Google's Project Tango

Google's Project Tango is a very interesting project that brings an entirely new focus to crowd sourced mapping data.

Blaise Agüera y Arcas: Augmented-Reality Maps

One more TED post from Blaise Aguera y Arcas on the Augmented Reality Maps work he did while with Microsoft Bing Maps. This application shows a great integration of imagery and mapping.

Making Sense of Maps

Here's a great TED talk by Aris Venetikidis on the difference between the cognitive maps we use to navigate in our mind and the physical maps we use in the world.

Blaise Agüera y Arcas: How PhotoSynth can connect the world's images

Thank you to Charlene Turczyn for sharing this TED presentation. Amazing capability Photosynth brings to us that capture the world in photographs.

Dan Berkenstock: The world is one big dataset. Now, how to photograph it ...

Great TED video of Dan Berkenstock talking about the vision of SkyBox and what drives them. This is "game changing" technology that will force the mapping industry to evolve and produce more dynamic and increasingly important capabilities. I am very excited with what SkyBox and the other small satellite companies are doing.

PrecisionAg Mazine's Top 10 Videos for 2013 Includes AutoCopter

Good to see our friend Donald Effren at AutoCopter Corp made the Precision Ag Magazine top 10 Video List.  Donald is a great guy and AutoCopter is changing the way growers monitor their production.  It is a transformational technology.  We were at the InfoAg Conference in Springfield last July when Donald and the AutoCopter Team demonstrated the capabilities of the UAV and it was very impressive.  Congrats Donald!

How Micro-Location, Geofencing and Indoor Location are Driving the Retail Revolution

Thanks again to GISCafe for pointing us to this great article.  The interior of stores have been mapped for a while.  The difficult part has been  determining your position in the store in 3-D.  Sounds like there have been breakthroughs in that technology that will now allow us to use services similar to the GPS we use for driving, only now for indoor shopping.  This is a game changer.

GISCafe's Top Geospatial Predictions for 2014

Thanks to GISCafe for posting their Top Geospatial Predictions for 2014.  It is very interesting to see where they believe the industry is headed.

How LiDAR is Revolutionizing Maps and Geospatial Data

Thanks to Art Borum of Kaskaskia College for pointing me to a great article by Patrick Marshall (no relation) titled How LiDAR is Revolutionizing Maps and Geospatial data.  LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), which uses laser beam pulses to measurement of elevation,  truly is a transforming technology.

City of O'Fallon, Illinois LiDAR

Here's a current article that describes what the City of O'Fallon is doing with the LiDAR data that we provided them earlier this year. Great work Chad Quinn and Dan Gentry.

Tiny Island, Big Operation!

Here's a nice ESRI ArcUser article describing the geospatial work we do for the Air Force's Air Mobility Command at Scott AFB, Illinois.

Using Google Earth Offline

Here's a great post from the Google Earth Blog that discusses Using Google Earth Offline.  The topic covers the use of caching to make Google Earth a good choice for work in a disconnected environment.