LBS





Warrantless GPS tracking unconstitutional

Jan 23rd, 2012 | By

Based on a syllabus from the Supreme Court released on January 23, the use of GPS tracking outside of a warrant is a breach of the Fourth Amendment. As stated in the syllabus: the Government’s physical intrusion on an “effect” for the purpose of obtaining information constitutes a “search.” There seem to be quite a [...]



Lego and Augmented Reality

Sep 19th, 2011 | By

I’m going to cop to this not being an overtly geographic post… but it’s Lego. And augmented reality. If I may indulge to my inner child for a moment… SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! In all seriousness, it’s a pretty need implementation of augmented reality in that it doesn’t require any special printing on the box. They simply take [...]



Layar Vision – Is mobile AR finally knocking on the door of relevance?

Aug 6th, 2011 | By

In the mad scramble to finish editing my PhD dissertation and graduate, I haven’t been following the latest and greatest tech in the geospatial realm as much as I should be, but I am definitely intrigued by the launch of Layar Vision. It’s an extension to the mobile augmented reality Layar platform that allows a [...]



Animated Maps on Memorial Day Weekend

May 29th, 2011 | By

On this memorial day weekend the History Channel is kicking off a week of Civil War themed shows.  While watching I thought I’d see if there were any interesting maps available on the intertubes.  What did I find? Some wonderful animated maps from the Civil War Trust ! The maps are flash based and progress [...]



Sony SmartAR – markerless augmented reality

May 20th, 2011 | By

Augmented reality is one of those technologies that has seemed like it would be next big thing for the last couple of years, but it has proven pretty difficult to translate from WOW factor proof-of-concept prototypes to actual commercial implementations. When I saw this demo video of Sony’s Smart AR, though, I have to say [...]



Emergency Location to the Centimeter

May 4th, 2011 | By

It makes sense that emergency response can be quicker and more efficient if they know exactly where to go. GPS is ok, but being off even 10m can be too much. Australia’s Ergon Energy has teamed with Nokia and Samsung to create a system that’s cheap and versatile enough to find callers down to the [...]



World’s First GLONASS Smartphone

Apr 3rd, 2011 | By

In a world where GPS enabled smartphones are as passe as intermittent wipers on cars and coffee makers with clocks in them, it’s neat to read some exciting new location based technology news. It’s inevitable that phones would begin to launch with alternative location infrastructures than GPS, but I have to say I’m slightly shocked [...]



NASA and Gowalla team up for a nationwide scavenger hunt

Oct 16th, 2010 | By

For all of you out there who use Gowalla as your mobile location-based social sharing app, you’ll want to check out the new partnership between NASA and Gowalla that includes a fun virtual scavenger hunt called “Search for Moon Rocks.” Any time you visit a museum, science center, or planetarium that has a real moon [...]



If Google Maps Were Real

Sep 16th, 2010 | By

Mashable (perhaps one of the cooler sites I visit each day) has a nifty story about an artist who drew Google Maps icons as if they existed in the real world.  It’s rather interesting to think about these big push pins existing in real life, or a pop-up box over a building.  Take away the [...]



Urbagrams – Mapping the social city

Sep 10th, 2010 | By

In order to investigate the idea of a social archipelago, the notion that our cities are “fragmented islands of social activity separated by large areas dedicated to commercial workplaces, flows of vehicles, residential sprawl or industrial sites.” Anil Bawa Cavia analyzed more than a million Foursquare check-ins in a number of cities and mapped those [...]