Geospatial 2011: Ten Big Ones in Five
Ok, a little later than other folks out there, but I’m in Belgium and the beer is good.
Here’s my Ten Big Ones in the geospatial industry for 2011.
Ten Big Ones
1. Open Street Mapping (OpenStreetMap.org)
Yes, this is real and its gaining traction. This is a Wikipedia-like effort to create a digital map of the world, for anyone to use free of charge. You can be contributor, or you can be a user, or you can be both. Think about it, the latest OpenStreetMap blog is talking about mapping public toilets. Strange, but frighteningly useful.
2. Crowd-sourced data
Highly related to OpenStreetMap.org but not dependent on said .org, crowd-sourced data has the potential to go viral. It’s going to take one funky app or news story to get people hooked on crowd-sourced data. Of course, that’s a fad, but it has daily usefulness too such as citizen reporting (eg. graffiti, broken sidewalks, downed trees/powerlines, etc). Moving slower will be land surveyors, engineers, land planners who buy into Esri’s Community Base Map initiative that Jack Dangermond promoted at last year’s Esri International User Conference Plenary.
Mobile Devices, Content, and Other Top GIS Trends
3. LBS apps
Watch where the venture capital money is being invested. Like me, you may not like the Wall Street mentality, but you can rest assured that like vultures, they follow the money. And they are putting their money into LBS ventures, such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Telenav.
Neither Facebook nor Twitter started as LBS apps, but both went there.
Got an Android phone? If so, you’ve got a free street navigation tool, Google Maps Navigation.
Social networking LBS apps are projected to be a multi-billion dollar industry in just a few years.
4. Location Privacy (think LBS apps)
LBS apps are highly dependent on knowing where you are.
GPS is being designed into most mobile phones.
It’s great to know where you are, but do you want someone else knowing where you are? Your friends? Maybe. An advertiser? Maybe. A stalker? Not.
This issue is heating up and will got hot in 2011.
Privacy Push Will Impact Geolocation Sector, Attorney Says
5. Augmented Reality
The newest breed of LBS apps has a huge potential. In my opinion, it’s just a matter of time before this technology winds it way into many parts of our lives. In transportation apps alone, it will make our lives a lot more safe.
It’s hard to contain myself when writing about this technology, so I’ll stop here. You will hear about it and you will experience it, this year and beyond.
6. Tablet computers
Did you watch news coverage of last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas?
Do you know what they featured?
Tablet computers.
‘Nuf said.
2011 will be another great year for tablet computers.
7. Galileo
This is going to sneak up on people in 2011. Galileo (Europe’s version of GPS) will launch its first two satellites in 2011. They are highly compatible with GPS.
Unlike GPS which launches one satellite at a time, multiple Galileo satellites can be launched at one time. They will launch two-at-a-time to get the first four into orbit.
The European Commission says they are on schedule to have 18 satellites in orbit by 2014 (more like 2015, though).
Either way, this is a game-changer.
It will make L5 a reality sooner than GPS-alone.
“What’s Going to Happen When High-Accuracy GPS is Cheap?”
GLONASS? What’s GLONASS?
8. Smart Phones
Guess what the other hot topic was at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas last week?
Yep, smartphones.
Check out CNET’s Jessica Dolcourt’s comment when asked, “What trends will we see in smartphone hardware and software in the next two to five years?”
“We’re going to see quad-core processors and 3D. Gaming will really take off with much better processing speeds and hardware acceleration. Battery technology will also have to improve to handle the much richer multimedia. In terms of hardware, NFC (near-field communication) chips will proliferate as one way that smartphones will largely replace physical wallets.”
I agree. Wallets are going to be so 2010. Good riddance. I didn’t like you in my back pocket anyway.
Putting on my professional geospatial hat, smartphones will change the way we collect data, period.
In 2010, Gartner reported that smartphone sales were up 96% in Q3 2010 compared to Q3 2009; 417 million smartphones were sold in Q3 2010 alone!
And that was before Microsoft introduced the Windows Phone 7.
9. GPS-enabled Digital Cameras
Ricoh seems to be taking the lead and others are following. As a geospatial professional, it’s clear that you value georeferenced digital photos. It’s one of the most highly searched terms on our website.
Digital camera sensors are moving towards becoming ubiquitous. It’s going to become just another feature like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, etc.
GeoSpatial Experts Bundles Three New GPS Cameras with Photo-Mapping Software
10. Cloud Computing
Didn’t we used to do this, but it was called something else? I think so.
Nonetheless, it’s got traction again. Think not? Read this.
Dude, We’re Working in the Cloud
It won’t replace all client apps, but for non-sensitive content, it’s a no-brainer. It’s a big money-saver for enterprise organizations.
Microsoft is going to take a hit. Note to self: Sell MSFT stock.
Thanks, and see you next week.
Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/GPSGIS_Eric
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