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Blog: Chris Harlow on ITSearch The Harlow Report Archives
I first fell in love with topographic maps about 12 years ago. I’d scored a dream job with the National Park Service, performing archaeological surveys deep in the backcountry of Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park for weeks at a time. Every morning, our crew leader would have us unfold our Mt. Clarence King or Kearsarge Peak 7.5 minute quadrangle maps, and we’d plot out the day’s off-trail survey. At lunch, we’d do the same, this time trying to figure out where the hell we were, using contour lines and shooting bearings of nearby peaks with our incredibly cool orienteering compasses. Nobody carried a GPS. The maps were like little miracles to me. The little boy in me was eternally fascinated.
I knew nothing about topo maps then. I was perplexed at how they were made, and wondered how much of the country had been mapped to that level of accuracy. For the next few years I worked as an archaeologist, occasionally using topos in field surveys, drawing site maps of my own, still befuddled how a two-dimensional paper map could depict the contours of the earth so well.
Here are five things you may not have known about topo maps (though you’ve likely suspected #5):
Read full story at Adventure Journal…
first published week of: 11/18/2019
Voice commands, flexible commute directions, voice commands, and more
If you're like most of us, you use Google Maps to get directions to a specific location, then you don't think about it again, until it's time to go somewhere else you haven't been to before. And that's perfectly natural, because on the surface, that's all there is to a navigation app -- right? Or that's at least all you need it to be.
But despite Google Maps being so far beyond all other competition in terms of monthly active users, the company still works regularly to make this app not just a navigator, but also a tour guide and a commuting guru. Let's dig a few layers below the surface of Google Maps to show you some other, perhaps more exciting things it can do.
Read full story at C|net Download…
first published week of: 03/11/2019
LAND INFO automated mapping technology, including Object Based Image Analysis and Artificial Intelligence, generated this 3D data set containing multi-tiered building and tree vectors for downtown Chicago.
LAND INFO Worldwide Mapping LLC has been named to the 2019 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in the United States. The firm credits its explosive three-year revenue growth to recent contract wins supporting 5G wireless network mapping.
“We are honored to join a very select group of geospatial companies to make the Inc. 5000 list,” said LAND INFO president Nick Hubing.
The 2019 Inc. 5000 companies are ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2015 and 2018, according to Inc. magazine.
“The companies on this year’s Inc. 5000 have followed so many different paths to success,” says Inc. editor in chief James Ledbetter. “There’s no single course you can follow or investment you can take that will guarantee this kind of spectacular growth. But what they have in common is persistence and seizing opportunities.”
“LAND INFO’s revenue growth has been driven by multi-year investments in proprietary automated mapping technologies, including object-based image analysis and artificial intelligence, which has positioned us to support the demanding needs of 5G wireless network design,” said Hubing.
Read full story at Land Info…
first published week of: 09/23/2019
By including the new direction-finding feature, Bluetooth proximity solutions could add support for device direction capability, the Bluetooth SIG wrote in a blog post on Monday.
In a bid to improve location-based services, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is adding a new direction-finding feature to the version 5.1, combining its existing object-tracking technology with radio direction to enable tracking a device to centimetre-level location accuracy.
By including the new direction-finding feature, Bluetooth proximity solutions could add support for device direction capability, the Bluetooth SIG wrote in a blog post on Monday.
Bluetooth-enabled proximity solutions and positioning systems use the wireless technology to determine the physical location of devices with real-time locating systems (RTLS) and fuel item finding solutions like personal property tags as well as point-of-interest (PoI) information solutions.
Right now, Bluetooth systems track items by measuring their signal strength within the high accuracy range of one and 10 meters.
"Location services are one of the fastest growing solution areas for Bluetooth technology, and the Bluetooth community continues to seek ways to further grow this market with technology enhancements that better address market needs worldwide," said Mark Powell, Executive Director, Bluetooth SIG.
Read full story at TimeNowNews…
first published week of: 01/28/2019
Our health is influenced by where we live, learn, work, and play. The economic, political, structural, and cultural factors that interact in our homes, schools, workplaces, and communities influence food security, safety, employment, physical activity, and family and community support. In resource-rich communities, these determinants help to protect health, well-being, and student achievement. In communities where resources are scarcer, and inequitably distributed, young people are far more likely to experience poor health and education outcomes. Compared to their peers in affluent neighborhoods, young people in resource-deprived communities experience higher rates of asthma, substance use, anxiety and depression, and obesity, and are at elevated risk of not having regular health maintenance visits. They are also more likely to be chronically absent from school, suspended, or drop out altogether.
For those of us interested in creating conditions that remedy the inequitable distribution of these powerful social factors, we need data-informed strategies led by health and education leaders, community partners, and youth and their families.
Read full story at Health Affairs…
first published week of: 08/12/2019
( MEVANS )
The company, STCS, uploaded a constantly updating list of GPS coordinates in Saudi Arabia, China, and west Africa.
STCS, a Saudi Arabian telecom company, was running a server containing hundreds of thousands of constantly updated GPS locations before Motherboard contacted the organization about the issue.
It is not clear what the GPS locations referred to, but they pointed to locations spread throughout Saudi Arabia, and were seemingly sourced from a variety of brands of GPS trackers, according to data in the exposed server. The data was not supposed to be public, judging by STCS' reaction of fixing the server exposure once aware of the issue.
Read full story at Vice…
first published week of: 12/09/2019