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Identifying the various parts of a baseplate compass
A: Straight Edge B: Direction-of-Travel Arrow C: Bearing Guide D: Rotating Housing E: Orienting Arrow F: Magnetic Needle
Dan Saelinger
In the movie Pirates of the Caribbean, as you may remember, Johnny Depp’s character, Capt. Jack Sparrow, navigates with a magic compass whose needle points toward the object of the heart’s desire.
Orienteering differs in that a topo map has contour lines in place of the galaxy imprinted on Sparrow’s compass, and the needle on a compass points to the magnetic pole of Earth. These tools can still lead you to the object of your heart’s desire—be that a lake teeming with brook trout or base camp after a day of tracking elk. But to harness the true magic of orienteering, you’ll have to master the skills here.
first published week of: 07/10/2017
E-Governance is the process of using information technology to reform government work, increase transparency and strengthen services for the citizen.
The Digital India initiative by the Government aims at reforming through technology and it provides Electronic Delivery of Services (EDS).
Digital India will transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. Its mission is to transform the entire ecosystem of public services by use of information technology (IT).
Geographic Information System (GIS) forms an important component of the Digital India project and should be leveraged for decision support systems and development. While e-Gov is the current paradigm, the future lies in embedding geographic information in governance and service delivery.
Geospatial technologies are becoming pervasive and are finding applications across multiple domains. These technologies are becoming a catalyst for several transformational changes in the world, primarily in environmental management, urban planning, utilities, security, emergency response, governance and citizen engagement. Read full story at egov…
first published week of: 08/28/2017
We now have the whole world in our hands, but how did we get here?
Last spring, a 23-year-old woman was driving her car through the Ontario town of Tobermory. It was unfamiliar territory for her, so she was dutifully following her GPS. Indeed, she was so intent on following the device that she didn’t notice that her car was headed straight for Georgian Bay—so she drove down a boat launch and straight into the frigid water. She thankfully managed to climb out and swim to shore, as her bright red Yaris sank beneath the waves.
Accidents like this have become weirdly common. In Manhattan, one man followed his GPS into a park, where his car got stuck on a staircase. And in Europe, a 67-year-old Belgian woman was led remarkably astray by her GPS, turning what was supposed to be a 90-mile drive to Brussels into a daylong voyage into Germany and beyond. Amazingly, she just patiently followed the computer’s instructions, instead of relying on her own common sense, until she noticed the street signs were in Croatian.
You can laugh, but many of us have stopped paying attention to the world around us because we are too intent on following directions. Some observers worry that this represents a new and dangerous shift in our style of navigation. Scientists since the 1940s have argued we normally possess an internal compass, “a map-like representation within the ‘black box’ of the nervous system,” as geographer Rob Kitchin puts it. It’s how we know where we are in our neighborhoods, our cities, the world.9Is it possible that today’s global positioning systems and smartphones are affecting our basic ability to navigate? Will technology alter forever how we get around? Read full story at Smithsonian.com…
first published week of: 07/10/2017
New geolocation feature for the FUEL CYCLE mobile app enhances customer insights through location-based activities, giving brands unprecedented access to real-world data
FUEL CYCLE announced the addition of new geolocation capabilities for its mobile app. With this latest enhancement to FUEL CYCLE's suite of customer insights solutions, businesses can now unlock the power of location-based research to capture location-specific customer intelligence.
Powered by the community member's smartphone, FUEL CYCLE's location-based activities help brands capture in-the-moment reactions from customers as they engage and interact in the real world. Once the geo-targeting feature is triggered, brands can ask questions relevant to a location and capture the user's impressions at the exact moment they are experiencing them—through photos, videos, surveys, and more. This process yields high-fidelity customer data that could not be acquired through any other channel.
"With 90% of smartphone owners using location-based services, businesses have a tremendous opportunity to gather dynamic data that combines customer sentiment with actual behavior and actions," said Bahram Nour-Omid, Chief Executive Officer at FUEL CYCLE. "As the first to offer these geolocation capabilities within a community setting, we continue to be the most mobile-centric community platform. The geolocation functionality creates new customer touch points that engage customers at just the right time and place, helping businesses uncover highly impactful insights that drive better business decisions."
The geo-targeting capability is managed via an elegant design that enables FUEL CYCLE admins to easily lock and unlock activities for specific users, add new locations, and offer incentives to members who unlock and participate in an activity. Customers can be surveyed about their experience while they shop, encouraged to share content, or invited to events and activities at specific locations.
first published week of: 08/28/2017
Did you know that the location-based services market is expected to reach $3.8 billion by 2018? I’m talking about the kinds of push notifications that people get on their phone or other mobile devices when they’re in a particular area. Such notifications might include alerts about a sale as you’re walking by your favorite store or all sorts of other useful information. Imagine, for example, landing at an airport in a new city and instantly receiving notifications about the best hotels there or the top tourist attractions.
Location-based messaging is becoming an increasingly popular and effective way of reaching people with timely and relevant information. What makes it so powerful is the fact that since most people are tethered to their devices around the clock, they’re effectively a captive audience. Yet if you’re a mobile marketer looking to take advantage of this trend to engage your audience and make your apps more effective, there are a variety of factors that you need to carefully consider. Chief among them is which technology — geofences or beacons — is best suited to help bring your strategy to life.
Not that long ago when a company wanted to do location-based messaging, it would simply email the people in its database, tailoring its messages to whatever extent was possible based on the recipient’s ZIP code. And while that technically counted as location-based messaging, it wasn’t very effective. You couldn’t do it real time or in response to your audience’s actions. Read full story at business2community.com…
first published week of: 05/15/2017
The global geofencing market is expected to grow from USD 542.7 million in 2017 to USD 1,825.3 million by 2022, at a CAGR of 27.5%. Technological advancements, rise in the use of spatial data and analytical tools, increasing applications in numerous industry verticals, higher adoption of location-based applications, and rise in Business Intelligence (BI) among businesses are some of the factors contributing to the growth of the global geofencing market. Increase in the use of smartphones, growth in mobile commerce, and availability of low-cost, GPS-enabled smartphones are expected to further drive the geofencing market growth. Technological advancements in cloud computing, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), Global Positioning System (GPS), and wireless technologies support the growth of Location-Based Services (LBS), especially geofencing. Legal and privacy concerns and the rising awareness regarding safety and security among customers are the major factors restricting the growth of the geofencing market.
“The API management and testing services segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.”
API management and testing services are being rapidly adopted by developed countries, such as the US and Canada. API management services help organizations in application access management, device data communication and interaction, and security. Additionally, application operation, production support, release and change support, and middleware product support are also carried out by API management services. Furthermore, application testing service providers offer both automated and manual mobile application testing to the commercial customers, for testing both native and hybrid mobile applications.
“The Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR in the geofencing market during the forecast period.”
Read full story at Rnrmarketresearch.com…
first published week of: 10/09/2017