Officials from the Space and Missile Systems Center’s Global Positioning Systems Wing announced today the award of the Next-Generation GPS Control Segment (OCX) contract to Raytheon Company, Intelligence & Information Systems, Aurora, Colorado. The OCX development contract will be 73 months in duration and with option years for sustainment worth $1,535,147,916. read more
As usual with an emerging personal, digital communications technology on the brink of mass appeal (think e-mail, mobile phones), privacy is a major concern and a serious topic of discussion with regard to location-based services (LBS). With the GPS component, LBS worries users and regulators even more. So much so that there was a House Congressional hearing this week on... read more
I didn’t plan it this way, but my coverage of GPS 24+3 turned out to be a three-part series, with this column being part three. One reason it turned into a three-part series is because I’m learning more about it along the way, but its mostly because details weren’t released all at once. read more
I ran across an opinion piece entitle “The creative Destruction of GIS” by Ed Parsons, a Geospatial Technologist at Google, published online by GIS Development. I have to admit that when I first scanned the piece, my face crinkled up with the “whhhhaaaaat?” sort of look. For a common frame of reference, you might want to click here and browse/read... read more
With apologies to James Bond, Ian Fleming, and, well, just about everybody else. Here is a grab from my mail bag. The message was subject-lined: GPS Spy Applications. “I recently suspected my wife of cheating, having been involved with gps as a land surveyor since 1995, I used and application called mobile-spy. “In order to install the application onto an... read more
I received some mail about last week’s column on the Apple iPad announcement and I have also seen other comments on the web regarding the Apple iPad that I think are worth commenting on. Then, it’s just a matter of waiting to see how the market accepts the iPad once it starts shipping in Q2 of this year. Ruggedness (or lack thereof)... read more
Call it Madden withdrawal. It’s bad enough that I just endured Super Bowl “XLIV” without the smooth and engaging color commentary of the iconic John Madden, the legendary Hall of Fame, Super Bowl (XI) winning coach and virtual football entrepreneur. This year I patently missed John’s pithy commentary and the distinctive timbre of his voice. Coach Madden’s broadcast career has continued for more than thirty years and his instantly recognizable voice always invokes the desire to watch a football game. I would watch any game he color-commentated even if I did not particularly care about the competitors. It just wasn’t the same Super Bowl this year without John Madden, but somehow I soldiered on. read more
In the few years I’ve been writing this column, very few subjects have warranted back-to-back newsletter coverage. The new GPS 24+3 configuration is one of them. The reason I’ve continued with this discussion is because it will significantly affect your GPS operations, especially if you’re using RTK or DGPS. read more
Follow Us