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Blog: Chris Harlow on ITSearch The Harlow Report Archives
What3words is a universal addressing system with big goals for transforming the world of navigation. It works to do away with the inefficiencies of modern addressing systems by dividing the earth into 3m x 3m squares and assigning each one with a unique 3 word combination, making it identifiable and distinct. For example, this article was written from jiffy.fighters.supposed.
This means that it is possible to pinpoint any location on earth according to its specific combination of 3 words, without the ambiguity or confusion that often accompanies traditional addressing styles. This system translates complicated numerical co-ordinates into 3 simple words, and back again, adding a much more human-friendly element to the standard co-ordinates of longitude and latitude.
Even in the most developed countries, a complicated and inefficient addressing system means packages get lost in the mail, tourist attractions cannot be found, and meetings are missed. Although it may seem as though this app would only smoothen the irritating repercussions of an incorrect address, its applications aim to be much wider. The apps true promises lie in the possibilities it can offer to the most remote places on earth and their inhabitants.
Currently, around 4 billion people live in a place that does not have any house numbers or street names. This also means that they are out of contact with essential services, cannot report a crime, receive deliveries or aid, or even get a bank loan and vote, all because they have no way of precisely identifying their address. Despite the over 57 trillion squares and unique word combinations, the app’s developers have built in error-detection, which ensures everyone is able to identify a precise location easily. continued…
first published week of: 05/18/2015
It’s not for the bus and subway directions, that’s for sure.
At WWDC last week Apple announced that it receives 5 billion requests per week for its mapping services and that Apple Maps is used 3.5 times more frequently than “the next leading maps app”—i.e. Google Maps.
Astonishingly, those are the only two data points Horace Dediu could find for Where Are Maps Going—the deep dive into the global maps market that he posted Monday on his Asymco blog.
Google has never shared any of its maps data—at least not with us—and until now Apple didn’t have anything to brag about.
Not that the Apple Maps app is as good as Google Maps—the clear market leader outside the Apple walled garden. Apple’s mapping service still doesn’t offer mass transit directions (they’re coming this fall, but only in selected cities). And only this month did Apple minivans start driving the streets that Google cars have been photo-mapping for years.
It’s not clear that Apple’s maps will ever be as good as Google’s, given Google’s head start and its natural advantages in the cloud services that drive its business model.
But Apple Maps come pre-installed on the devices that drive Apple’s business model, and it’s the default for thousands of iOS apps.
Default, it turns out, is a powerful attractor. It may even be powerful enough to keep Apple in the game if, as Dediu predicts, mobile mapping becomes increasingly integral to its business. continued…
first published week of: 06/22/2015
Google Here, a proposed beacon-based location service operating within Google Maps, was reportedly cancelled due to a concern by Alphabet CEO Larry Page that it would be too invasive by the users of his mapping service. When the location industry has such a dominant player pull out of a nascent, and potentially lucrative, proximity service, does it mean that consumers will now have to wait for a full-scale rollout? Google will remain a major player with its Google Maps app, but where does it go from there?
Citing privacy issues and lack of retail partners for support, Google scraped its Google Here location service that would have used the company’s Maps technology to send notifications to users when they entered a specific location.
In a recent Fortune article, Alphabet CEO Larry Page said the company killed the project because it was too invasive to consumers, and the company was uncertain whether retail partners could have helped to roll out the service. Besides being in conflict with an existing location Here name (such as the former Nokia, and now German consortium, mapping service), the service included partnerships with retailers — and would have been available to more than 350 million Android users earlier this year. continued…
first published week of: 09/21/2015
Geofencing can restrict access to devices or applications while inside a company's perimeter, making it impossible for devices outside the perimeter to access the network explains Roman Foeckl
As data breaches continue to grow in complexity, severity and frequency, and organizations face growing threats - internal and external, deliberate and unintentional - new and more advanced technologies are needed to keep critical information safe. As demonstrated by the Anthem Insurance breach in the US, when sensitive information gets in the wrong hands, it can be incredibly costly – experts are estimating it could cost the company upwards of US$100 million (£66 million) in this case.
In addition to the immediate monetary impact, a company's reputation and brand can face irreparable damage. A recent survey, for example, found that 40 percent of potential customers would not work with a company that had suffered a recent data breach. How can an organization hope to succeed if it cannot attract the best employees or customers? continued…
first published week of: 05/11/2015
For most of history, mapmaking has been an incredibly specialized pursuit, the domain of either intrepid explorers or highly skilled cartographers, and the resulting maps were some of society's most important repositories of information. In the 21st century, internet-age services such as Google and Wikipedia have made this system largely obsolete - but that doesn't necessarily mean that mapmaking is dead. In this article from Architecture Boston's Summer 2015 issue, originally titled "Redrawing the Map," William Rankin argues that our age of information has instead sparked a new age of cartography; one that is different, but just as important as what came before.
Given the proliferation of GPS devices and interactive mapping online, it’s easy to declare the traditional map obsolete. Intuitive turn-by-turn directions have replaced road atlases, Google has upgraded the static map with everything from real-time traffic to restaurant reviews, and Wikipedia has taken the place of the hefty geography textbook. Is there any hope for a cartophile? Will the stand-alone map, lovingly produced and custom designed, be only a niche product for rich collectors and Luddites? continued…
first published week of: 07/06/2015
When Apple released Apple Maps in 2012 it was riddled with inaccuracies, featured limited capabilities, and quickly became the butt of many jokes. But Apple has improved the application in the last two and a half years, and it has a pretty good mapping app on its smartphones. However, Apple's maps app efforts are about more than smartphones.
Many point to an increased rivalry with Google as the reason Apple decided to produce Apple Maps. But for a company that makes its money primarily from hardware sales, spending hundreds of millions on one piece of software to best a rival is crazy. Even when that company has $194 billion in cash on its balance sheet.
Apple has continued to invest in mapping capabilities and most recently purchased Coherent Navigation and renewed its license with TomTom. The TomTom deal gives Apple mapping assets that provide the backbone of Apple Maps. Apple can build on top of them with its own mapping data. The Coherent Navigation acquisition will bolster Apple's navigation and mapping capabilities with its location accuracy coming within centimeters of a user's actual position. Regular GPS, in comparison, is accurate within about 3 meters to 4 meters. continued…
first published week of: 06/01/2015