Thanks for the link to this article go to the All Points Blog. According to a PCAdvisor article, Tokyo's Ginza shopping district will be installing around 10,000 Fadio Frequency Identification (RFID) transmitters throughout the shopping area. A study will be performed to see how providing location-based information helps shoppers.
Imagine the possibilities of taking mobile mapping to a new level. RFID and GPS have been used to provide large-scale location information for travelers (mobile mapping, driving directions, etc.) and goods and parcels in transit (it is how FedEx and UPS do such a great job of keeping track of where our packages are) for a long time. But using RFID to provide tactical location information is a new trend that I believe will boom over the next few years. Imagine using a device in Home Depot or WalMart that will tell you where everything you are looking for is located, and then guiding you there verbally. The RFID sensors can also be integrated with scanners in your shopping cart in a way that whatever you pull off the shelves and place in your cart can be automatically scanned for checkout making the shopping experience much more enjoyable and ensuring Home Depot and WalMart that you are charged accurately for your goods.
This is a great article and there is lots of potential in what they are going to do in Ginza. I am very interested in the results.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Saturday, December 23, 2006
All Points Blog Quote of the Week
Maybe this week's quote explains why ESRI's GIS developers are continually being pushed to new areas by Google's Information Engineers. Link. It rings very true.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
GIS and Robotic Data Collection
I am starting to feel that one of the business niches for my company is to venture into the crosshairs of how Robots can automate geospatial information collection to be displayed in a GIS. Geospatial information collection seems to be custom-made for robotic applications.
I attended the Air Force's GeoBase Compass Conference in June and Ben Yetman from Penobscot Bay Media was sharing out booth with us. Ben had a GIS enabled Robot called SARA (Spatially Aware Robotic Assistant) with him and he was demonstrating the interior mapping capability of SARA . He could map the inside of the Exhibit Hall and produce a 3D map of the room in about 20 minutes. It was pretty incredible! I noticed that earlier this month Ben wrote an article for Directions Magazine called "GIS and Robotics: Robotic Platforms as Tools for Spatial Data Collection and Consumption". It is a good article and is located here. Link. He even mentions my good friend Terry Martin of ESRI as a "visionary geospatial icon". I know that had to make Terry feel good! Since that time I have noticed a couple of more articles being written that both comment on Ben's article and continue to convince me that we need to be headed into the GIS Robot field. I believe that Robots can collect information more cheaply and accurately than humans. The field will probably go the way of the automotive industry as data collection is much cheaper and, even more importantly, much more accurately collected by robots.. Might as well climb on board at the beginning.
Here is another article in the Emerging Technology Trends Blog called "Don’t be a robot, use one!". Link. It seems to be a wide open field and I intend to be on the bow wave of it.
I attended the Air Force's GeoBase Compass Conference in June and Ben Yetman from Penobscot Bay Media was sharing out booth with us. Ben had a GIS enabled Robot called SARA (Spatially Aware Robotic Assistant) with him and he was demonstrating the interior mapping capability of SARA . He could map the inside of the Exhibit Hall and produce a 3D map of the room in about 20 minutes. It was pretty incredible! I noticed that earlier this month Ben wrote an article for Directions Magazine called "GIS and Robotics: Robotic Platforms as Tools for Spatial Data Collection and Consumption". It is a good article and is located here. Link. He even mentions my good friend Terry Martin of ESRI as a "visionary geospatial icon". I know that had to make Terry feel good! Since that time I have noticed a couple of more articles being written that both comment on Ben's article and continue to convince me that we need to be headed into the GIS Robot field. I believe that Robots can collect information more cheaply and accurately than humans. The field will probably go the way of the automotive industry as data collection is much cheaper and, even more importantly, much more accurately collected by robots.. Might as well climb on board at the beginning.
Here is another article in the Emerging Technology Trends Blog called "Don’t be a robot, use one!". Link. It seems to be a wide open field and I intend to be on the bow wave of it.
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