Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/62129
This is definitely the path of evolution in the geospatial world: instant, accurate, on-demand, location-based information, with easy access to answers derived from a multitude of data sources that are, for all intents and purposes, invisible to users. Commercial businesses that currently provide the type of information needed for these apps would have to "buy in" and see a way to maintain their revenue stream. Pricing for apps and data usage in this scenario is incredibly complex, because software and data providers need to make money and don't have the benefit of Google, for example, which has a constant and sizeable revenue stream from search and pay-per-click advertising, and can afford to provide location-based information for free. From a technology point of view, apps would need to handle geospatial information that originated from a variety of sources and have the ability to accurately georegister all the geospatial modalities that would be used in such a system. Doing this would require a lot of effort and quality assurance (automating this is a topic unto itself—be sure to read the next "A World of Information" column). Also, although today's algorithms are getting bet- ter in terms of being able to work like human brains to pick out relevant information, they're still not in a place yet where people can click the proverbial "easy" button and have reliably accurate results for any application (you'd be surprised how much our brains rely on contextual information that's virtually impossible to incorporate into an algorithm). Mobility/GPS Special Issue Lives and property could be saved if disaster responders had an app that enabled them to instantly access maps depicting damage to an area, such as this image, which shows the effects of a fire. APRIL 2O12 / WWW . GEOPLA CE . COM 13 Making It Happen Although there are major barriers to such an on-demand system, it's easy to see its huge potential payoff. Productivity gains alone would be so immense that they might persuade the big players (i.e., government) to push and fund this agenda—and they are. At the GEOINT confer- ence in November 2011, Letitia Long, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, explicitly laid out her vision for such a system to enable her agency to be an unparalleled provider of location-based information on demand for the U.S. military. This is definitely the path of evolution in the geospatial world: instant, accurate, on-demand, location-based information, with easy access to answers derived from a multitude of data sources that are, for all intents and purposes, invisible to users. I don't care how my movie-times app gathers all the information from theaters around me; I just want the movie times. Similarly, I don't care that my "Compromised Transportation Routes" app uses imagery from two different providers, LiDAR from a third and location-tagged social media sources. I just care that it's reliable, accurate and timely. And this is what those in the geospatial community are driving toward.