Follow
Blog: Chris Harlow on ITSearch The Harlow Report Archives
StreetMap Premium for ArcGIS North America HERE (formerly NAVTEQ) enhanced street dataset is now available. The dataset provides routing, geocoding, and high-quality cartographic display for countries in North America using ArcGIS for Desktop or ArcGIS for Server. For 2015, all releases of StreetMap Premium for ArcGIS formerly under the NAVTEQ data provider name are now under the HERE data provider name.
This first release of North America data from HERE for 2015 now supports mapping, geocoding, and routing for Guam. Also, the dataset has over a million additional street features. See What’s new and Release notes for more information on this release. continued…
first published week of: 06/08/2015
Today, using online maps is an easy and engaging process. Making your own maps is not a big undertaking anymore; we have at our disposal a wide range of available tools, from free and simple, to feature rich and complex to use. For developers not familiar with web mapping, the agony of choice might be intimidating. You want to make maps, but don’t know where to start nor which tools to use. I am here to help.
A Little Bit of History
From its beginning, technology has had an influence on mapmaking and how maps are used. As technology progressed, cartography and mapmaking processes evolved with it, from manually drawn maps on papyrus to interactive maps on the web.
The second half of the 20th century was a turning point for cartography. Computers became a tool of choice. Aerial photography, satellite imagery, and remote sensing changed the way spatial data is gathered. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were born. Eventually, GIS maps started moving from the desktop to the web, and big GIS vendors started making the first frameworks for online maps.
But GIS mapping is not easy. It requires many server-side technologies, geospatial standards, and protocols, along with their implementations. It requires understanding geospatial data and map projections, knowledge of how to gather the data, how to display the data, which colors to use, how to generalize the data to specific scales, how to place labels on the map, how to set up a server that will serve the maps, how to use a spatial database, and so on. GIS is full of abbreviations, such as WMS, WFS, EPSG, CRS, SLD, GML, TMS, just to name a few, and to know and understand them, you need to read books, academic papers and articles. continued…
first published week of: 03/23/2015
Working with maps in iOS consists of an entire programming chapter, as there are tons of things that a developer can do with them. From just presenting a location on a map to drawing a journey’s route with intermediate positions, or even exploiting a map’s possibilities in a completely different way, dealing with all these undoubtably is a great experience that leads to amazing results.
Up to iOS 5.1 (including that version as well), iOS was using the Google Mobile Maps service to provide access to maps and all the related services. Since then however, things changed and Apple introduced the Map Kit, a brand new framework completely built in-house, which is used until today. By the time Apple stopped using Google’s map services, Google decided to create its own Maps SDK for all platforms, including iOS, and that way to compete the Map kit or any other map SDKs that other platforms use. Right now, Google consist of a strong player in this field, as many developers use that SDK. So writing for the Google Maps SDK for iOS is something that definitely worths to be done. continued…
first published week of: 04/20/2015
TeleCommunication Systems (TCS) (NASDAQ: TSYS), a world leader in secure and highly reliable wireless communication technology, today announced a partnership with Symantec enabling TCS to provide financial services firms, online gaming companies and other organizations a powerful new tool for identifying fraud, confirming location compliance, and preventing "false positive" denials of services.
The resulting solution enables organizations to confirm the true location of a device and determine whether the device has been tampered with, or that the location has been spoofed. The combined TCS Trusted Location™ and Symantec's Mobility Risk Detection technology provides a comprehensive solution for avoiding fraud. TCS will make the solution available in the third quarter of 2015.
The TCS - Symantec partnership targets the growing problem of smartphones and other mobile devices being hacked to convey a false location. This type of spoofing facilitates a wide variety of fraud, including online payments, Point-of Sale (PoS) payments, account creation and access, and location compliance. Reliable information about the location of an individual's mobile device is a high- value risk indicator, even when the mobile device is not used to initiate or complete a transaction. It is widely accepted that the location of an individual's mobile device is an excellent "proxy indicator" of the owner's location.
TCS Trusted Location uses cellular, satellite, Wi-Fi, and other data sets to verify and validate the device's reported location. This approach works nearly anywhere in the world, unlike alternative platforms that use only one technology or one wireless carrier's network and thus work only in limited geographic areas.
Symantec's Mobility Risk Detection technology adds a key element to the process by determining whether devices have been compromised (e.g., the device has been jail broken or rooted). The combined solution then presents the customer organization with a Trust Score – a ranking that presents the probability that the device is actually at the reported location. In addition, a device that has been tampered with may be indicative of potential risk, even when the location is accurate.
first published week of: 07/06/2015
TerraGo Edge smart forms can dramatically accelerate the data collection process by automating and accelerating user entries while also eliminating any unnecessary or redundant steps. Smart forms can be completely customized to meet the unique workflow requirements of customers in any industry.
TerraGo Edge delivers the best of both worlds to field operations and GIS departments with its open platform design and integration. With the GIS and GPS enhancements in TerraGo Edge version 3.7, field project teams can rapidly collect data with intelligent, user defined forms, survey-grade accuracy, and custom base maps, including realtime, cm–level accuracy and ArcGIS© Online custom base maps.
New features in version 3.7 include:
first published week of: 08/31/2015
TerraGo announce dtheir partnership with Applied Field Data Systems (AFDS), a leading GIS and GPS solutions provider serving the utilities, forestry, environmental and energy industries.
According to Ashok Wadwani, President, AFDS, “TerraGo products will help our customers take advantage of the latest advancements in mobile GPS and GIS technology.” He adds, “We take great pride in our technical innovation and TerraGo Edge positions us to meet the rapidly growing market demand for deploying high-accuracy iOS and Android GPS solutions that work with their existing GIS platform.”
“AFDS is well-known for the quality of their work and customer satisfaction so we’re very happy that we can extend and improve our collaboration with this partnership,” says John Timar, Vice President, Worldwide Sales, TerraGo. “The combination of TerraGo products and AFDS applied solutions means we can help our customers meet their most challenging GPS and GIS requirements with a complete, cost-effective solution.”
AFDS is an authorized reseller of TerraGo products and offers total GIS, GPS and mapping solutions for a wide variety of applications and industries. These solutions include hardware, software and customer support for the integrated solutions.
first published week of: 07/20/2015