podcast: Leica Takes Bold Steps with Multiple Acquisitions
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
This week Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg explore Leica Geosystems three recent acquisitions. Why did the company, itself acquired in 2005 by Hexagon of Sweden, purchase Acquis Technology, ER Mapper and IONIC Software? What do the three have in common and what are Leica's future plans?

May 31, 2007

Where Wireless Meets the Road - Short Range Communications for Vehicles
by Joe Francica
More than just a supreme annoyance, traffic congestion actually costs an estimated $230 billion in lost productivity and in the cost of insurance claims for traffic-related deaths. A key initiative by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to mitigate traffic congestion is looking to develop better communication with vehicles. This article discusses some of the technology involved.

Four Rights to Customer Satisfaction!!!!!!!!!
by Sumair Dutta
A familiar scenario for most of us: an interruption in our cable/Internet/phone service, a frenzied call to the cable operator, a dismayed reaction when we hear that a technician will be out to check on it between 9am and 5pm, two to three days out. This article, by AberdeenGroup's Sumair Dutta, highlights research the company has done regarding how companies use tools to address service delivery.

Podcast: Loki 2.0--An Update on Wi-Fi Location Technology and an interview with Skyhook CEO Ted Morgan
by Joe Francica
On our LBS360.NET podcast today, Ted Morgan, CEO and founder of Skyhook Wireless reviews some of the capabilities of the new Loki 2.0 as well as its applications. Morgan also discusses the use of the technology for social networking and the licensing of Skyhook technology to SiRF Technologies that combine Skyhook's Wi-Fi Positioning System with SiRF's GPS technology.

May 21, 2007

deCarta and Yahoo! Part Ways: Two Perspectives
by Adena Schutzberg
Adena Schutzberg reported on Wednesday in All Points Blog that Yahoo! had ended its relationship with deCarta, its underlying mapping technology provider, to switch to an in-house developed solution. Directions Magazine received a call from deCarta on Thursday to elaborate on the change and we spoke to Yahoo! to better understand why the decided to bring their mapping technology "in-house."

May 17, 2007

GIS Applications during Response to Hurricane Katrina: Small, Local Government and State Government Experiences
by Kelly A. Boyd and Jacqueline W. Mills, Ph.D
Though much of the media focus on Hurricane Katrina tends to center on New Orleans, the city was part of a larger region devastated by the storm. Numerous smaller communities throughout Louisiana and Mississippi required emergency response in the aftermath of Katrina; some still struggle to recover today. This article describes the experiences of two different groups (Hancock County, Mississippi and the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) involved in responding to the hurricane.

May 09, 2007

Product Overview: First American Corporation's ParcelPoint
by Directions Staff
First American Corporation's ParcelPoint product is a database, offered by that company's First American Flood Data Services division. It offers a geocoded point at a parcel's "point of entry" (e.g. driveway), and it covers the majority of the United States. Hal Reid offers an overview of the product.

May 07, 2007

Podcast: A Look at Q1 Geospatial Company Earnings
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
We take a look at some of the latest earning reports from geospatial companies and try to tease out what's going on. Among the companies discussed: Trimble, Garmin, NAVTEQ, Pitney Bowes and Bentley, which as a private company, issued an annual report.

April 26, 2007

Oracle XE and Geospatial Information Systems: An Interview with Dennis Wuthrich of Farallon Geographics
by Directions Staff
A recent press release highlighted the use of Oracle XE in a variety of fields, including geospatial. Directions Magazine contacted Dennis Wuthrich, CEO of Farallon Geographics, to learn more about the platform that the company is using to serve geospatial clients.

Location Intelligence 2007 Takeaways
by Adena Schutzberg
Adena Schutzberg shares some of the themes she identified at this year's Location Intelligence Conference held in San Francisco last week.

April 24, 2007

Podcast: What We learned at Location Intelligence 2007
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
We focus in on two of the presentations at last week's Location Intelligence Conference. One, by Yahoo's Frazier Miller, director of product management for Yahoo! Local, gave a surprising set of numbers about the potential size of the local search marketplace. The second, from SiRF's Kanwar Chadha, founder and vice president of marketing, highlighted how we've barely begun to realize the scope of location in mobile devices.

April 03, 2007

Podcast: The Human Element in Geospatial Technology Hits the Mainstream
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
As we've been involved with or heard of GIS implementations around the world there's a recurring rejoinder: "It's not the technology preventing its implementation, but the people" which is short for politics, power and related issues. Now that geospatial technology is maturing and moving to the mainstream that same theme is popping up. And this week, we had some great examples, including the world's (and the U.S. government's) reaction to Google's changes to its Katrina area imagery.

March 23, 2007

Podcast: Why are businesses not yet embracing geospatial mashups?
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
An InformationWeek survey reveals that just 7% of businesses surveyed are using mashups. Is that true for geospatial mashups? Is it true, as Matt Brown, an analyst at Forrester Research suggests, that "Businesses have bigger priorities at the moment than worrying how to mash up logistical data or workforce information into a mapping app?" This week we look at why businesses are slow on the uptake with regard to mashups, and perhaps geospatial and what it might take to get them involved.

March 16, 2007

Podcast: Interview with Bob Skinner, Trimble Mobile Solutions
by Joe Francica
In this interview Directions Magazine Editor-in-chief, Joe Francica, speaks with Bob Skinner, Group Vice President of Trimble Mobile Solutions about the @Road acquisition and cost saving related to mobile resource management with clients including Coca Cola.

March 07, 2007

Podcast: CRM! BI! Oh My! Will New Tools and Acquistions Push Geo Integration Forward?
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
Do the appearance of CRM for Google and Oracle's acquisition of Hyperion have implications for geospatial? In this week's podcast our editors introduce CRM and BI basics and explore how these announcements could catapult geo integration forward. Also, what does it take for real time traffic and weather to become part of everyone's daily lives? Does Google's addition of traffic to Google Maps and The Weather Channel's new mashup with Virtual Earth help?

February 15, 2007

Geospatial Intelligence in Financial Risk Assessment in Fleet Management
by Richard Mahany
Business intelligence analytics is a proven technology in industries such as insurance and financial services, but it is new to the field of fleet management. The availability of geospatial data is playing a huge role in how transportation fleet managers forecast potential risk and protect their companies from financial loss. This article will examine how fleet managers can apply readily available and valuable geospatial data, alongside information from other available data sources, to create actionable business intelligence analytic systems that help managers better identify and manage risk, and improve the overall financial security and performance of their fleets.

February 13, 2007

Directions on the News - February 13, 2007
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
This week's Directions on the News will look at NAVTEQ's yearly financials, Safe Software's support of GeoRSS, free maps from Nokia and the FGDC is looking for your comments on metadata, plus detailed reports on the Federal USGS budget for FY 2008 and Editor-in-chief Joe Francica provides his insights on the SiRF/Skyhook deal.

February 08, 2007

SiRF and Skyhook to Offer Hybrid GPS/Wi-Fi Location Solution
by Adena Schutzberg
Today at 3GSM World Congress 2007, the big communications show in Barcelona, Spain, Boston-based Skyhook, which specializes in location determination using Wi-Fi, announced a relationship with one of the most recognized name in GPS chips: SiRF. SiRF has licensed Skyhook's Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) to integrate the two technologies so that handsets can use either location determining method for location-based applications.

Composite Applications Take Enterprise Location Intelligence to Next Level
by Joe Francica
Management of global asset allocation, price risk of energy futures and environmental analysis are just some of the challenges that global energy providers deal with on a daily basis. To mitigate these challenges, one international energy producer turned to CH2M HILL and IDV Solutions. This article, by Joe Francica, describes ten "mashups for management."

February 06, 2007

Podcast: Interview with Autodesk's Joe Astroth
by David H. Williams
Joe Astroth, Vice President and General Manager, Autodesk Location Services, talked to David Williams about what Autodesk is offering to the LBS developer community. The podcast was recorded on January 19 and is 20 minutes long.

February 05, 2007

Directions on the News - February 6, 2007
by Adena Schutzberg
Adena Schutzberg reviews what you need to know about MapInfo Q1 revenues, a univeristy teaching Pictometry, ESRI and Software Oriented Architecture and explores why LiDAR is hot, how yet another GIS packages goes open source and details how the technology community has come together to find missing Microsoft researcher Jim Gray.

January 31, 2007

Why LBS Applications Fail
by David H. Williams
The LBS market has finally taken off, and with it has come a flurry of LBS application development, with an increased urgency among developers to be first to market with their application. This urgency increases the risk of missteps in the LBS development and launch processes. These missteps take the form of what David Williams calls the "LBS Seven Deadly Sins."

Street Smarts: Improving Location-based Services with Intelligent Reverse Geocoding
by Matt Zarem
This article, by Autodesk's Matt Zarem, takes a look at the practical application of reverse geocoding and how it applies to LBS services.

January 29, 2007

Directions on the News - Tuesday, January 30, 2007
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
In our weekly podcast covering the week's news Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg at news from East View Cartographic, Mechdyne, Ordnance Survey and TDC Group. Also: discussion about geospatial in India, ESRI Second Developer Conference and how Google and Microsoft celebrated Australia Day with aerial and satellite imagery.

January 18, 2007

Data Quality Challenges in 2007
by Dr. Michael Sanderson
"Data Quality is a problem we need to address." I couldn't believe I was reading these words in Dave Sonnen's article (Emerging Issue: Spatial Data Quality), published on January 4. At 1Spatial, we had been working hard to address matters for over a year and had reached the point where we felt there was a momentum behind this issue. So much so that we had put forward for vote a draft charter for an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Working Group. But Sonnen is right; there is more work to be done.

January 16, 2007

Podcast: Directions on the News - Tuesday Jan 16, 2007
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
In our new weekly podcast covering the week's news Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg look at new products from ESRI and Ricoh, a significant GPS acquistion, an upcoming court date and explore the iPhone's lack of location awareness and new 3D modeling options with implication for GIS users. Tune in!

January 11, 2007

Navigation in 2007: It's Much More Than Maps
by David Sym-Smith
As the sales returns come in from the 2006 holiday shopping season, it's inescapably apparent that navigation as a consumer electronics category continues to gain momentum. In addition to traditional in-vehicle navigation systems, we're seeing very strong pick up in personal navigation units and now, wireless navigation applications in mobile phones as well. Tele Atlas's David Sym-Smith looks ahead to 2007.

January 09, 2007

Podcast: Accurate 3D Geometry for the Automotive Industry - An Interview with Brian Bullock, CEO, Intermap Technologies
by Hal Reid and Joe Francica
Editor-in-chief, Joe Francica, and senior editor, Hal Reid, interviewed Brian Bullock, CEO of Intermap Technologies, regarding the NEXTMap project which his company has recently been engaged in completing. The project goal is to capture accurate 3D geometry of road network data and sell the data to the automotive and insurance sectors to drive fuel efficiencies. In addition, the project has some environmental benefits. Bullock talks about how the automotive companies are using the data to anticipate road curvatures and changes in elevation to point headlamps in the proper direction to assist the driver's visual experience and prevent accidents. Listen for these and other topics in this 15 minute interview recorded on December 20th, 2006.

December 28, 2006

Verizon Wireless' 3rd Party LBS Developer Program (TheZON)
by David H. Williams
This article is the second of a regular series that reviews application developer programs of key players in the LBS eco-system. Over the last year or so, Verizon Wireless (VZW) has moved aggressively back into the LBS space with applications like VZ Navigator, Field Force Manager and The Chaperone Family Locator Service.

Refining the Business Case
by David H. Williams
Since the business side of the LBS equation can be somewhat foreign to many developers, LBS360.NET has started a series of articles to help developers in this area. Last month's article provided an overview of the first two steps in articulating the business case: articulating your value proposition and sizing the market. This month we build on that foundation, with refining the business case and developing the business model.

December 22, 2006

Podcast: 2006 Year End Editors' Round Table
by Directions Staff
Directions Editor-in-Chief Joe Francica and the editorial staff discuss themes from the past year in the geospatial industry and look ahead to 2007. The 25 minute discussion was recorded on December 20, 2006.

December 14, 2006

Moving from Enterprise Location Data to Location Intelligence, Part 2
by Tara Pottebaum and Marcus Torchia
A company's ability to gain visibility into the "where" of its supply chain measurably enhances its ability to wisely balance conflicting supply chain requirements. For example, in past retail settings, achieving superior customer service (e.g., consistent order fulfillment and delivery rates) required maintaining high levels of inventory. However, inventory carrying costs negatively affect financial performance. In today's real-time supply chain, stockpiling inventory around the globe places an enterprise at a competitive disadvantage. This article is "Part 2" of a two-part series by Yankee Group analysts looking at the roll location intelligence plays in addressing this challenge.

December 13, 2006

Seeing it Work, the Right Combination for Knowing
by Hal Reid
It's always amazing to see how a variety of tools designed for unrelated tasks can work together to create something new, the sum of which is greater than their individual components. It is more than synergy; it is achievement of an elegant solution or application. Here's an example from the GEOINT Symposium involving Thetus, Accenture, Oracle and a few other players.

December 07, 2006

Address Mess
by Burt Ray Simpson
First, a bit of background for those who do not know Burt Ray Simpson. He has worked in newspaper delivery for the last dozen years and in doing so he has encountered numerous poorly implemented addressing conditions.

December 06, 2006

Moving from Enterprise Location Data to Location Intelligence, Part 1
by Tara Pottebaum and Marcus Torchia
A company's ability to gain visibility into the "where" of its supply chain measurably enhances its ability to wisely balance conflicting supply chain requirements. For example, in past retail settings, achieving superior customer service (e.g., consistent order fulfillment and delivery rates) required maintaining high levels of inventory. However, inventory carrying costs negatively affect financial performance. In today's real-time supply chain, stockpiling inventory around the globe places an enterprise at a competitive disadvantage. This article is "Part 1" of a two-part series by Yankee Group analysts looking at the roll location intelligence plays in addressing this challenge.

November 29, 2006

Autodesk Location Services Developer Program
by David H. Williams
Autodesk is a diversified software company that provides targeted solutions for creating, managing and sharing digital assets, including location information. Initially focused on computer-aided design (CAD) software, in recent years Autodesk has moved aggressively into the LBS marketplace. This article describes their LBS developer program.

Knowing Your Business Case
by David H. Williams
Developers heard the same mantra over and over again at the last two CTIA meetings from every carrier and venture capitalist: it is critical to understand your LBS application's business case of your LBS application if you are to have any hope of it being accepted and/or funded. David H. Williams provides the basics.

Location-Based Services Make Inroads on the Field Service Map
by Sumair Dutta
In October 2006, Aberdeen Group (in partnership with Directions Media) launched a survey to examine the mobile field service procedures, experiences and intentions, especially with regards to Location-based Services. The survey garnered 270 respondents over a two week period and all the data presented in Aberdeen's "Location. Location. Location. Does it Matter in Field Service? Benchmark Report" is a representation of the responses by the 270 survey participants. This article offers a summary of key findings.

November 09, 2006

Product Review: Trimble AllSport GPS
by Joe Francica
AllSport GPS is a cell phone-based software application, supported by a Web service, for individuals interested in monitoring, recording and mapping their sports activities, such as running, walking, biking, hiking, etc. The application is designed to run on phones supplied by Sprint PCS, Nextel, SouthernLINC, or Boost Mobile (a division of Sprint Nextel). Joe Francica offers a review.

November 02, 2006

Partnerships: FEMA Looks to NGA for Disaster Help
by Jessica Rasco and Shawna Wolin
Disaster-response teams of NGA and its predecessor organizations have responded to nearly 50 hurricanes and tropical storms over the last 14 years. This article, reprinted by permission from the NGA's Pathfinder magazine, discusses how the NGA Readiness, Response and Recovery team has assisted FEMA.

October 25, 2006

LBS Development - Determining Privacy Requirements
by David H. Williams
As the market for location-based services (LBS) rapidly grows, so does the need for more sophistication in their design. Areas such as user interface, fixed/mobile integration, and viral networking capabilities are all candidates for further enhancement. But nowhere is the need for sophistication more important than in the design of LBS privacy infrastructure. David H. Williams discusses the issues and their ramifications for LBS developers.

October 18, 2006

Update: GIS and the Hawaii Earthquake
by Adena Schutzberg
ESRI shared this report, including maps, from Royce Jones, who works for the CA/NV/HI office of ESRI in Honolulu on how the state is responding after this weekend's earthquake.

September 27, 2006

Good News! LBS Developments at CTIA IT Wireless & Entertainment 2006
by David H. Williams
September's Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA) trade show in Los Angeles was much smaller than the April CTIA meeting - approximately 1/3rd the size (and this is not unusual for the fall show), but the amount of good news for the location-based services (LBS) market was not significantly less. While there were few major announcements from exhibitors, there was a considerable amount of LBS-related information being disseminated, particularly during the NAVTEQ LBS Developer Conference and the CTIA LBS breakout sessions. In this article, David H. Williams reports on some of the key highlights.

September 13, 2006

Destinator - Personal Navigation With a Flair
by Hal Reid
Recently, Hal Reid had a discussion with Milan Brkic, product marketing manager at Destinator Technologies, a personal navigation software company. Personal navigation systems consist of hardware, GPS receivers, and most importantly, software and data that make the hardware and GPS receivers work. Destinator is a combination of software and data that is OEM'd to several hardware companies around the world.

September 07, 2006

deCarta Tackles Developers Capitalizing on Web 2.0
by Joe Francica
You may not be familiar with the company called deCarta (or Telcontar, as the company was formerly known), but you have probably used its product. deCarta’s geospatial platform, which generates maps, routes and spatial queries, is at the core of some very well-known applications, including Internet mapping sites Google, Yahoo! and Ask.com, as well as wireless applications such as TeleNav and Networks in Motion. Joe Francica interviews Kim Fennell, president and CEO of deCarta.

August 31, 2006

Intergraph Acquired for $1.3 Billion
by Joe Francica
In a move sure to please investors, Intergraph Corporation was acquired today by an investment group led by Hellman & Friedman LLC and Texas Pacific Group. The deal was valued at $1.3 billion. The purchase price of $44 per share represents a 22% premium over the average closing price during the last twenty day period. Intergraph's board has approved the purchase. In a press statement, board president Sid Mcdonald said, "Our Board of Directors believes this transaction is in the best interests of our stockholders and underscores the significant operational and financial improvements Intergraph has made over the past three years." The deal is expected to close by year end. More information can be found in the press release.

August 30, 2006

Mobility Profiles and Future Location-based Services
by Sarfraz Khokhar and Arne Nilsson
This article looks at the next step in LBS development - creating a mobility profile for a mobile user to model where that user is likely to be at specific times on different days of the week. We leave you to imagine what the killer app for such a capability would be. This article describes what’s coming, and some of the technical challenges being addressed.

Negotiating Telematics Agreements: Awareness of Legal Risks is Critical to Protecting Your Business’s Interests
by Marianne Roach Casserly
In-vehicle telematics services are an increasingly popular offering of vehicle manufacturers today with the potential to generate substantial revenue gains. Of course, with big gains come corresponding big risks. Automakers, product and equipment manufacturers, and software developers need to be aware of legal risks arising from participation in the telematics industry. Attorney Marianne Roach Casserly addresses several.

A First Look at Tele Atlas' Map Insight
by Adena Schutzberg
On Monday Tele Atlas announced a new Web tool that allows users to report potential errors in the company's mapping database. Evan Shelby, product manager for the application gave Adena Schtzberg a short tour of called Map Insight. She presents a look at the present and future of this important application.

August 29, 2006

Fleet Logistics Software Making Speedy Advances: LandSonar and Telogis Offer Core Modeling and Tracking Solutions
by Joe Francica
The return on investment for fleet tracking solutions is often justified by allowing logistics firms to streamline routing, save on fuel by reducing mileage and even remove vehicles from delivery routes when demand is low. Two companies (LandSonar and Telogis) are now offering solutions to squeeze even more costs from the routing and scheduling process.

Podcast: Google Maps for Mobile Beta
by Hal Reid
Catherine Reid (Hal Reid's daughter) describes the beta release of Google Maps for Mobile. The 1.5 minute overview highlights its features.

Navizon - The Ultimate Personal Navigation Companion?
by Krzysztof Kolodziej
The Navizon application is a mobile solution for those who suffer from GPS signal loss problems. This article, by Krzysztof Kolodziej, looks at how Navizon works from both a technical and business model perspective. And right up front, we should let you know that he's a fan.

August 24, 2006

What Was the Most Important Year in the History of the Geospatial Industry?
by Carl Reed III
Was the year that PC-based GIS products were introduced, the most important year in the history of our industry (about 1986)? How about the year the first commercial Web mapping applications, such as MapQuest.com, were introduced (1996)? Or how about last year (2005), with the introduction of those really cool virtual mapping and visualization applications for consumers? Dr. Carl Reed offers his take.

Podcast: Interview with Tim Lorello, TeleCommunication Systems
by Joe Francica
Joe Francica interviewed Tim Lorello, Sr. VP and Chief Marketing Officer at TeleCommunication Systems about E-911, PSAPS and the implications for location-based systems. This 36 minute interview was recorded August 18, 2006.

Latest Portable GPS Devices Empower Consumers
by Jeff Carpenter
If you are a consumer with a high disposable income and a love for the latest gadgets, you ought to be thrilled with the current state of the portable GPS industry. Smack in the middle of an innovation bandwagon, consumers have more options than ever when choosing a product to help guide them to their favorite destination. Jeff Carpenter, found of GPS POI US, explains.

August 16, 2006

Francica Interviewed on WNYC
by Joe Francica
Radio host Jonathon Capehart of WNYC, the National Public Radio Affiliate in New York City, interviewed Directions Media editor-in-chief, Joe Francica about Internet web mapping and personal navigation.

August 09, 2006

Podcast: The State of Digital Street Mapping
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg

Joe Francica spoke with representatives of Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ at the ESRI User Conference. In this podcast, we consider the state of the market and what the future may hold. This ten minute podcast was recorded on August 9.

August 07, 2006

Podcast: Index
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg

Podcast: Index
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg

Snapshot - The ESRI UC Senior Executive Seminar
by Joe Francica
The Senior Executive Seminar of ESRI's User Conference is a gathering of nearly 300 invited attendees who represent the crème of the GIS crop from around the world, in business and government. Hosting the event, as he has for the last few years was Roger Tomlinson, president of Tomlinson and Associates, who is recognized as the "father of GIS." The presentations by C-level executives provides insights into how the technology is used at some of the most well run organizations in the world.

August 03, 2006

Location 2006 Conference – a Report from India
by Krzysztof Kolodziej
Early in June, Kris Kolodziej attended the Location 2006 conference in Bangalore, India, the second annual international conference and exhibition in the field of positioning and navigation technologies. About 300 professionals gathered at this event to talk about the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), emerging trends in positioning technologies, and location intelligence – including LBS.

August 02, 2006

Turning The Big One Point 0
by Hal Reid
This month marks the first anniversary of Location Intelligence Magazine. Since we write about software, hardware and other things that come in versions, it seemed appropriate to designate this past year as LI 1.0. In celebration, we're including some of our favorite articles in this issue – if you didn't read them the first time around, here's another chance.

July 25, 2006

Directional Sound Cuts Day Care's Evacuation Times
by David George
Safety usually tops a parent's list of questions when inquiring about day care centers. And now, technology that provides directional sounds to the nearest exit is allowing parents extra peace of mind. Triggered by the fire alarm control panel, a product called ExitPoint from System Sensor draws attention to exit routes in emergency situations. The varying tones and intensities coming from directional sound devices offer easy-to-understand cues for rapidly finding exits. ExitPoint can be used in a number of applications, including university and college campuses, schools, office buildings, retail, lodging, museums and day care centers. Read more.

In-building Wireless Alliance Investigates Indoor LBS Applications
by Joe Francica
Real estate developers, architects, building management firms, and wireless companies are putting their heads together to understand how the building of the future will support voice, data, and location technology with a common communication and information technology infrastructure. The In-building Wireless Association (IBWA) is an organization that is trying to "accelerate the adoption of in-building wireless as a means of unlocking value to all stakeholders of communication and information within a building." This article will report on the vision these industry players have for creating "seemless communications" with buildings and how various location technologies will support better communication with workers and tenants.

Map? Schmap!
by Paul Hallett
The whole world has gone map crazy, or so it seems. Even those of us who habitually confuse longitude and latitude have turned geo gaga. Is it something in the water? In fact, the typical spatial convert is largely compos mentis: not mad about maps, so much, but rather sensibly interested in information (conveyed primarily via text, images and location) that relates to him. Paul Hallet's company, Schmap, is focused on the dynamic integration of information with maps...

Mobile Marketing & LBS: What's Next for Advertisers?
by Joe Francica
In the early years of mobile marketing, "push marketing" was the big thing whereby the mobile consumer would be happily strolling by his favorite retail store and he would suddenly receive an advertisement on his mobile handset. But this is 2006 and both technology and the consumer have reached a level of maturity that allows different business models to take shape. Zoove Corporation is looking to make it easier to link product information directly with the mobile consumer through "pull marketing."

July 21, 2006

Location Intelligence on Fuel – Knowing Where Not to Buy Gas
by Hal Reid
This past week we have had several news stories about oil and the effect of gasoline prices. This seems to be a location intelligence topic that affects everybody and should be explored. This article, by Hal Reid, reviews some work MapInfo has done in the area of analyzing gas prices and gas consumption.

July 20, 2006

Disney Mobile Selects Autodesk's LocationLogic LBS Platform: It's Not Magic
by Joe Francica
Disney's "magic kingdom" of theme parks, movies, and merchandising will soon expand into telecommunications and use location technology as one of its key business drivers. Disney Mobile is offering a new suite of cellular services with location-enabled applications. The company seems to have identified one of the "pain points" of consumers: family member security. Read more...

July 19, 2006

Evaluating Risk in World Markets
by Hal Reid
Location intelligence technology is frequently used to analyze risks in new markets. The geography being analyzed is often a trade area or a specific market. In the case of The PRS Group, the focus encompasses more than 160 countries. As more companies look to establish international operations, assessing potential markets must include gauging the risks in the countries being considered. That’s where The PRS Group (PRS) comes in.

July 18, 2006

Merging Two Major Datasets: Tele Atlas and GDT - An Interview with John Cassidy
by Hal Reid and Joe Francica
Recently Directions editors Hal Reid and Joe Francica interviewed John Cassidy of Tele Atlas about the company’s project to integrate Geographic Data Technology's data warehouse of digital streets and points of interest with that of Tele Atlas. The merger of these two companies 18 months ago presented a huge challenge for both companies. Cassidy shed some light on this undertaking.

July 14, 2006

Fun in the Sun, Snow, Water, Mountains, Desert, Woods or Almost Anywhere Else
by Hal Reid
Hal Reid is obviously looking forward to being a retiree someday, living in an RV and clogging up his relatives' driveways. Here he discusses an RV users group that maps its members in real-time.

July 13, 2006

Product Review - MapPoint 2006
by Joe Francica
MapPoint 2006 is the next version of Microsoft's desktop mapping software. It is really two separate products: a desktop mapping system and an in-vehicle navigation system. Depending on how you use it, you may see the improvements made from the previous version, MapPoint 2004, as valuable or not. Microsoft touts the vehicle navigation features of this version, and thus potential purchasers should consider whether the desktop mapping features are adequate for the type of analyses required. But the product lacks key features in desktop mapping and falls short of being a viable in-vehicle navigation system. Read more...

July 07, 2006

Quick Take-Autodesk Location Services Targets Developers in New Outreach Program
by Joe Francica
Autodesk Location Services has launched a developer program for the company’s LocationLogic, a location-based services platform. Kathryn Rose, director of strategic planning and operations for Autodesk Location Services, commented in an interview recently that Autodesk's strategy is to create a portfolio of applications for carriers to sell to their users.

June 23, 2006

The View from Here
by Adena Schutzberg
Adena Schutzberg a big fan of homework. That'll rattle a lot of cages, especially for those who have kids who hate it. But, let's face it, to learn a new skill or improve at something you already know, you need to practice. Here are ten homework assignments to keep your knowledge and skills honed.

June 22, 2006

Voice Commands Coming Closer to Reality for Telematics
by Joe Francica
One of the real opportunities in telematics is to provide voice enabled commands from the driver to the in-vehicle navigation system. Few companies have tackled that challenge because of the difficulties at the human-to-machine interface. VoiceBox Technologies seems to have conquered it and is now offering tier one and tier two auto suppliers like Johnson Controls the technology to integrate their products with other on-board information systems.

June 13, 2006

CTIA – Several Weeks Later
by David H. Williams
The tradeshow exhibits are long gone, the flurry of press releases passed, and in general the dust has subsided from CTIA Wireless 2006 (April 5-7, Las Vegas). The question: did CTIA represent anything new for the Location-Based Services world? The answer - to put it mildly – is a resounding “yes.” LBS is back in the wireless mainstream after many years of frustration and missteps.

June 07, 2006

GPS Wireless Conference 2006 - What’s in the name?
by Krzysztof Kolodziej
Early in March Kris Kolodziej attended the 10th annual GPS Wireless Conference in San Francisco. More than 200 mobile information professionals from the largest automobile manufacturers, wireless carriers, mobile electronics vendors, homeland defense and computer companies met for this two day conference. The conference covered topics ranging from mobile markets, wireless location services and mobile resource management, to the automobile as a mobile information platform.

May 25, 2006

SRC Announces Integration of Key Business Intelligence Factors in Retail Analysis
by Hal Reid
SRC has announced the integration of their www.DemographicsNow.com product with functionality from MetaCarta and data from Lebhar-Friedman, Inc. to produce a comprehensive market/site analytical tool for retail users. SRC has provided the ability to incorporate traditional tools for evaluating locations and markets with the ability to search for spatially-related articles and news. The articles are geographically indexed using technology from MetaCarta. Read more...

May 23, 2006

MapInfo Embraces Web Services
by Adena Schutzberg
It's been many years - mid/late 1990s - since the first mention of the "vision of Web services for GIS." The big Web service on everyone's list? Geocoding, also known as "locationally enabling datasets." With MapInfo Professional v8.5, that vision is reality.

The Many Flavors and Toppings of Location Intelligence: How Do You Make a Sundae? Part I
by Doug Kolom
A wise colleague once told author Doug Kolom, "Selecting a geospatial technology solution is like going to the ice cream parlor. You have all sorts of flavors, toppings and a million different sizes … the goal is to make a great sundae from all of these choices." This advise is more relevant than ever.

May 22, 2006

An Overview of GeoImmersive Video
by Fuad Khan
Immersive Media has used the technology described in this article to capture 23 out of a planned 25 cities in the U.S. If you are doing retail expansion, or other activities that could benefit from this type of data, you might want to explore the company's web site and see if one of these cities fits your needs. The data feeds from all 11 cameras are stitched together into a geo-referenced 360 degree data stream, allowing you to measure, add to a map, etc.

What's New in Google Maps 2?
by Eric Pimpler
In Eric Pimpler's article titled Introduction to Google Maps, published in Directions Magazine on March 13, he introduced the fundamental programming constructs provided by the Google Maps API for building dynamic Web mapping applications. Since that time, Google has released Version 2 of its highly popular Google Maps API. Pimpler provides an overview of the major changes.

Company Overview: MapAsia.com
by Hal Reid
Hal Reid met Stanley Ng, CEO of MapAsia.com, at the Location Intelligence conference that took place in April, and followed up with him about the company's products after the conference. This article provides a brief overview of two of the company's products, China infoMap and MapKing.

May 15, 2006

Telcontar offers Commercial Map Web Service
by Adena Schutzberg
The field is getting more an more crowded with free mapping APIs, so perhaps it's not surprising to see fee-based options aimed at a slightly different segment of the market popping up. Telcontar's offering, announced today, comes in two flavors, one that's hosted behind a firewall, for internal use, and a second service which Telcontar hosts (Telcontar Hosted Web Services). In both cases developers can create complex AJAX (asynchronous Java and XML) fronted applications with functionality that goes beyond the free offerings.

May 09, 2006

Microsoft Addresses Vexcel Aquisition
by Adena Schutzberg and Hal Reid
Editors Adena Schutzberg and Hal Reid listened to a press conference given by Microsoft about the finalization of its acquisition of Vexcel. The conference was held at the ASPRS Conference being held this week in Reno, Nevada.

May 07, 2006

Telmap Product Overview
by Hal Reid
Telmap provides mobile navigation on cell phones, PDAs and Blackberry devices that have GPS built-in or are Bluetooth-enabled and can use an external Bluetooth GPS device. This is a �white label� (i.e. sold through channels) product that is offered through cell service providers or as a custom application for the enterprise. Hal Reid reviews Telmap's offering.

May 02, 2006

Silicon Valley Limousine Drivers Know Their Way Around
by Calvin Chu
In the chauffeuring industry, knowing the fastest and safest routes through traffic is essential if you want to stay in business, particularly when your major clientele are Silicon Valley corporate executives for whom time is money. This article describes how one limousine company is leveraging technology to improve operations.

May 01, 2006

Product Overview: G2 Microsystems System-on-Chip, G2C501, a Wi-Fi, RFID Active Tag
by Hal Reid
G2 Microsystems System-on-Chip is a comprehensive approach to tag technology that combines traditional RFID with Wi-Fi and extends the possibilities to sensors and custom applications in a single device that also has very low power consumption. This article describes the System-on-Chip.

April 26, 2006

Welcome to LBS360.Net
by Joe Francica
Welcome to the first "official" newsletter issue of LBS360.NET. The purpose of the magazine is to offer news, technology resources and application examples of mobile location-based services (LBS). We have a tremendous library of technology-focused application articles, links and directories for the software development professional and market planner.

April 25, 2006

Navigating the Roadblocks to Consumer LBS Success
by Erica Karlsen
Erica Karlsen has come to terms with something that she has tried to overcome for years now. Despite the fact that she works for a mobile technology company, staying on top of current trends and working with industry experts, at the end of the day she is still a mobile user like anyone else. She may know more about mobile location than most people but as a civilian, she still just want my mobile services to be practical or fun, easy, reliable and affordable. Read on for her take on the roadblocks she sees for rolling this technology out to the masses.

Product Overview: ClearFlite
by Hal Reid
Hal Reid had a discussion with Dr. A. Stewart Walker, Director of Marketing for BAE Systems, about ClearFlite. ClearFlite is a product that uses stereo imagery to locate potential obstacles to safe flight and generates both graphic and tabular outputs of those objects. ClearFlite is an extension to the BAE product Socet Set, its photogrammetric software.

The Structure of the European LBS Market 2005
by Johan Fagerberg
Johan Fagerberg of Berg Insight AB summarizes the key elements of the European LBS market for 2005 and focuses on trends shaping European adoption of location-based services. Fagerberg states that "The foremost reason for the slow up-take is that the services offered up until today have simply been too slow and complicated to use." Read more of this report.

April 20, 2006

A Few Cool Technologies from the Location Intelligence Conference
by Hal Reid
Hal Reid highlights offerings from Immersive Media, Telmap, Aeroscout and MapAsia.

April 17, 2006

MapQuest Continues to Redefine Itself
by Adena Schutzberg
Adena Schutzberg spoke with Christian Dwyer, the Director and GM of the Business to Business (B2B) division of MapQuest, at the Location Intelligence conference, to round out her understanding and get an update on where the company is going.

April 13, 2006

Location Intelligence 2006: Ten Ideas of Note
by Adena Schutzberg
Adena Schutzberg offers commentary on her "top ten" from last week's (April 3-5, 2006) Location Intelligence conference, which took place in San Francisco.

April 08, 2006

Ekahau Product Overview
by Hal Reid
On February 10, 2006, editor Hal Reid interviewed Antti Korhonen, President and CEO of Ekahau, Inc. Hal discovered a series of products and technologies that address the “where is it and where are they” problem in elegant ways. Ekahau’s products address the need to track assets and people.

April 07, 2006

Mashups, Enterprise Values and the Elusive Tipping Point: Notes from the Location Intelligence Conference 2006
by Jim Steiner
Jim Steiner, Director of Oracle's Spatial Products Group, and member of the Location Intelligence Editorial Advisory Board shares his impression of the conference and the perspective that enterprises take toward new technologies.

April 03, 2006

Interview with Dana Fenner, Market Director for Fleet Logistics and Tele Atlas North America
by Joe Francica
Joe Francica interviewed Dana Fenner, Market Director for Fleet Logistics at Tele Atlas North America.

March 20, 2006

Ask.com and its Maps 2.0: A Delicate Balance
by Adena Schutzberg
When Ask.com separated itself from its butler Jeeves, most of us in the mapping world were only interested in one thing: the updated mapping tools. A quick look by many geo-geeks was enough to convince them that it didn't compare to other offerings and, at least now, had no application programming interface (API). That cursory look failed to put this offering in context. Adena Schutzberg spoke with Ryan Massie, senior product manager at Ask.com, to get at some of that context. During the chat, one word came up time and again: balance.

March 08, 2006

Invitation to Location Intelligence 2006
by Joe Francica
We know you have a choice when considering which conferences offer the best educational experience and given budget constraints, you may only have one to select each year. But we've put together something special and I'd like to personally invite you to come to Location Intelligence 2006. See the reasons why...

March 07, 2006

Spatial Analysis of GSM Subscriber Call Data Records
by Ireti Ajala
The most valuable asset of many companies is not their products or services, but their data. This is particularly true in the communications industry. Trapped inside the customer billing systems is a gold mine of data that holds the key to customer retention, reduced expenses, customer self-service and overall competitive advantage. This article discusses how MTN Nigeria has taken advantage of this data.

February 28, 2006

Sun Microsystems and Location-based Services
by Joe Francica
Sun Microsystems announcemed at 3GSM in Barcelona that the company is collaborating with Openwave on LBS initiatives. Directions Magazine's Joe Francica interviewed Eric Chu, Senior Director of Sun's Client Systems Group to determine more information about this partnership and other technical developments.

February 27, 2006

LBS 2006 - A Breakout Year?
by Joe Francica
During the last several weeks, Directions Magazine conducted interviews with some of the experts in location-based services (LBS) technology sector. The interviews focused on the market characteristics, platform technology, barriers and applications foreseen as enhancing or detracting from the market development for LBS products. Their insights will help you understand the relevant factors that will drive LBS adoption this year.

The Emergence of GeoSensor Networks
by Anthony Stefanidis
Substantial advances over the last few years have provided us with diverse and robust techniques to quickly and precisely capture large amounts of geospatial information, extending traditional surveying and photogrammetric solutions. But we are on the verge of another significant evolution: the emergence of geosensor networks. Dr. Anthony Stefanidis of the University of Maine explains.

February 25, 2006

Global LBS Challenge - Europe
by Joe Francica
Here are the results of NAVTEQ's Global LBS Challenge for Europe. The Grand Prize winner was ALK Technologies and won for the developement of the CoPilot Live FleetCenter solution.

February 24, 2006

A New Era for LBS in the Enterprise
by Scott Hotes
Location-based Services (LBS) have resurged remarkably over this last year throughout the North American market. For over three years, location pioneers Bell Mobility and Nextel were alone in offering high precision (read GPS-based) services to their data customers. Scott Hotes, CTO of WaveMarket discusses the emerging trends about how LBS engineered the comeback and the challenges that remain.

February 23, 2006

The Outlook for Location-based Services – 2006 and Beyond
by David H. Williams
David Williams considers why LBS might really take off this time ... After uncountable fits and starts, over-hyped expectations and under-delivery, and technology and vendor turmoil and shakeouts, LBS is finally poised to take off in 2006 and 2007. In essence, all the business and technology stars have finally started to align.

February 14, 2006

Infotainmaps
by Joe Francica
If software + information + entertainment = "infotainment", then what happens when we add a geospatial context? Would that then become location + search + context = "infotainmap" ... As Planet 9's CEO David Colleen put it, "3D models will be used as an interface to data." Let that sink in and read more...

January 31, 2006

BI-LI Integration: Company Overview of IDV Solutions
by Joe Francica
In the wake of mapping portal madness are companies that apply their domain expertise to create solutions for customers that leverage application programming interfaces (APIs). IDV Solutions is one company that knows location technology very well and is driving location intelligence solutions by embracing a "dashboard" approach to visualization.

January 09, 2006

Geospatial Technology Market Financial Report 2005
by Joe Francica
The publicly traded geospatial technology companies provided exceptional value to their shareholders in 2005.On average, the companies in the portfolio that Directions Media tracks on a weekly basis gained 29% while the NASDAQ composite index, the market on which most of these companies are traded, gained only 6%.Intergraph was the winner in the Geospatial Solutions sector with a stock performance gain of 81% while Tele Atlas zoomed ahead with a 158% gain in the Geospatial Data sector.This article also reviews companies in the location determination and enterprise computing sector.2005 could very well just be a precursor to 2006.Read more...

January 04, 2006

More LI, More Possibilities
by Hal Reid
Welcome to the year 2006! We have moved to publishing our magazine twice monthly so LI can do several things: be more flexible in the topics we cover, respond faster to news and the evolution of location intelligence (LI), business intelligence (BI) and competitive intelligence (CI), and finally explore adjacent technologies and insights.It appears to me that moving forward is best accomplished by following more of a zig-zag - not necessarily in a straight line.

January 03, 2006

U.S.Mobile Resource Management Systems Market Shows Strong Growth in Subscribers and Revenues
by Clement Driscoll
In the U.S.today, nearly 1.9 million GPS/wireless devices are used to monitor fleet vehicles, trailers, construction equipment and mobile workers.These GPS-based Mobile Resource Management (MRM) applications currently account for nearly $1 billion in annual revenue for wireless network operators and suppliers of MRM applications and equipment.This article, by Clement Driscoll, describes current market research and trends in this market.

December 29, 2005

Location Intelligence: Adapting Location Technology to Business Decision
by Joe Francica
This article is a summary of the events at the GEOdiffusion conference held in Quebec City, November 29th to December 1st.It provides a mid-year update on MapInfo Corporation's product and business strategy.The conference was hosted by Korem, MapInfo's business partner in Quebec.

December 20, 2005

Spatial Database Architecture - Influence of IT Trends on Spatial Information Management
by Jayant Sharma
At the recent Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco Juan Loaiza, VP of Server Technologies at Oracle, presented his vision on the future of IT and databases, and how they deliver value.The fundamental goals of IT are to provide the best information, at the lowest cost, with the highest quality of service.Jayant Sharma, Oracle Spatial's technical director, comments.

December 18, 2005

Counter-terrorism for Corporations - Part I
by Kevin Coleman
When you hear the term counter-terrorism, it brings to mind images of law enforcement, military and the CIA.Today many western countries have special units, designated to handle terrorist threats.But few people would put corporations on that list of organizations counter-terrorism brings to mind.This article by homeland security columnist Kevin Coleman discusses the state-of-the-art in corporate counter-terrorism.

3D GIS in Support of Disaster Management in Urban Areas
by Dr. Jiyeong Lee
Unlike many natural disasters, human-induced disasters such as the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, occur on the micro-space of multi-level structures (such as buildings) in urban areas, where evacuation is critical.This article, by Jiyeong Lee, introduces an 'intelligent' emergency evacuation system of complex buildings using 3D GIS and Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) technologies, called an Intelligent Building Evacuation (IBE) System.

December 17, 2005

Interoperable Integration of 3D Models over the Internet for Emergency Preparedness and Response
by Dr. Thomas H. Kolbe
Disaster management and homeland security planning require ad-hoc access to and integration of different types of geoinformation from different sources.This article, by Dr.Thomas Kolbe of the University of Bonn, discusses work on standards for interoperable 3D geo-visualization and exchange of city models is underway.Two new developments in this area are described, the Web 3D Service (W3DS) and CityGML, both of which have recently been brought to the "Discussion Paper"� level within the OGC.

December 08, 2005

Windows Live Local, Next Version of Microsoft Virtual Earth Announced
by Joe Francica
Microsoft announced its next version of Virtual Earth which undergoes a name change to Windows Live Local powered by Virtual Earth.Virtual Earth is now the name of the mapping platform that will in time power MapPoint Web Services and the company's consumer mapping products.Live Local contains the "birds eye" imagery provided by Pictometry, enhanced directions tools and new customization options.

December 06, 2005

VoIP E911 Calls -- Skyhook Wireless Offers Solution
by Joe Francica
In early November, U.S.senators voted to grant Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers a reprieve in meeting the Nov.28 deadline by which Internet phone operators must re-engineer their systems to connect users to the enhanced 911 network.Skyhook Wireless has developed a solution that allows E911 callers to be found -- without notifying their service provider of their new address (an important fact given emergencies are presumably not a planned event).Joe Francica followed up with Ted Morgan, founder of Skyhook Wireless, to find out more.

December 05, 2005

Executive Interview: Peter Batty, Intergraph's New Vice President and CTO
by Joe Francica
In late October, Intergraph announced that Peter Batty was joining the company as Vice president and chief technology officer.Before joining Intergraph, he was the co-founder and chief technology officer for Ten Sails, a company focused on building businesses in the area of spatial and location-related technologies.Before that, he was vice president of technology at GE Power and worked with the GE Smallworld product, used primarily in the utilities and communations sectors.Joe Francica interviewed him about his new job and what he'd like to accomplish at Intergraph.

November 30, 2005

GIS Across America
by Hal Reid
November 17th was the third in a series of seminars held by ESRI and IBM for Federal managers.The objectives were of the increasing collaboration between agencies, developing more decision making power and expanded use of current and evolving technologies.

Product Overview - Z Corporation 3D Printers
by Hal Reid
Z Corporation produces several 3D printer models that range in output size from 8 by 10 by 8 inches to 20 by 24 by 16 inches.Note that there are three dimensions, not two like your average printer.This is because these products can be used to create models of terrain, topographical maps and even models of parts and assemblies.

Identity Theft Advisory
by Kevin Coleman
Terrorists have seized upon the use of information technology as a tool in their terrorist activities.Terrorist have a long history
of assuming other individual's identities.In an article published on September 22nd, 2001 by the Times LTD titled
"Terrorists' Trade in Stolen Identities"� *it discusses how Osama bin Laden had carefully created impostors and how his
agents stole the identities and life histories of at least a dozen Western-educated young men who were all murdered in 1990.

The Practical Use of GIS Technology in Business
by Alex Walker
Historically transportation and field services organizations were interested in one thing "" tracking the location of their personnel and vehicles.Today however, organizations are focused more than ever on cutting costs and improving productivity. As a result, many want to go beyond simply monitoring vehicle movement to include tracking of other assets and resources out in the field.Until recently however, the infrastructure and costs required to do this have been outof reach for most companies.

The Deadline for the E911 Mandate Approaches ...Where Do Things Stand?
by David H. Williams
A great deal has happened since US wireless carriers finally started getting their act together about Wireless E911 a couple of years ago.Most notably the big six carriers (AT&T Wireless, Cingular, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon) are now the big four, with the acquisition of Nextel by Sprint and AT&T Wireless by Cingular.But now the end-of-2005 implementation deadline is looming, and author Dave Williams comments on how well it's going.In a nutshell, the carriers are doing pretty well but the PSAPs are behind (and the problem, according to Williams, lies in funding).

November 15, 2005

Holy Cow, A Phantom Mall!
by Mike Sawyer and Terry Conley
Just in time for Halloween, we have a story about a "Phantom Mall" that was created from bad data.Read how credibility was almost lost by trusting the data source.

November 10, 2005

Understanding Who We Are Fighting: James Woolsey's GEOINT Keynote
by Hal Reid
The theme of this years' GEOINT conference was "transformation." Perhaps one of the best explanations of what is driving that transformation, as the intelligence world moves from Cold War strategies and tactics to a new era of enemies without countries, without a tangible state based resources and targets, was presented by former CIA Director James Woolsey.Hal Reid reports.

November 01, 2005

Investigating Mobile GIS
by Aymen A. Solyman
In the future, many computer applications will be inherently mobile, and rely on seamless wireless networking.Although the desktop computer will still exist and be used for many tasks, the majority of tomorrow's computer applications will be accessed on other devices.In this article, author Aymen Solyman shares some observations based on the experience of developing wireless GIS for many cities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Katrina Imagery Warehouse: The Inside Story
by Howard Butler
The Katrina event brought GIS and spatial technologies into the forefront of many people's minds.After the evacuation, tens of thousands of people were grasping for any information they could find about their homes and businesses.Familiarity with geo-viewing tools like Google Earth, Google Maps, NASA WorldWind, and Microsoft Virtual Earth and access to the Internet gave people the means to investigate their own personal situations from afar utilizing tools similar to those geospatial practitioners have used for years.A mass democratization of geospatial technologies took place in the country's time of crisis.Howard Butler tells the story.

A Dialog with Jay Clark, Tele Atlas
by Hal Reid
On October 19th, 2005 Location Intelligence Magazine had a dialog with Jay Clark, Director of Content Management Americas, Tele Atlas about data quality and methodology.

October 31, 2005

Trends in Web Mapping: Dispelling the Myths around Web Services
by Maurits Van der Vlugt
This article, by Maurits van der Vlugt, slays three dragons that seem to have found lives of their own as myths in the Web mapping world.We will see that the concerns raised may be real, but that there are effective and efficient ways of dealing with them.In the end, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

October 26, 2005

Making Your Data 'Stuff' Work For You
by Lisa Flint
Remember George Carlin's classic routine about 'needing a place for his stuff'? Stuff is everywhere - often more than we can manage.This is particularly true in today's information age, where we're bombarded with tips, insight and news through word-of-mouth, email, phone or fax.Information is constantly available, but how valuable is it if we can't gain knowledge, and therefore wisdom, from it? Information delivers no value if not used properly AND if the information is wrong.

Product Review - RouteMAP IMS 3.0
by Hal Reid
RouteMAP IMS 3.0 is an out of the box solution for adding maps to existing web sites.Several things make this product unique. First is ESRI licenses users to install RouteMAP IMS on their server(s).Not only does this provide licensees the ability to selectively add mapping features it also gives web masters and developers the ability to seamlessly customize the look and feel of RouteMAP IMS so it matches the graphics of their site.Second, ESRI's RouteMAP IMS product has server based pricing rather than transaction based.

Distributing Maps via TerraGO
by Hal Reid
TerraGo Technologies has a solution using PDF files that allows users of ARCMap™ to distribute maps using the power of their product and Adobe's free reader.

Processing and Analyzing Geographical Data
by Konrad Dramowicz
What is knowledge discovery?
GIS and knowledge discovery (KD), also known as data mining (DM), are considered by many not only as technologies but also as sciences or even "arts." KD helps in detecting patterns and extracting significant, previously unknown information from databases.For many years, statisticians manually mined databases looking for statistically significant patterns.This operation can be (now) performed less or more automatically.

Leveraging Spatial Solutions for Transportation Planning Effectiveness
by Roy Peterkofsky
In today's competitive business environment, managing transportation costs is crucial for manufacturing and distribution companies.The costs of moving materials and finished goods to, from, and between a company's facilities can add up to as much as 10% of its revenue.The combination of these cost and service considerations with a host of operational constraints makes transportation management a daunting task.In the face of this complexity, software applications can make transportation planning easier and enable it to yield better results - reduced costs and improved on-time performance.Read more...

October 25, 2005

Trucking Along
by Adena Schutzberg
In the middle of October trucking management professionals came to Boston.Officially, it was the site of the American Trucking Associations 2005 Management Conference & Exhibition.To Adena Schutzberg, it was "the truck show." She offers the "geo-highlights" from the trade show floor.

October 21, 2005

The Bird Flu - A Homeland Security Planning Scenario
by Kevin Coleman
Our nation faces numerous threats.Many citizens have come to expect the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to protect us.But from what? Not all these threats carry guns, wear uniforms or build bombs.Homeland security columnist Kevin Coleman looks at the bird flu.

October 18, 2005

A Proposed System Architecture for Emergency Response in Urban Areas
by Sisi Zlatanova
Urban areas are complex conglomerates with a high density of people and infrastructure, and therefore decision-makers face great challenges when a disaster happens.Very recent man-made and natural disasters (for example, the bomb attack in London and the hurricane in New Orleans) have clearly shown numerous difficulties in coordinating the work of different teams and finding appropriate information.This article, by Sisi Zlatanova, offers a hypothetical architecture for emergency response in urban areas, and describes its characteristics.

October 12, 2005

Killer Data - LiDAR
by Simon Greener
What are the next "killer data"? Judging from the recent explosion of portals delivering satellite and aerial imagery to any curious Web surfer, one might say that sort of imagery will take us to the next phase. Contributor Simon Greener looks at LiDAR as a potential source of killer data.Using two examples, he explains why satellite imagery, no matter the resolution, may not cover all our needs.There is, to his current thinking, a non-satellite based technology that has the potential to provide up-to-date, accurate data where previously we had to use statistical sampling and costly field survey and ground-truth programs to capture data: LiDAR.

October 09, 2005

A Proposal to Enhance Emergency Routing for Hospital and Critical Care Facilities
by Ross Capaccio and John Ellis
The healthcare management groups that manage U.S. hospitals and other critical care facilities need to build command centers equipped with the same geospatial technology used by government first-responders in order for them to quickly respond to emergency situations.Two GIS professionals discuss why this should be done, and how to do so.

October 07, 2005

MapQuest Reinvented
by Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
In light of recent competitive threats, MapQuest appears to be redefining itself.Unlike Google, MapQuest has a long list of customers who need to be supported, so creating "mashups" or being in perpetual "beta mode" is just not the business model MapQuest can follow at this time.So, where is it headed and does the company have another niche it will attack while others are testing applications to see if they will "stick" in the ever-expanding market for location technology?

September 29, 2005

NSGIC 2005 Annual Meeting: Key Themes
by Adena Schutzberg
This year's NSGIC annual meeting in Rochester, New York, continued the tradition of respectful questioning and continued pushing and prodding for better use of geospatial technology across federal, state and local government.Adena Schutzberg reports on the key themes from the event.

September 22, 2005

Tracking Hurricane Rita
by Directions Staff
First Katrina; now Rita.Get the most current, live data feeds to track Hurricane Rita.Data is being fed directly from the NOAA data centers and the National Hurricane Center.The article also compiles resources available from several other data sources.We will keep this article updated as new map data becomes available.Keep this page bookmarked to see new map data as it is posted.

September 15, 2005

Technology Supporting Emergency Response
by Kevin Coleman
Everyone is talking and writing about Hurricane Katrina and the disaster that has befallen the Gulf Coast.What is striking is that we saw the best and the worst of humanity during the challenging days after the hurricane and resulting failures of the levies.While this makes for great copy and a platform for political gain, it's probably more useful to look at the future...The seemingly fractured response to this and other emergencies is a symptom, not the root problem.The root problem was lack of command and control over the resources responding to the emergency.Homeland Security columnist Kevin Coleman comments.

September 13, 2005

Conference Report - 1st Annual ESRI Homeland Security GIS Summit
by Nora Parker
Nora Parker attended the ESRI Homeland Security GIS Summit, which took place in Denver this week.She reports that the line up of speakers and recent events (Hurricane Katrina in particular) gave the meeting a believable sense of "there is no more valuable use of your time than to be here right now, learning what is the state-of-the-art in emergency response, and working together on how we collectively can improve on it."

Space Imaging Responds to Katrina: A Look Behind the Scenes
by Adena Schutzberg
Gary Napier of Space Imaging shared some of what's gone on at the Space Imaging in responding to Katrina.Clouds got in the way, many many hard drives were used, and some imagery was turned around in a single day to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.As of the 8th, Thursday, the satellite imaged more than 35,000 sq km of the Gulf Coast.

September 07, 2005

Geo-Temporal Visualization of RFID
by David Shuping, FC Business Systems and William Wright, Oculus Info, Inc.
The use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is expanding rapidly in both commercial and Department of Defense (DoD) supply chains.Many resources within the RFID research and development community have been focused on hardware and firmware components, including active and passive RFID tags, tag readers, and embedded software, yet fewer resources have been focused on exploiting the data collected by tag readers and stored in electronic databases.GeoTime visualization exploits the collection and storage of RFID data, and provides global in-transit visibility of the DoD supply chain down to the last tactical mile.

September 04, 2005

Oracle Spatial User Group Meets in Australia
by Simon Greener
On August 18th, the first meeting of the Oracle Spatial user community took place in Australia.Given that this technology has been available now for well over 10 years, it was a long time coming.This is not to say that it is anyone's fault.We are all just too busy "doing more with less." This and other factors will be explored more later.The great take home message was that this first User Group was extremely well attended.Over half were the user community, the rest were vendors.

LBS -- From Killer App to Killer Enabler
by Joe Astroth
Given declining profitability in core voice business, wireless network operators (WNOs) have searched for the "killer application" to drive enhanced services revenues.In the past, many vendors and industry analysts have promoted location-based services (LBS) as the contender, but this positioning has detracted from the true power of location.Today, a consensus is forming around a different view: LBS is not a killer application; it is the "killer enabler" of existing and new wireless services.

September 03, 2005

Point Level Geocoding in Group 1 Product
by Nora Parker
Steve Walden is Vice President and General Manager of the Centrus Division at Group 1 Software, (a Pitney Bowes Company).He is responsible for Group 1's business geographics product line.Walden has more than 10 years of management experience in the GIS and Business Geographics field, starting in the early 1990's at Strategic Mapping.Nora Parker contacted Walden to follow up on a substantial software and data upgrade to Group 1's GeoStan application.

August 17, 2005

Phone-based GPS-based Games: Missing Pieces?
by Adena Schutzberg
A press release this week touts two location-based phone-based games on offer in the United States.I'd heard about Swordfish when it was launched in Canada.It involves fishing for virtual creatures around your location.Maps are provided to help locate the schools, and players need a bit of strategy to safely reel in the catch.The second game is Torpedo Bay, which involves keeping your ship healthy while hitting and hopefully sinking enemy ships in the area.Both are from a company called Blister Entertainment.By Adena Schutzberg

August 06, 2005

LBS: Are Consumers Ready to Blow This Market Open?
by Joe Francica
At the ESRI Telecom and LBS Summit in San Diego last week, the potential market for location-based, or rather "location-enabling," services was discussed yet again, but now with more data to understand why it is poised for exponential growth.Putting the main problem aside for moment -- that most handsets like cell phones are not equipped with location-determination technology, like GPS -- the market for consumer products that are equipped with GPS is rapidly expanding.

August 02, 2005

On the Floor
by Adena Schutzberg
A recap of interesting "stuff" found on the ESRI User Conference's exhibit floor by Adena Schutzberg, Executive Editor.

July 26, 2005

GIS on Land and Water
by Atanas Entchev
Last month I participated in a four-day ocean sailing race from Annapolis, MD, to Newport, RI.The race course first took us down the Chesapeake Bay and then up north, offshore, to Newport.I was fascinated to see, for the first time ever, GIS/GPS technology being implemented to track each competing boat in real time and display the boats' positions and tracks on the Web.The endeavor was advertised as a safety feature first and foremost.It also enabled "spectators" to follow the race from their armchairs.

July 04, 2005

Wireless Location Uses in the User Plane and Control Plane
by Jonathan Spinney
Two years ago, Joe Francica, Editor-in-Chief of Directions Magazine, asked me in an interview where the wireless location-based services market would be in 2005.My reply then was, "I hope we are better off than we are now.Enterprises and governments are poised to make great things happen if we can solve the location availability problem, as well as the carrier business model issues." -- Jonathan Spinney of ESRI offers an update on the LBS business today.

June 27, 2005

Human-tracking Goes Mainstream
by Jerry Dobson
Martha Stewart wears an ankle bracelet.Sprint announces a new "Business Mobility Framework" for employers to track employees.School officials in Sutter, California, order students to hang RFID tags around their necks; parents object and the principal backs down.Already, school children in Osaka, Japan, are required to wear similar tags tucked in their belongings.AGS president Jerry Dobson wonders when people are going to start asking good questions about how these technologies might be misused.

June 13, 2005

What Does Amacai Offer?
by Nora Parker
On its company website, Amacai is described as "the premier information solutions company serving businesses that demand the most current national coverage of name, address, and phone number data." We followed up the vice president of sales, Michael McCarthy, to better understand the company's products and value proposition.

June 08, 2005

Location Matters at Local Matters
by Adena Schutzberg and Joe Francica
In the latest round of clashes between the search engine giants, you might think that location technology has the world at its feet.Each player is vying for more market share and advertising dollars, pinning its hopes on geography.But just remember that "content is king" in local (and many other) matters.Editors Adena Schutzberg and Joe Francica dig deeper into one technology that is a potential supporting player to all the the search engines and wireless carriers.

May 30, 2005

The S-Curve of GIS - Or Are We Indispensable Yet?
by Atanas Entchev
How mature is geotechnology today? What are the marks of a mature technology? Why does it matter? According to Harry Dent (in The Roaring 2000s: Building The Wealth And Lifestyle You Desire In The Greatest Boom In History ) "...new technologies never live up to their promise in the early stages, and then surprise everyone by becoming suddenly indispensable." If we subscribe to Dent's theory, it is important to know just when you are about to become indispensable.So, are we there yet? Columnist Atanas Entchev provides some thoughts on this subject.

May 29, 2005

Microsoft's MSN Virtual Earth: The Map is the Search Platform
by Adena Schutzberg and Joe Francica

Microsoft previewed its new search platform, MSN Virtual Earth, at the D Conference ("All things digital") in Carlsbad, California, this week.Most commentators immediately linked the announcement to word from Google last week about an update to Keyhole called Google Earth.What's Microsoft up to? Adena Schutzberg and Joe Francica provide their take after a demonstration earlier this week.

May 22, 2005

Telematics Detroit 2005
by Hal Reid
Senior Technical Editor Hal Reid spent last Monday (May 16th) at the Telematics Detroit 2005 Conference.This was his first experience at this conference.Two things struck him immediately.The first was that this industry is 20 years old and is still struggling with growth and both consumer and commercial acceptance.The second was a question posed very early in the conference by a panel to the general audience: "How many of you are working for companies that are actually making money in this industry?" Other than the panel of four, there were four hands raised in the audience.

May 16, 2005

Executive Interview with Sean Phelan, Founder of Multimap
by Nora Parker
When Sean Phelan started Multimap in 1995, he was interested in the notion of putting maps on mobile phones.He had been a consultant in the mobile telecom field, and because he's an avid sailor, he was familiar with GPS and mapping technology.He thought it would be interesting to bring the two together."That was the vision that made me start the company," he said during a recent interview during the Location Technology and Business Intelligence conference in Philadelphia.

Location Technology and Business Intelligence 2005
by Joe Francica
Editor-in-Chief Joe Francica recaps the highlights from the Location Technology and Business Intelligence meeting which took place last week in Philadelphia.

May 12, 2005

Location Technology and Business Intelligence 2005: Nine Ideas Worthy of Note
by Adena Schutzberg
Executive Editor Adena Schutzberg offers comments on her nine "take homes" from the Location Technology and Business Intelligence 2005 conference, which took place May 2-4 in Philadelphia.

May 08, 2005

Geocollaboration using Peer-Peer GIS
by Damon D. Judd
Current research and future trends in geospatial application development include collaborative methods for working with geospatial data.A new term some researchers use to describe this approach is "geocollaboration." This article, by Damon Judd, president of Ala Carto Consulting, brings us up to date on geocollaboration.

April 26, 2005

What Did I Learn From Google Satellite Maps?
by Atanas Entchev
So, how about those Google Maps satellite images? Columnist Atanas Entchev offers some thoughts on what freely available satellite imagery will mean to us, our friendships, and our perception of reality.

April 21, 2005

ESRI Business GeoInfo Summit
by Hal Reid
Business GIS is moving beyond the time honored applications such as site selection and target marketing, and into the arena of the visualization of Business Intelligence (BI).GIS is now a mainstream technology, and since everything happens somewhere, mapping software is obviously the right choice for the visualization of "where." The tone for this conference, held in Chicago on April 18 and 19, was set by ESRI's David Huffman, director of commercial sales.Senior Technical Editor Hal Reid offers highlights from the conference.

April 20, 2005

Adobe Buys Macromedia: Impact for the Geospatial Community?
by Adena Schutzberg
On Monday Adobe, known best to the geospatial community as the maker of Acrobat, the software to make PDFs and Adobe Reader, the free software to read those documents, bought Macromedia, the company behind Flash and the Web authoring tool Dreamweaver.The deal is worth $3.4 billion.What migth be the implications for the geospatial marketplace? By Adena Schutzberg, Executive Editor.

April 18, 2005

MapInfo's MapWorld and an interview with Mark Cattini, CEO, and Michael Hickey, COO, MapInfo Corporation
by Joe Francica
Editor-in-chief Joe Francica covered the news from MapWorld, MapInfo's user conference in Key Biscayne, Florida last week."Location Intelligence" was the operative phrase used throughout the conference and their partnership with Microstrategy was on display.Good words from keynoters helped to do much of the talking for MapInfo and their strategy of being a "customer-focused" organization.Read more...

April 17, 2005

Mobile Resource Management and Beyond
by Majdi Zahran
For companies with advanced enterprise IT systems, delivering a higher level of benefits is paramount to realizing the full return on investment of their time and money.The next level is disseminating and providing access to crucial corporate data to the field in a highly reliable and secure fashion.This article, by Majdi Zahran, Intergraph's IntelliWhere Products Manager, offers a framework of how this might be done.

April 11, 2005

Field Service Management - Where Logistics Meets Location Technology
by Joe Francica
Routing was a wonderful function that was invented when geographic information systems started to incorporate street networks as part of the total package.But what is the true purpose of routing vehicles along a street network? It was to get from point "A" to "B" to do what? And that's where GIS systems fell short.Read more about the integration of location technology with a comprehensive scheduling solution.

April 09, 2005

Google Integrates Keyhole into Google Maps
by Adena Schutzberg

On Monday Google added free access to Keyhole's satellite imagery to its Google Maps.The announcement came via the company's Google Blog.How does it work? What are the limitations? What does it mean for competitors? Executive Editor Adena Schutzberg takes a look.

April 07, 2005

Michigan CAT Case Study
by Mike DeMuro
Michigan CAT is one of 220 Caterpillar dealers worldwide.It operates 1,840 branch locations and 1,100 CAT Dealer Rental outlets.Michigan CAT is leading the way among Caterpillar dealers in streamlining workflow and simplifying information access.This article describes how Michigan CAT integrated dispatch, parts ordering, invoicing, etc., into a system that incorporates GPS.

March 27, 2005

IbnBatota -- Technology for a Mobile Map Application
by Aymen A. Solyman
A mobile map application is not a conventional GIS modified to operate on mobile devices, but rather is a system built using a fundamentally new paradigm (Maguire, 2001).In this article, I will discuss the integration of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) to build a mobile map application running on 2.5G and 3G mobile devices such as the Nokia Series 60.--by Aymen Solyman

March 26, 2005

An Update from MPSI
by Hal Reid
When we read the press release about MPSI's formation of a Technical Advisory Board, we wondered what was going on at the company, so we asked Hal Reid to find out.This interview with president and CEO Jim Auten addresses the company's diversification strategy, products and domestic/international business mix.

March 23, 2005

Directions 05: Blueprint for the Next Decade (An IDC Conference)
by Adena Schutzberg and Hal Reid
What do two GIS people learn at one-day conference on the future of information technology? Quite a lot.Read what IDC staff had to say about the future of consumer products, software companies and energy business at it Directions '05 conference.-- Adena Schutzberg and Hal Reid

March 18, 2005

Mississippi: The Proving Ground for the Location Aware Enterprise
by Susan Kalweit and Elizabeth Matlack
The dependence of rural communities on the land that supports them creates challenges to maintaining a desirable quality of life, environmental health and economic competitiveness that often are further hampered by an inadequate information technology infrastructure.This article describes how the State of Mississippi is using the concept of a Location Aware Enterprise to leverage geospatial resources for bringing new and enhanced capabilities in public safety and homeland security, state revenue generation and natural resource planning and maintenance.By Susan Kalweit of Booz Allen Hamilton and Elizabeth Matlack of the National Center for Bio-Defense Communications at Jackson State University.

March 16, 2005

Winners of the 2005 LBS Challenge
by Joe Francica
NAVTEQ sponsored the LBS Challenge for the second year and over 180 Companies submitted applications compared to about 40 last year.There were eighteen category semi-finalists.Six category winners were chose and one grand prize winner.Read who the winners are!

Seen and heard at CTIA - LBS: When will the time be now?
by Joe Francica
At CTIA this year, a special panel session was convened to address a question the companies looking to help deploy a location-based service have been asking themselves for a while: When will the time be now? Derek Kerton, Principal of The Kerton Group moderated the panel that hosted representatives from several sectors of LBS.Here is a synopsis of each person's comments...read more

CTIA Executive Interviews
by Joe Francica
Executives from NAVTEQ, Autodesk, and TruePosition were intereviewed to find out why this is the year for LBS to finally boom.Read more.

March 15, 2005

Wow Technologies Found at CTIA 2005
by Joe Francica
The Cellular Telecommuncations Industry Association (CTIA) Exhibition had LBS on its mind in 2005 as many new products were announced this year in New Orleans.Here are the ones we found that wow'd us!

Entertainment Content Rings Clear at CTIA; P Diddy and his Wireless World
by Joe Francica
Entertainer and entrepreneur Sean Combs, also known as P Diddy, kicked off the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) convention in New Orleans by announcing his entry into the wireless world and telling the attendees that he sees the cell phone market as the medium to expand his enterprise so that his customers have more mobile access to his music, apparel, and politics.The same could be said of the many companies that came to exhibit at CTIA 2005.

March 13, 2005

Protecting Our Borders
by Kevin Coleman
The problem of protecting our country's borders is without question one of the most highly debated issues we face today.The complexity of protecting our borders, while not infringing on individual rights or negatively impacting global trade, should not be underestimated.Of equal importance is our ability to move quickly to reinforce the current security measures with enhanced measures properly supported by regulations and policies.This article, by homeland security columnist Kevin Coleman looks at the role(s) various technologies, including GIS, will play.

March 08, 2005

Starlight Overview and Interview with Battelle's Brian Kritzstein
by Hal Reid
On Wednesday, February 23rd, Hal Reid was given a demo of Starlight, a state of the art 3D workspace program that creates virtual geography of data relationships as well as tying refined data to maps and imagery.It can bring real and virtual geographies together to create visual insight from massive amounts of data.This article includes both a description of the Starlight technology by Hal, and an interview he conducted with Brian Kitzstein, a Technology Specialist involved with the product.

March 03, 2005

Tracking in Locations Where GPS Won't Go
by David Wagman
Global positioning systems don't work indoors, an inconvenience that seldom poses a problem.GPS is, after all, an "outdoor" satellite-based technology.But think about a miner trapped underground after an accident.Or a firefighter who rushes into a smoke- and flame-filled building.Or, more poignantly, an equipment-laden rescuer walking up the stairs in the doomed World Trade Center.This article, by David Wagman, looks at a promising application of micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) gyroscopes to help locate first responders, for example, during an emergency event.

February 27, 2005

Wireless E-911: Partnering for Success in Spartanburg County
by Jason Angelides
An internationally recognized business and cultural center, Spartanburg County, South Carolina is home to BMW Manufacturing Corporation, textile and chemical manufacturing leader Milliken & Co., hotelier Extended Stay America and the family restaurant chain Denny's Corporation.With more than 814 square miles and a population of 260,000, Spartanburg County is one of the leaders in the deployment of wireless E-911.This article describes how they got there.

February 19, 2005

More on Google Maps' Web Technology
by Adena Schutzberg
Google Maps is a combination of proprietary commercial technology (like that from Telcontar, which I wrote about earlier this week) and commercial data (from NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas) and some good old-fashioned, clever programming.Read on for a look at that "clever programming piece" from a non-programmer and some clarification on speculation regarding technology that I ran into this week.
-- Adena Schutzberg, Executive Editor

The Technology Behind Google Maps
by Adena Schutzberg
Last week Google quietly rolled out Google Maps.There was a definite buzz about the technology (DHTML and JavaScript are key parts), the look (very pretty) and the speed (very fast).While many early users of the application simply like to point to Google and say, "They are smart," there are players behind the scenes.In the case of Google Maps one key player is Telcontar.Read on to learn why this small company is behind some of the most heavily used mapping portals on the Web -- Adena Schutzberg, Executive Editor

January 30, 2005

Microsoft MapPoint Fleet Edition
by Hal Reid
On January 11th Microsoft unveiled MapPoint 2004 Fleet Edition to their MapPoint partners.This is not a new product release, but rather a licensing and pricing re-structure designed to give Microsoft partners more flexibility.This article highlights the key changes.

January 27, 2005

There's a Storm Brewin' - WiFi vs.Everything Else
by Michael Shean
As with other technological "revolutions" the move to wireless broadband will create winners and losers.While it is too early to determine who the winners will be, it is clear that the emergence of Wi-Fi technology will profoundly alter how we access and exchange information and more importantly how we interact with the world around us.This article talks about the clouds of scores of Internet-enabling Wi-Fi radio signals gathering in major cities.

January 26, 2005

U.S.Poised to Capitalize on Location Services
by Jason Angelides
Carriers in the U.S.have made substantial progress in building out the infrastructure for the E-911 roll-out.As a result of E-911 and several other factors, wireless analysts and industry experts suggest that the U.S.wireless location application market is poised for substantial growth.This article looks at the opportunities and challenges U.S.carriers face.

January 24, 2005

The Location Aware Enterprise: Foundation For Efficient Operations and Emergency Response
by Alan Leidner
This article is the second in a series about "The Location Aware Enterprise." There is hardly a more striking example of the benefits of the Location Aware Enterprise than what happened in New York City (NYC) during the response and recovery operations for the 9/11 tragedy.During that disaster and emergency response, many organizations - city, regional, state, federal, private and non-profit - pooled their resources and worked together.

January 19, 2005

Tsunami Support from MapAction - GIS to the Far Reaches of the World
by Hal Reid
With minimal notice, MapAction volunteers leave their comfortable heated and air conditioned GIS environments for someplace in the world which may have neither.Power is intermittent at best, data may be limited or almost non-existent and critical map production is derived from their laptops and portable printers and whatever current imagery is available.From Asia, to the Middle East, to Africa, wherever there is a disaster, you may find the volunteers from MapAction.

January 16, 2005

Protecting the Water Supply from Terrorism
by Kevin Coleman
Protecting the water supply from terrorist attacks is a very large task.With all the attention and activity since 2001 why is the water supply still a likely area of attack? How real is the threat? How difficult would it be for terrorist to strike? These questions and more will be addressed in this article by Kevin Coleman.

January 12, 2005

Tsunami Update
by Directions Staff
It feels like the major emphasis in the past week is how we, as a technology community, are getting organized around volunteering our time and resources to assist in the relief effort.This article highlights four organizations that are involved in providing GIS-related data and/or services, and all could use your help.

January 05, 2005

GIS Response to Indian Ocean Tsunami
by Directions Staff
The nature of our "horizontal technology" requires us to participate in planning for, response to, and mitigation of disasters, both man-made and natural.We have been tracking websites offering spatial information and mapping resources related to the tsunami disaster.Here are several we have found.Please do not hesitate to contact us with additional resources you are aware of, as we would like to maintain this list.

January 04, 2005

The Location Aware Enterprise: An Integrating Business Principle
by Susan Kalweit
Ed.Note: Sue Kalweit of Booz Allen Hamilton offers the first in a series of articles about the "Location Aware Enterprise." She offers a challenge "to think, talk and act enterprise-wide in the broadest business context possible" as we begin planning for the second annual Location Technologies and Business Intelligence conference.

December 24, 2004

Location Intelligence Perspective: To 'GIS the Enterprise, Or Enterprise the GIS?'
by Bill Huber
If any topic brings forth visions of blind people groping at the elephant, the fundamental architecture of how GIS fits into enterprise applications is it.Which camp are you in? Should you invest in a complete spatial platform or let the database do the work? This is your opportunity to "sound off." Read more.

December 23, 2004

Location Intelligence Perspective: More than ROI
by Bill Huber
ROI, or "return on investment," is on everybody's mind these days, but I'm not sure it means exactly the same thing to everybody.A classic, common-sense approach to ROI is this: you invest in a technology, you implement it, you observe its effect on your practices, and you measure its results, both in currency and in "softer" terms such as customer satisfaction.Read other examples by Bill Huber from existing examples from today's corporations.

December 22, 2004

Location Intelligence Perspective: Demonstrating the Value of Location Technology
by Bill Huber
There has been plenty of discussion about "proving" the ROI (return on investment) of GIS and location technology.Naturally, there are many differences of opinion from vendors and users about what we're even talking about.Yet, that does not prevent a consensus from emerging.This article is the first in a series entitled "Location Technology Perspecitive" by Bill Huber who will attack this subject from several angles and render his interpretation that will benefit both user and vendor alike.

December 11, 2004

Autodesk University 2004: Las Vegas Valley Water District
by Hal Reid
While Hal Reid was attending Autodesk University 2004, he was treated to a field trip to the Las Vegas Valley Water District to view CAD and GIS integration up close.Read more about what he learned.

November 23, 2004

The Smart Pipe Approach for LBS:
by Jonathan Spinney
A bit more than a year ago in another Directions Magazine article entitled Mobilizing Existing Users of Geographic Information - The Dumb Pipe Approach for LBS, Jonathan Spinney of ESRI wrote about an LBS value-chain debacle that had little hope of realizing a fruitful future unless industry players matured to focus solely on individual core competencies.He's since learned that solutions are being developed...

November 21, 2004

Interview with Xenotran Founder, Dr.Derrick Page
by Joe Francica
Joe Francica spoke to Dr.Derrick Page, founder of Xenotran, recently.Xenotran is a design and engineering company that focuses on research, development and manufacturing of electronic and mechanical products for military and commercial applications.Joe's interview w/ Dr.Page focuses on XenoVision Mark III, a product that builds full color, accurate topographic models in under two minutes.

November 15, 2004

Turkish Government Bases National Emergency Response System on GIS Technology
by Jim Baumann
August 17, 1999 will forever remain etched in the minds of the Turkish people.In addition to devastating earthquakes like that one, Turks are also vulnerable to other common natural and manmade disasters.To develop an integrated response to potential national disasters, the Republic of Turkey tasked its Ministry of Environment, a longtime user of GIS technology, with developing a national emergency response center, designated as the Emergency Center Project (ECP).This article describes where they are in the process.

November 13, 2004

Convergence: GIS/Communications/Information Technologies
by Kevin Coleman
Homeland security columnist Kevin Coleman discusses how the convergence of these three technologies will affect us.The three critical technologies are poised to converge over the next few years and culminate into a suite of capabilities that will have significant implications in business, government and homeland security.Each of these technologies in and of themselves provide significant capabilities and value to organizations, but combining the new capabilities, including Location-Based Services (LBS), will allow organizations to fundamentally rethink how they operate.

November 12, 2004

The Making of a Web Map - 2004
by Joe Francica
In our second annual Web Mapping Contest, 85 contestants were asked to enter their vital stastics of how they created their applications.This article provides a compendium of that information and will be extremely useful to those looking to deploy applications using web mapping technology.Read more...

November 05, 2004

Web Mapping with SVG
by Roger Harwell
Roger Harwell of Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions discusses why SVG is rapidly becoming a popular choice for rendering maps.This is especially true in the geospatial web software applications area, because SVG, an Extensible Markup Language (XML) encoding or grammar, is designed to work effectively across platforms, output resolutions, color spaces, and a range of available bandwidths.

November 01, 2004

Call for Papers Issued for Location Technology & Business Intelligence 2005
by Nora Parker
Directions Magazine announces a Call for Papers for the 2005 Location Technology and Business Intelligence conference.To learn more about the conference, and about submitting a proposal, click the link above.

October 31, 2004

Location Based Services - MapPoint Location Server and Global Positioning System (GPS)
by Steve Milroy
This article compares and contrasts Microsoft's MapPoint Location Server and more traditional GPS devices in LBS scenarios.We will explore technology, architecture, costs and the relevant approach for different solutions.

October 30, 2004

Executive Interview with Dr.Matt Tate, Vice President, Geospatial Solutions Federal, Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions
by Hal Reid
Intergraph's Vice President for Geospatial Solutions Federal, Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions, talks to industry veteran Hal Reid about GeoMedia and Dynamo, and how they play in today's military and intelligence market.

October 26, 2004

GEOINT 2004: Leveraging Technology in a new Era of Cooperation within the Intelligence Community
by Hal Reid
Senior Contributing Editor of Directions Magazine, Hal Reid, a former member of the U.S.Army's intelligence community himself, provides his analysis of GEOINT 2004."While coming home from GEOINT 2004, I was thinking about the events, presentations and the overall ambiance that seemed to be quietly embedded within this experience.This show was more than an exhibition, a PowerPoint, or a conversation in the hall." Read more.

October 23, 2004

GIS in the Rockies Wrap-up
by Nora Parker
Hard to believe, but this is the conference's 17th year.According to Tina Cary, exhibits and promotions coordinator for GIS in the Rockies 2004, the final attendance tally was 579, a 5% increase over the previous year.This was the first year the exhibit hall had WiFi available, and also the first year the conference sponsored a Geocaching event.John W.Hickenlooper, Mayor of the City and County of Denver, gave the luncheon keynote speech on Wednesday.

October 21, 2004

Wow Technologies Found at GEOINT 2004
by Joe Francica
The GEOINT 2004 Exhibition in New Orleans had one primary underlying theme: Visualization is a key technology driver.All of the product in our WOW Technology overview involve some new aspect of visualization to make it easier for the analyst to interpret or process multispectral imagery.See our top five "WOW Technologies" for GEOINT.

October 13, 2004

Mapping Progress in Aalborg, Denmark
by Jim Baumann
More than 650 years ago, King Valdemar of Denmark granted Aalborg, then a thriving coastal village on the Limfjord, a charter that regulated the relation between the king and the municipality and empowered civic leaders to provide efficient local government and services to its citizens.This article describes how a heavy-duty enterprise GIS is continuing to help the citizens do so.

October 01, 2004

Bioterrorism and the Food Supply
by Kevin Coleman
The goal of terrorists is to strike fear in the hearts of their targets.This can take many forms.They may wish to cause death, shock, economic disruption, loss of faith in authorities, psychological trauma, dread, or just uncertainty.Perhaps the act that would most readily accomplish this would be an attack on the United States' food supply. Protecting the food supply has been a priority for public health officials for decades. Traditionally, industry and regulators have depended on spot-checks of manufacturing conditions and random sampling of final products to ensure safe food.This system is seen as more reactive than preventive because it finds problems after they have occurred rather than as the food is being prepared.This article discusses the risks and postulates how GIS is a necessary part of the solution.

September 30, 2004

Florida Farm Bureau Insurance Deals with Hurricanes
by Kimberly Morton
With more than half of Florida's 17 million residents directly affected by Hurricane Charley and Hurricane Frances, the Florida Farm Bureau (FFB) Insurance Companies is using GIS technology to analyze the thousands of claims it is receiving on a daily basis and more quickly respond to the needs of its' policy holders.By using geo-spatial technology to present a visual representation of current claims, FFB can quickly locate areas with the highest concentration of claims and deploy the necessary resources, such as adjustors, claims agents and insurance agents.For instance, after a natural disaster, FFB uses geo-spatial technology from MapInfo Corporation to predict possible (and then to display actual) losses by overlaying event information, such as hurricane track and wind speed against its policyholder points.

September 28, 2004

Consumer Demand for Real-time Location Grows
by Steve Lombardi
A few weeks ago, Dodgeball was featured on NPR, prompting a few of us in the MapPoint group to try it out.Dodgeball stands out from the pack of contemporary friend-of-a-friend (FOAF) networks like Friendster and Tribe with an interesting twist - the use of location to let you know when a friend or an acquaintance a few degrees removed is nearby.We spend a lot of time thinking about social networks, like your MSN contact list, and how location and presence information can make them more useful, so this seemed like a natural fit and caught our collective "eye." Much like the other FOAF services, you need to fill in a brief profile about yourself, and then nag your friends to do the same, finally adding each other to your friends list.Then, in theory, the fun begins - you go about your life moving freely through space and receive a text message on your mobile when someone in your network is nearby.Cool concept that definitely sounded worth checking out.

September 22, 2004

Wireless Carriers are Making Great Progress Implementing Wireless E911...So What's the Problem?
by David H. Williams
Most Americans dialing 911 from their home or business phone expect nearly instant results on their doorstep from emergency responders.What is less clear to them and even seasoned technology, government, and business professionals is the level of technology infrastructure and operational processes required to provide these 911 services.For most of them it just works, and that is all that matters.Many of them would be upset or even horrified to find out that dialing 911 from their wireless phone would likely give them far different results.Emergency dispatchers today responding to wireless 911 calls cannot, for the vast majority of these calls, determine the caller's current location, often jeopardizing response time and too often resulting in the victim not being found in time.

September 21, 2004

NSGIC 2004 - Conference Overview: A focus on FEMA
by Joe Francica
NSGIC president Bill Johnson welcomed the approximately 325 attendees to the 2004 Annual Conference, an increase by nearly 50% from last year.The focus of the conference was squarely on understanding how states interface to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Map Modernization program.Karen Siderelis, Associate Director for Geospatial Information for the U.S.Geological Survey (USGS) also addressed the plenary session on the changes at the USGS.

September 16, 2004

IBM Releases DB2 Universal Database - Stinger
by Directions Staff
IBM announced the release of DB2 Universal Database (UDB) that includes capabilities for autonomic computing, an enhancement that IBM says will, "allow organizations to complete complex jobs up to seven times faster than before while also reducing the time spent on administrative tasks by up to 65 percent." In addition, enhancements also include new featutes for DB2 Spatial Extender, DB2 Geodetic Extender, and a development environment for supporting web services called, Spatial Integration Adapter for WebSphere Studio.Read more...

September 14, 2004

A Look at NAC Geographic
by Nora Parker
Ed.Note: With NAC Geographic Products, Inc.'s recent announcement that their Universal Address System was licensed to US-based Zeitgeist Data Management, Inc.to support ZDM's wellActivity.com application, we felt this might be a good time for a more in-depth look at this Toronto-based company.We contacted NAC's offices to ask if they would be willing to answer some questions for us, and they graciously agreed, offering president Dr.Xinhang Shen for an interview. NAC is on a mission to "revolutionize" addresses the world over.Eight characters, using a proprietary system developed by NAC, would identify all locations currently identified by addresses in the world.You can geocode your address at NAC's website for free, and get directions to other NAC-geocoded addresses. Partners such as Microsoft's MapPoint Web Service and others are using this technology.

August 27, 2004

Location-based Services - We're Getting Closer: Lesson's Learned from ESRI's LBS Summit
by Hal Reid
At the ESRI User's Conference in this month, members of the telecommunications industry gathered for a one-day Location-based Services (LBS) Summit.The meeting focused on the progress that was made by wireless carriers to offer location-based services, especially in the U.S., and determine a model for promoting these services.The session also addressed mobile computing.There is a definite connection between the two, and there is growing evidence that they are beginning to merge in terms of devices and services.

August 16, 2004

GIS Maps Bring Tourism, Telecom and Environmental Info to PDAs Throughout Europe
by Dan Ahern
A single currency and open borders are not the only things that the European Union is doing to bring together a patchwork quilt of countries.The European Commission launched the ODIN (geographic distributed Information) Project in 2000.According to the project managers, "The ODIN project aims at developing innovative paradigms for the design of open, distributed, and networked tools to boost the integration of an entire new class of just-in-time (at the point of need), interactive, value-added, map-based and personalised services for the mobile citizen (tourist, entrepreneur, commuter, farmer, etc.) paying a special attention to the promotion of natural and cultural assets of rural areas." Read more...

August 10, 2004

Places2protect: New data resource helps address emergency situations
by Nora Parker
Eddie Pickle at IONIC recently made us aware of a new data product he helped develop.Places2protect would help government agencies, charged with handling an emergency, know where critical populations (e.g.schools, hospitals, nursing homoes) are located.We asked him to provide additional information about the product to our readers.Read more.

August 06, 2004

NSGIC Ramps Up for 14th Annual Meeting
by Nora Parker
The National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) holds its annual meeting in Austin, TX, Sunday, Sept.12 through Thursday, Sept.16.The NSGIC session format for the 2004 Annual Conference will highlight state activities in particular theme areas.Directions Magazine had the opportunity last week to speak to Rick Memmel, GIS Coordinator for the State of Wyoming, and this year's NSGIC conference chair.While the agenda amounts to a fairly impressive group of topics, we asked Memmel what he expected to be the hot topics this year.He pointed to two that he expects people to be talking about during breaks, at lunch and during the evening at Austin-area bars.

July 29, 2004

The Strategic Implications of Wal-Mart's RFID Mandate
by David H. Williams
Over the last few years the cost declines of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, combined with improvements in sensitivity, range and durability, have enabled widespread RFID use in the logistical planning and operation of supply chain processes in the manufacturing, distribution and retail industries, and helped move its adoption into services such as security and access control, tracking, and monitoring/management.Up until recently, though, the adoption of such technology has been somewhat scatter-shot; some companies use it, some don't; within any given company that does, it may be used for some types of supply chain operations but not others; or is used only with some types of customers - its adoption has been a relatively immature "hit-or-miss." This environment changed dramatically last June when Wal-Mart Stores announced that it would require its top 100 suppliers to put RFID tags on shipping crates and pallets by January 1st 2005, and earlier this month announced that it will expand its RFID efforts to its next 200 largest suppliers by January 1st, 2006.This article discusses the strategic implications of this mandate for business, not just Wal-Mart's direct suppliers but also many other types of companies that will be affected (whether they know it yet or not), including GIS providers.

July 27, 2004

Executive Interview - Jack Pellicci and Xavier Lopez, Oracle Corporation
by Joe Francica
In this exclusive interview for Directions Magazine, Editor-in-Chief, Joe Francica discusses with Jack Pellicci, Group Vice President of the Business Development Group for Oracle's Government, Education, Health and Aerospace/Defense Industries, and Xavier Lopez, Director of Oracle's Spatial, Location and Network technologies group, how Oracle is addressing customer needs for location technology and what customers are looking for in terms of functionality to allow spatial information to become a strategic advantage for the corporation.

July 05, 2004

GIS-T at Airborne Express - Part 2
by Shaun McMullin and Patrick Moore
Part 1 of this two-part series discussed how Airborne Express used MapPoint to address some important aspects of organizing its business, including projecting station resources based on pick-up density and activity.This second part addresses how Airborne Express developed additional, more sophisticated business management capabilities by loosely coupling aspects of its SDA application with ArcGIS.These include improving route structures and morning package sorts.

July 03, 2004

4-H Programs Introduce Youth to GIS and GPS Technology
by Directions Staff
The U.S.Department of Agriculture maintains the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Services or CSREES.The CSREES mission is to "advance knowledge for agriculture, the environment, human health and well-being, and communities through national program leadership and federal assistance." One of the programs they maintain is the 4-H Youth Technology Leadership Team Program that fosters the learning of geographic information systems and the global positioning satellite system.Read more...

July 01, 2004

Tele Atlas Receives Clearance to Purchase GDT - See Exclusive Interview with Mike Gerling - the New COO
by Joe Francica
On Monday, June 28, 2004, Tele Atlas received clearance from the United States Department of Justice to complete the acquisition of Geographic Data Technology, Inc.(GDT).Directions Magazine Editor-in-Chief, Joe Francica (JF), spoke with Mike Gerling (MG), the current president of GDT and the person who will assume the job of Chief Operating Officer of the newly merged entity.Following is a transcript of that interview about the structure and objectives of the new company.

June 23, 2004

Mobility Revisited for the Enterprise
by Majdi Zahran
The Location-based Services market continues to experience significant advancement in handheld, mobile device performance and capacity, and competitive pricing.While this may be welcome news to many enterprises and users, it may be seen as a trap for some mobile solutions vendors.Much of the problem is that advancements in hardware have contributed to a blurring of the line between desktop solutions and mobile solutions.Read more...

May 20, 2004

Review of the Plenary Sessions at the Location Technology & Business Intelligence Executive Symposium
by Directions Staff
The Location Technology & Business Intelligence exeuctive symposium focused in on several functional areas to further address enterprise-wide and ROI issues in CRM, real estate, insurance, field service and logistics as they related to location technology and business intelligence.In each plenary session, two to four case studies were offered (described below), which were then commented upon by a panel of senior technology providers.Below we describe the sessions' case studies.To view a list of sessions and technology panelists, click here (http://www.locationintelligence.net/2004_agenda.html).

May 18, 2004

GDT's In-Vehicle Navigation System
by Joe Francica
GDT has been anxious to demonstrate its entry into the in-vehicle navigation system market.This article gives a brief overview of the system on which they supplied the sreet and content data to Denso for the Lexus LS series cars.

May 06, 2004

A Road Map for Spatial Information Systems within the Enterprise - Part 2
by David Sonnen
IDC identifies four Spatial Information Management (SIM) technology segments: Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Enterprise Location Services and Software (ELSS), Location-Aware Transaction Services (LATS), and Spatially-enabled IT Infrastructure (SITI).In part two of the series on "The Road Map" for spatial information technology, industry analyst, David Sonnen, provides a perpective for the future of the SIM marketplace in each market segment.

April 30, 2004

ORBIMAGE Releases Imagery of North Korean Train Disaster Area
by Directions Staff
Provided here are two, 1-meter resolution, panchromatic images of the train disaster site at Yongchon, collected by ORBIMAGE's OrbView-3 satellite on April 24th, 2004, two days after a collision between two fuel-laden trains in the North Korea town caused huge casualties.

April 26, 2004

Business News: Financial & Legal Update on Location Technology Companies
by Joe Francica
Editor-in-Chief, Joe Francica, provides a review and analysis of recent business news from companies in the location technology sector.From legal settlements to earnings reports and upgrades, recent current events are significantly shaping the geospatial marketplace.

April 21, 2004

GIS Helps Transportation Industry Keep on Truckin' in Czech Republic
by Jim Baumann
That venerable rallying cry for business, "Time is money" has special significance to the trucking industry, where a shipment that arrives too late or too early can affect the business of every customer and each of their successive customers on the delivery route.Read more about this dispatching and routing application for snack food delivery in the Czech Republic by ICOM Transport.

April 13, 2004

Real-Time Travel Information - More Services...with the Right Equipment
by Directions Staff
Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ, competitors for digital street data, are partners for standardization of traffic codes for digital maps; Tele Atlas also has data on fuel prices at the pump! Finally, location serives that you would be willing to pay for...if

April 04, 2004

The Wireless LBS Challenge
by Directions Staff
At last year's CTIA conference, NAVTEQ and SiRF Technology issued this challenge: "Using NAVTEQ maps and GPS technology, application developers were challenged to build location-based service solutions that work on cell phones or wireless handheld devices." A panel of judges, representing wireless carriers, location determination companies, and technology consultants, narrowed the field of approximately forty contestants to nine semi-finalist applications.At this year's show, the winners were announced.The LBS Challenge for 2005 has already been announce.Check with NAVTEQ for details.

April 01, 2004

Location-based Services Technology Platforms & Applications
by Directions Staff
These two lists include software platforms and application programming interfaces to support location-based applications.The platforms are used to build LBS applications; the applications are a sampling of those on the market or will be shortly.They are not exhaustive lists, but provide a useful guide to some of the solutions that are available and were represented at the CTIA 2004 Conference.Some of these solutions focus on providing tools to the wireless telecommunication carriers, while others focus on the handset manufacturer, while still others provide a suite of functions that contain geoprocessing applications and web services.

March 26, 2004

MapQuest System Architecture
by MapQuest Staff
This article represents a "deep dive" into the MapQuest product line, and covers how developers can use MapQuest Advantage enterprise-class products in the following ways: Web applications; Wireless WAP; Desktop applications; and Back-end enterprise systems

March 24, 2004

MapQuest Product Overview
by MapQuest Staff
More than 1,400 business customers rely on LBS industry leader MapQuest to location enable their websites, applications, and back-end enterprise systems.In 2004, MapQuest updates its product line and introduces add-on applications that add value for their partners.The cornerstone of the MapQuest 2004 plan is a revamped product line built on a single platform with improved performance, scalability, new routing features, improved data presentation, and clean migration across the entire product line.

March 23, 2004

McNealy, Chambers Open CTIA with Grand Visions for Mobility
by Joe Francica
Scott McNealy, President, Chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems and John Chambers, President and CEO of Cisco Systems provided the keynote addresses to open the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) conference and exhibition in Atlanta, Georgia.McNealy's dry wit and Chambers dynamism sparked the convention's opening ceremonies...Read the summary and look for Direction's special CTIA issue coming soon.

March 16, 2004

Billions and Billions Served
by John Fisher
Given the rapid pace of obsolescence in the Location-based Services (LBS) marketplace, there will soon be billions of location-aware devices in the hands of billions of people worldwide.DMTI Spatial President, John Fisher, will explain why this will have profound implications for geospatial data and why it will change the world.

March 02, 2004

Optimization of the Number of Orthodrome Waypoints
by Klenak R. Sonja
This paper deals with the practical problem of route optimization in deep-sea navigation.Practically, it is impossible to navigate strictly following the orthodrome and thus it is divided into a definite number of waypoints between which it is navigated along the loxodrome.This paper provides an answer to the questions - what number of waypoints may be regarded as optimal, what the geographical coordinates of these waypoints are and what the loxodrome courses and loxodrome distances between the adjacent waypoints are.The conclusion is that the saving expressed in percentage varies in accordance with the position of endpoints.Read more.

March 01, 2004

Location-Based Services and the Proverbial Privacy Issue
by Jonathan Spinney
Privacy is regularly cited as a reason the LBS industry has been slow to grow.This article explains how privacy has been solved to a degree, and it further explains why newer enterprise business models may make privacy an irrelevant argument.

February 25, 2004

RFID - Hot Technology with Wide-Ranging Applications
by David H. Williams
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is currently one of technology's hot focus areas.Ironically, it has a long and relatively stable history behind it, originating in the late 60's, but it is only in the last few years that cost declines combined with improved technology has really enabled widespread use.Now these improvements are enabling applications beyond the physical supply chain processes of manufacturing, distribution and retail, and into services applications such as security and access control, tracking, and monitoring/management where location knowledge is critical to the success of those applications, and where the location professional can assume a leadership position.

February 20, 2004

Product Review: BusinessMAP, Travel Edition 2.0
by Hal Reid
While this product is targeted as the mapping tool for the Business Traveler, it has much more to offer. This is the first product in this price range that can provide almost seamless transitions from the desktop to the web and to the PDA.Out of the box, it supports Palm devices, allows for routing results, shows business locations and route directions, all of which can be moved to a Palm.Extremely useful is the Maptech topographic map and aerial photo add-on, which automatically retrieves data directly from the web.Read the entire review and see examples of the software.

February 12, 2004

NSGIC Promotes GIS Coordination Mechanisms for States
by Jill Saligoe-Simmel, Ph.D.
The purpose of NSGIC is "to encourage effective and efficient government through the coordinated development of geographic information and technologies to ensure that information may be integrated at all levels of government." True to its purpose, NSGIC is pursuing some exciting initiatives to support member states and promote the National Spatial Data Infrastructure.This article describes two of those that support member states in their individual initiatives to inventory GIS activities and coordinate multi-jurisdictional levels of government - RAMONA and NSGIC's State Coordination Model and Success Measures.

January 28, 2004

Wireless Location Services and Privacy Issues
by Steve Lombardi
What's private these days? Your medical records? Your phone conversations? Your location? All of the above? None of the above? Steve Lombardi of Microsoft offers a perspective that will be of interest to all users of wireless location technology.Read more...

January 26, 2004

Quova, Inc - Sleuthing Cyberspace for IP-based Geographic Information
by Joe Francica
Quova is in the business of "geolocation on the internet." That is, since computers using the internet have an internet protocol (IP) address, it is possible to determine "where" that computer resides, not just in cyberspace, but with a physical location as well.Read more about how Quova employs "cyber-sluething" to help their customers with e-commerce retailing and internet marketing promotions.

January 19, 2004

Communication Intelligence and Geographic Information in Homeland Security
by Kevin Coleman
Communications play a very broad role in protecting our homeland.The convergence of information processing, communications, and GIS extends the role and increases the importance of communications in homeland defense.Strategically, it is crucial to evolve our communications infrastructure on all fronts - civil communications intercept as well as command and control communications.While communications play an important role as an offensive weapon (information warfare), this article will concentrate on the defensive aspects.

December 18, 2003

Fulton County Establishes Emergency Response Plan
by Myron Messak
Aided by MapInfo Corporation's grant program, Fulton County, New York was able to establish an emergency response plan whereby a coordinated effort could be facilitated between the Fire/EMS and Law Enforcement agencies in the county.Read this article written by the county's Fire Chief on how this effort was accomplished.

November 12, 2003

What's new with MapPoint 2004, anyway?
by Steve Lombardi
The basemap, demographic, and point-of-interest data in the product is all new.As our customers know, a mapping tool is only as good as the data that ships with it. MapPoint 2004 for Europe and North America includes the latest data available from our data suppliers.Read more about MapPoint 2004!

November 11, 2003

E911 Mapping
by John Fisher
The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) recently held a conference in Toronto.The conference underscored the serious issues facing the E911 system, and the impact that mapping and spatial data has on system effectiveness.The rapid growth of cellular phones has both aided and exacerbated the E911 problem.This article explores some of the issues that highlight the importance of location technology.

Navtech - 'Driving' the Competition Crazy
by Joe Francica
Navigation Technologies is at the forefront of providing digital street centerline data to both the geospatial and in-vehicle navigation industries.It does this by actually 'driving' as many streets as possible to collect the most accurate digital road maps. The battle to rise above the competitive fray with other companies and to deter "commoditization" of data is pitched.Judson Green, president and CEO of Navtech, has led the company to be the market leader in the in-vehicle market in North America and Europe and hopes to position the company for growth in the geospatial arena as well.Editor-in-Chief, Joe Francica asked Mr.Green to "navigate" these issues in the following interview.

November 01, 2003

A Look at the Quarterly Financial Numbers from GIS Companies
by Joe Francica
GIS companies showed modest growth during the prior quarter with Intergraph and MapInfo indicating steady progress on their balance sheets.Cautious optimism is the prevailing outlook with neither company wanting to overstate their hopes for a better 2004.Trimble Navigation far exceeded estimates with strong growth in their Field Serives product division.

October 10, 2003

Cyber Terrorism
by Kevin Coleman
Business, government and industry have all become addicted to information.Their reliance on information creates opportunities for terrorism.Imagine a day without the Internet.What would the impact be? Just what is considered to be cyber terrorism?

September 29, 2003

Mobilizing Existing Users of Geographic Information? The Dumb Pipe Approach for LBS
by Jonathan Spinney
This article describes how wireless carriers can potentially increase network traffic and usage revenues by functioning as a wireless data and location pipe to enterprises and government agencies that manage their own location-based applications.

September 08, 2003

IDC NEWS FLASH: Oracle 10g Extends Oracle Spatial Capabilities, 'Move May be Disruptive to SIM Vendors'
by Joe Francica
"I think that this announcement rates as a pretty big deal." says Dave Sonnen, IDC analyst."Oracle's network data model, geocoding, topology, georeferenced raster, and advanced spatial analysis will make geospatial technology available to a much wider range of customers.It will be interesting to see how the geospatial vendors react." Read more about the latest moves by Oracle in the spatial information managment market.

September 04, 2003

Time to Catch Up on Your GIS Reading List
by Joe Francica
This week, as summer draws to a close (at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere), and none too soon for our European readers I am sure, Direction's Magazine presents a review of the top articles published these past several months.We hope you will find them useful and, if you are in the teaching profession, we hope your classes will benefit by all of the resources found on Directions.

August 29, 2003

Thirty Years of 911...and now, Wireless 911
by Jonathan Spinney
As an American citizen I appreciate 911 services, particularly in a post-9/11 world of uncertainty.Now, with mobile location determination issues more or less solved we can look forward to the same security that we had with wireline service.So, where is the next hurdle.Read more about the role of public safety answering points...the PSAP!

August 28, 2003

Blue Marble Geographics: After 10 Years, Still 'Knuckling Down' to Business
by Nora Parker
Blue Marble Geographics turns ten this month, and as founder Jeff Cole says, considering they're a software company founded in the early 90's with a .com strategy, some might be surprised they've experienced as much success as they have.Cole took time out on the eve of a major new release of their flagship product, Geographic Calculator, to speak with Senior Editor, Nora Parker, about where they've been, where they're hoping to go and what challenges they see in the future.

August 22, 2003

The Oscars of Web Mapping
by Steve Lombardi
The best of the best, the Oscars of Web Mapping, the Golden Globes of Internet GIS...it is all here and Steve Lombardi of Microsoft shows us the way.Take a tour of Directions Magazine's web mapping field of fine contestants with an eye toward the unique!

July 30, 2003

Location-based Services - An ESRI Perspective with Jonathan Spinney
by Joe Francica
Over the past few years, we have reported on Location-based Services, the hype of the early days, the transition and subsequent shakeout among companies vying for the market.There have been companies focused solely on position determination and those that can process the location of people or objects that are sending their position from wireless devices.Companies in GIS have been in the category of processing location and creating mapping software for different mobile device form factors.In this interview, Editor-in-Chief, Joe Francica speaks with Jonathan Spinney, Industry Manager for Location-based Services at ESRI.Here is that interview:

July 25, 2003

Bringing Digital Mapping to Life: Real-Time, Dynamic Roadway Information
by Richard F. Pearlman
A recent U.S.Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration study reported the cost of congestion nationwide at $78 billion in 1999, representing the cost of 4.5 billion person hours of extra travel time and $6.8 billion gallons of fuel wasted while sitting in traffic.The increase in navigation usage is bringing about an increased demand for relevant travel information.JD Power and Associates 2002 Navigation Usage and Satisfaction Study found that the overwhelming majority of navigation users surveyed definitely want real-time travel information.The article will explore the coming demand for fleet managers and commuters alike.

July 16, 2003

Open Source Software in the Geographic and Location Industries: A Case Study
by Philip Abrahamson
Open source software promises an attractive range of benefits: it is free, vendor independent, and open to continual evolution and improvement by a global development community. For the Geographic and Location industries, the question is: does open source software work in practice? To offer some possible answers, this article provides a practical case study of software development for the Geographic and Location industries using open source products and operating systems.It describes the experiences by software developers at High Country Software Ltd.of Surry, UK, and provides some commentary on where other companies could benefit from the introduction of open source into their services or products.

June 29, 2003

Cellular-to-WiFi Handoff, Micro-LBS, and the Symbiotic Power of Location
by Jonathan Spinney
This article describes how wireless carrier location systems can be used as a mechanism to manage handoff between cellular networks and WiFi networks, thereby solving the ubiquitous location problem for location-based services (LBS).It also introduces the concept of micro-LBS and potential new applications therein.

June 25, 2003

Rand McNally - Not Just a Paper (Map) Tiger
by Joe Francica
The premier mapping company in the United States is Rand McNally and their brand is known worldwide.As the market for digital mapping products has grown, so has the company's list of software products.As more people turned to the internet to retrieve location information, Rand McNally has provided one of the most accurate mapping (if not 'the' most accurate) websites available.With their establishment of retail stores around the country, they have become a destination for traveler information.However, the company has experienced financial challenges recently and Directions Magazine Editor-in-Chief, Joe Francica, discussed the current situation with Joel Minster, Senior Vice President of Geographic Information Services, and how the company is positioned going forward.

June 11, 2003

NanoTechnology and the Fight Against Terrorism
by Kevin Coleman
What is NanoTechnology? NanoTechnology involves development of materials (and even complete systems) at the atomic, molecular, or macromolecular levels in the dimension range of approximately 1-500 nanometers.Some materials will contain "nano-sensors" that have the potential to transmit a variety of information, including location, about chemical agents and other biohazards.Read more...only in Directions Magazine

May 29, 2003

Webraska Emerges from LBS Fray and Charges into Next Phase
by Joe Francica
Webraska, a leading location-based services (LBS) company, has emerged from the LBS market downturn, adjusted their business model, and grown a following among wireless carriers to provide both off-board, PDA-based and telematics solutions.How did they do it and what's on the horizon for this survivor of LBS technology.That's the focus this interview with Barry Glick, Webraska's Chief Executive, conducted by Joe Francica, Directions' Editor-in-Chief.

May 15, 2003

IKONOS Image Shows Oklahoma Tornado's Destructive Path
by Directions Staff
An IKONOS satellite image shows the path of the tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma on May 8, 2003.The satellite image was recorded on the following day (May 9).  See the brief article showing images and maps of the tornado's path.

April 24, 2003

The Gears Have Been Greased.Mobile Location-Based Services are ready to roll! - Part 2
by Steve Lombardi
This is part two in our series on mobile location-based services applications and the barriers that have prevented it from taking off.From part 1, "The mobile Internet in general, and specifically Location Based Services, haven't taken off because to date, there have not been compelling applications to drive adoption.Plain and simple.Borrowing from a bumper sticker - "No applications, No adoption.

April 11, 2003

GIS, Information Technology, and BioTech Take Center Stage in Supporting Homeland Security
by Kevin Coleman
In a continuation of our coverage on Homeland Security, we will examine two technologies that are at the core of its success.We will look at the role of Information Technology, and specifically GIS, and BioTechnology have in the fight against terrorism.

March 27, 2003

The Gears Have Been Greased.Mobile Location-Based Services are ready to roll! - Part 1
by Steve Lombardi
Microsoft's MapPoint evangelist Steve Lombardi provides some interesting perspectives on why Location-based services application have never quite taken off...until now!

March 26, 2003

Where Will the Money Flow in the United States' Location Based Services Value Chain?
by Mike Dobson
While Location Based Services seem to be regarded as the "Next New Thing," it is unclear that LBS will result in "profit" for the majority of the players involved, although it is likely that there will be significant revenues generated by the industry.This article will look at the industry by observing trends in the market and, then, consider the segmentation of the market in order to try to understand the players that might profit as opposed to those who will not profit.

March 05, 2003

U.S.Military Combines GIS and Location Technology to Create Online Tracking System
by Marc Barthello
With the country bracing itself for a war with Iraq, Americans are concerned about their security.Local, state, and federal agencies realize they need a single application to facilitate and coordinate the rapid movement of personnel and resources in response to emergency situations.

February 26, 2003

An Interview with Walt Doyle, Vice President, MapQuest.com
by Joe Francica
MapQuest.com is well known for providing maps and driving directions on the web for travelers and general information on points of interest, business locations, and other attractions.However, the company is trying to penetrate the enterprise market with more location services.Directions Magazine editor Joe Francica (JF) interviewed Walt Doyle (WD), Vice President of MapQuest, regarding the products and services offered to businesses and the recent release of MapQuest's Enterprise Server 2.0.

February 10, 2003

Quality Metrics for Map Databases in Vehicle Routing Applications
by Bert Jakubs
Mr.Bert Jakubs of Tele Atlas North America presents an outline for those considering the implementation of a vehicle routing application.Specifically, he presents advice about what to look for in a map database that is essential for location-based services.

February 05, 2003

Technology Tackles Troublemakers as the War on Crime Heats Up
by Jim Stark
He's been on the run for over a year.Hiding in caves, mountaintops, and countrysides, Osama Bin Laden is America's most wanted.As U.S.military forces vigilantly track and monitor his every move to try to capture him and his henchmen, arguably the most effective weapon in their arsenal is global positioning systems, more commonly known as GPS.

January 29, 2003

LBS: Turning Corners in 2003
by Jim VanderMeer
Much of the hype and hysteria of LBS that occurred in 2000-2001 has passed, as has the doldrums of 2002.This month, our contributing editor on LBS, Jim VanderMeer from Airbiquity takes us through what he believes will be a maturing of the market and "realistic implementations of location revenue models."

Interview with Larry Delaney, MapInfo's Director of Location-based Services
by Joe Francica
Directions Magazine interviewed Larry Delaney, MapInfo's Director of LBS technology, to determine how MapInfo was weathering the bursting of the LBS bubble and when he thought we might see a rebound in this sector.Read the entire interview to get a perspective on MapInfo's strategic direction and where Mr.Delaney's sees the potential in the next 18 month's for this market.

January 13, 2003

A Spatial Database Technology Update with Dr.Ignacio Guerrero, Intergraph
by Joe Francica
Directions Magazine conducted an extensive interview with one of the key software principals of Intergraph Corporation, Dr.Ignacio Guerrero, who is Vice President of Development for the Mapping and Geospatial Solutions Division.Dr.Guerrero spoke at length about the improvements in Oracle9i in addition to the collision he sees approaching between the topology that Oracle is building into Oracle10i and Laser-Scan's Radius topology.Read more about where he sees spatial databases heading...only in Directions Magazine.

December 05, 2002

What can Brown Do For You? UPS Logistics Turns Brown to Gr$$n
by Joe Francica
In this month's feature interview, we spoke with Len Kennedy, Vice President of UPS Logistics.Mr.Kennedy provided us with the reason large transportation and distribution companies need to build efficiency into their operations.

November 13, 2002

Microsoft's acquisition of Vicinity - IDC's Perpsective & Outlook
by David Sonnen
What was Microsoft's strategy in acquiring Vicinity Corporation, publishers of MapBlast? Dave Sonnen, consultant and market research analyst for IDC, provides some insight.

October 01, 2002

GPS, GIS, the Boss, and the Budget
by Greg Pendleton

September 10, 2002

Disaster Response Liaison for Onsite Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing Data
by George Davis

July 31, 2002

SPECIAL REPORT: Microsoft & AT&T Wireless join forces in providing Location-based Services
by Joe Francica

July 23, 2002

Ubiquitous Wireless Location Interoperability
by Jim VanderMeer

July 16, 2002

The Fundamentals of GPS
by Greg Pendleton

June 02, 2002

Wireless: The Key to real-time damage assessment
by Mike Morrow
Wireless handheld computing is evolving as the emergency manager's answer to obtaining real-time intelligence from the field.A recent live demonstration of the latest technologies sheds some light on technology that works and technologies needing more work.

January 16, 2002

Hype vs.Reality of Location-Based Services - LBS at the end of 2001
by Jim VanderMeer

November 28, 2001

Ground Zero - The Geographic Center of the Financial World
by Joe Francica

March 01, 2001

Do We Need Another MS Windows for the Wireless World?
by Joseph Schwartz
Lack of compatibility has stalled the widespread implementation of wireless data services.A wireless MS Windows could be the answer.

February 07, 2001

RTFD Fights Fragmentation
by Joseph Schwartz

January 29, 2001

Rapid Growth in Wireless Home Networking Predicted
by Joseph Schwartz

January 28, 2001

A Wireless Superbowl
by Joseph Schwartz

January 27, 2001

Wireless Location Industry Association Schedules First Meetings
by Joseph Schwartz