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Blog: Chris Harlow on ITSearch The Harlow Report Archives
When I was doing my undergraduate degree and started working as a (Geographic Information Systems) GIS professional over 20 years ago GIS was considered cutting edge across a range of industries from retail, to environmental management and defence. It drove so many issues from store location, weed management and mining analysis.
At Lend Lease back in the late 1990’s we were able to differentiate ourselves as leaders in the retail property sector because of the GIS investments and prowess particularly around trade area analysis and competitive modeling. It enabled us to have a point of difference against the larger Westfield group for leasing managers and fund managers alike.
We are now in 2015 and the best use cases of GIS are still store location, environmental location and demographic analysis. Every vendor case study I see has store location and resource management just as it was in the late 1990’s. Every user and even (sometimes with a gentle arm twist) laments the lack of progress in GIS.
The contrast to the explosive growth of other technology is overwhelming. In that time we have seen the rise of the laptop, Microsoft Office, email, the Internet, iPhones, Tablets, SaaS, Cognitive Computing yet GIS still appears to be stuck in a time warp of the 1990’s. continued…
first published week of: 08/17/2015
Once called the Prime Meridian of the World, the invisible line running north to south that divides the world into Eastern and Western hemispheres passed through the Airy Transit Circle — a 19th-century telescopic instrument at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England.
However, this line of longitude now runs 334 feet (102 meters) east of where it did. What made it shift? A change in finding out which way is down — from using a basin of liquid mercury to relying on satellites around Earth, researchers have found.
Nowadays, any point on Earth's surface can be described by its latitude and longitude — lines of latitude run from east to west, while lines of longitude run from north to south. Although the concept of running a grid of lines over a map to specify places on the Earth was first suggested by ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician Hipparchus in about 150 B.C., the idea did not take off until the Age of Discovery, when explorers began wandering across the globe, beginning in the early part of the 15th century.
Developing ways to pinpoint one's latitude and longitude was one of the greatest scientific endeavors in history, a quest that ultimately took centuries and was a matter of life and death. Navigation at sea was extraordinarily challenging, resulting in countless tragedies because ships could not get a fix on where they were. One example of such a disaster happened in 1707, when four British warships and more than 1,400 lives were lost because storms forced the fleet's navigators off course, making them believe they were safely to the west of the island of Ushant instead of closing in on dangerous rocks near the Isles of Scilly continued…
first published week of: 08/24/2015
This month, news broke that Uber acquired a significant chunk of Microsoft Bing’s mapping assets. This included about 100 employees and guesstimates of licensed intellectual property from the Redmond, Washington giant.
In March, Uber’s first mapping acquisition was San Jose-based deCarta. It paid an undisclosed sum for the company that helped power GM’s OnStar turn-by-turn navigation system.
Buying both of these map companies in three months was a smart move for a startup experiencing tremendous growth, and even fiercer competition.
Uber Acquired Mapping Companies to Improve Logistics
Uber is constantly testing and expanding the range of possibilities for customers to use its services. continued…
first published week of: 07/27/2015
Geographic information systems aren’t exactly new. Drugstore chain Walgreens has used the technology for close to 15 years for market planning.
Geographic information systems aren’t exactly new. Drugstore chain Walgreens has used the technology for close to 15 years for market planning.
More recently, however, the company has endowed that visual information with location-specific data—and published far more broadly, so that store managers and its corporate real estate team can use it for planning.
The system, called WalMap, can be used to visualize local community trends. A spike in flu medication prescriptions could help store managers decide earlier to order more vaccine, preventing shortages. Walgreens sales executives can reference trends in supplier conversations. Plus, the interactive maps can be used by the corporate planning team to determine the best place for a new store, based on community demographics, competitor information, and sales trend information. They can even be viewed on an iPad. continued…
first published week of: 12/07/2015
Featuring the first map of the Pacific Ocean floor and first immigrant map of an American city.
Women in Cartography: Five Centuries of Accomplishments, documenting the transitioning role of women in cartography over the past 500 years, opens Saturday, October 31, at the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library’s Central Library in Copley Square. The exhibit features 40 maps, globes, atlases and works of art from the 17th century to the present made by women, and charts the evolution of their role in cartography from engravers in the 16th century to designers and creators in the present day. The exhibition is curated by Alice Hudson, retired Chief of the Map Division at the New York Public Library, and co-curated by Norman B. Leventhal Map Center Assistant Curator of Maps, Stephanie Cyr.
“Women in Cartography reveals the transition of women in professional cartography from their marginalized history to their current role as map makers,” said curator Alice Hudson. “It reveals the powerful contribution and creativity of women in all areas of the cartographic profession.”
Exhibit visitors will view 17th and 18th century maps published, engraved, and designed by women; 19th century atlases and globes; 20th century colorful and lively pictorial maps promoting regional tourism; as well as examples of present day digital and GIS maps.
Exhibit highlights include the first map of the Pacific Ocean floor, created by Marie Tharp, a cartographer and geologist working at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and a late 19th century map showing immigrant settlement in Chicago compiled by Agnes Holbrook, a graduate of Wellesley College and a resident of Jane Addams Hull House. This map is one of the first to depict immigration in an American city, and also foreshadows modern GIS mapping, using color and statistics to present social data.
Women in Cartography runs October 31, 2015 through March 27, 2016. The Leventhal Map Center is located in the Central Library in Copley Square, 700 Boylston Street. It is open Monday – Thursday: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.; Friday and Saturday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.; and Sunday: 1– 5 p.m. The best entrance to the BPL to access the exhibit is via the Dartmouth Street entrance at the McKim building, which faces Copley Square.
first published week of: 11/02/2015
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia handles 250,000 passengers per day and manages 200 terminal gates, five runways, 115 taxiways, 16,000 slabs of concrete, 25 miles of underground fuel lines, and more than 18,000 airfield lights. The GIS professionals at the airport serve a mobile workforce, decision makers, contractors, and the public. Taking advantage of the entire ArcGIS platform helps them with their mission of supporting the success of the organization.
“Web GIS has transformed our team from map makers to solution providers, allowing us to be agile, responsive, meeting the needs of a 24/7 workforce,” David Wright, the airport’s GIS manager
Implementing ArcGIS as a web GIS means that the team has data on-premises and in the cloud to ensure business continuity and takes advantage of apps and capabilities in the ArcGIS platform to empower everyone in their organization, anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
The GIS staff in this example cites the use of Collector for ArcGIS, Operations Dashboard, Web AppBuilder, ArcGIS Pro, and Explorer for ArcGIS to support the work of maintenance workers, supervisors, engineering staff, general managers, inspectors, contractors, and passengers. ArcGIS capabilities such as 3D and spatial analysis enable them to deliver actionable and trusted results.
Using the 3D capabilities in ArcGIS to manage tree trimming at the airfield helped the airport earn a perfect score on their most recent FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) safety inspection. continued…
first published week of: 08/24/2015