The Harlow Report-GIS
2024 Edition
ISSN 0742-468XSince 1978
On-line Since 2000
GIS News Snippets
For the week of
April 22, 2024
Remember When?
A “Harlow Report” From April 24, 2023
by Emily Putnam
With all the apps people rely on every day, have you ever felt like you're being tracked? In some cases, you are.
… “You know all these big giant tech companies, I mean that's really how they make a lot of their money, is user data,” said Dr. Brian Tomaszewski, professor of Geographic Information Systems at RIT.
Users of iPhone and Android alike have probably seen a pop-up on their phones asking for their location. One of you asked us: “Why do weather apps, such as TV 10's, want to know my location?”
Read full story at WHEC, News10…
Now back to 2024
Building the Future
by Brooks Patrick
GIS solutions keep one of Europe's largest urban construction projects on track to the future
… A city can only remain livable if there are enough places for people to live. Vienna's leadership has used the challenge of creating more housing as an opportunity to envision a new pattern of neighborhood planning and placemaking throughout Vienna--a city within a city.
The result: aspern Seestadt, reclaims a brownfield area to create a development that embraces new urban ideals while retaining the classical urban structure of old Vienna.
… Geographic information system (GIS) technology helps planners implement clean energy and low-emission strategies and aids the long-range planning and implementation to ensure that aspern Seestadt achieves a unique balance of sustainability and livability.
Read full story at xyHt…
How Texas is Using GIS for Conservation
by Meg Scribner
Kelsi Schwind, a GIS and Remote Sensing Specialist in TX, joins us to share her insights on leveraging GIS for conservation efforts.
Joined by special guest host and Global Mapper Product Manager Mackenzie Mills, we spoke with Kelsi Schwind -- a GIS and Remote Sensing Specialist from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's Landscape Ecology Program. Kelsi won the Blue Marble Geographics Academic Scholarship in 2020, so we were excited to catch up with her and discuss a project she's been developing with the Landscape Ecology Program. She joined us on the show to share how GIS technology can enable progress in conservation.
We discussed the budding efforts to preserve the Texas Hill Country's Bigtooth maple population, a species of tree that's native to North America. Kelsi Schwind is a Spatial Ecologist who is notably involved in a project that will shape the future of these trees.
Read full story at Blue Marble Geographics…
Intertrust Partners with GeoComply for Advanced Geolocation-Enabled Content Protection
by Intertrust Press Release
Strategic alliance will enhance content security and compliance enforcement for content owners and streaming services around the world
Intertrust, … a leader in distributed computing and rights management, and GeoComply Solutions Inc. ("GeoComply"), a renowned provider of geolocation compliance technology and fraud protection, today announced a partnership to provide a robust solution for content owners and streaming services to control where and how their digital content is delivered and consumed. The partnership will enhance digital content security, reduce revenue loss from piracy, and ensure compliance with licensing agreements that often include geographic restrictions.
Relied on by leading media streaming operators across the globe, Intertrust ExpressPlay® is the world's most scalable multi-DRM service and supports the largest number of DRM formats. The integration of Intertrust ExpressPlay with GeoComply adds an additional layer of protection and services that enable the secure distribution of content and ensure authorized access. For example, the combined offering includes location-based access controls that can detect access to streaming services through VPNs that mask the location of the user.
Read full story at Intertrust…
The Future Of Geospatial Data Is Boundless
by Don Murray
Geospatial data has a huge role to play in understanding the impacts and actions needed to address the climate crisis.
The world we live in is spatial. Think about how many times you use "spatial" or location data in your day for a minute. It is the fabric of our existence. Everything and everyone is someplace all the time--every event has a location. Whether you're following Google Maps to get to your next destination, looking through your local real estate listings, getting a coffee or landscaping your garden, it is all spatial.
The opportunity for organizations to use geospatial data and gain new insights is huge, yet many do not leverage it as part of their business decision strategy. Granted, industries that manage land or infrastructure use spatial or, more correctly, geospatial data. This includes forestry, urban planning and development, infrastructure and facility management, agriculture--and the list goes on.
Read full story at Forbes…
U.S. Forest Service Selects Geo Owl for $70M Geospatial Services Contract
by GeoOwel Press Release
The contract provides geospatial services to support the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, and Research and Development program areas across the USFS's 193M acres of land in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
Services include remote sensing, photogrammetry, geospatial analysis, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), cartography, geodesy, and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). USFS selected five total vendors for the multiple award indefinite-delivery indefinite-quantity contract and vendors will now look to support various specific lines of effort within the agency.
“Geo Owl is excited and proud that the USFS has selected us to support its mission needs. Through our long-time support to the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community, we understand the importance that the proper management of our Nation's public lands and environmental resources plays in bolstering our national security,” stated Geo Owl's Vice President of Geospatial Solutions, Kerry Mapes.
Read full story at GeoOwl…
Industry News
In Government
3 Key Approaches to Data Center Automation: RPA vs. AI vs. Intelligent Automation
by Adam Stone
State and local governments can increase the sophistication of their operations with these capabilities.
Some state and local agencies are seeking to automate their data center operations, and they're not alone. About 70 percent of organizations want to implement infrastructure automation by 2025, Gartner reports.
Infrastructure automation leverages technology to operate data centers with less human intervention. In this context, various technologies support the control of hardware, software and networking components, as well as operating systems and data storage.
Read full story at StateTech…
Army Has Burned the Software Development Bridges Behind Them
by Jason Miller
Margaret Boatner, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for strategy and acquisition reform, said new approaches to buying software already are paying off.
The Army has seen enough from its testing of the Adaptive Acquisition Framework to know what its future looks like.
And that future is around six pathways that moves the services away from a one-size-fits all approach to buying and managing technology.
Margaret Boatner, the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for strategy and acquisition reform, said these six pathways outlined in the Defense Department's released in 2020 have shown enough promise to force the service to change its approach to how it buys and develops software.
Read full story at Federal New Metwork…
DOD Drives New Interest in 5G Networks Across Government
by Sven Rasmussen & Peter Dunn
Deployment issues will vary among agencies. Find out what your agency needs to consider as it plans.
Upgrading to a 5G network is a simple matter for citizens; our carriers and phones do it for us. But when it comes to a government transition, there's more advance work that needs to be done.
The federal government's move to 5G accelerated when the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 became law at the end of December 2023. The NDAA requires the Defense Department to develop private 5G networks at military bases and other DOD facilities.
In Technology
Microsoft Is Trying to Convince Windows 10 Users to Upgrade With Full-Screen Prompts
by Tom Warren
Users have 18 months left until end of support, and Microsoft wants them to buy a new PC or upgrade.
Microsoft is trying to entice Windows 10 users to upgrade to Windows 11 with fullscreen prompts 18 months before the end of support cutoff. Reddit user Woopinah9 spotted a notification “while in the middle of working,” where Microsoft thanks Windows 10 “customers” for their loyalty with a full-screen message and then explains the end of support date. You might be expecting a free upgrade as part of this interruption, but unfortunately for this Reddit user, their PC can't upgrade to Windows 11, so it's more “hey check out this cool thing we have! oh but you cant have it,” as one Redditor puts it.
Read full story at The Verge…
All Google Photos Users Can Use These AI-Powered Editing Tools for Free Now
by HT News Desk
Features like AI-powered Magic Editor will now be available for all Google Photos users for free. Here's how
Google Photos has a major AI upgrade for you as the tech giant announced enhanced editing features for everyone which were previously limited to Pixel devices and paid subscribers. Features like AI-powered Magic Editor will now be available for all Google Photos users for free. This will also include Google's Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur, Portrait Light, among others. These tools have been a selling point for Google's high-end devices like the Pixel phones but owing to a rise in number of AI-powered editing tools in the market, Google made its set of AI photo editing features available to more people.
Read full story at Hindustin Times…
Microsoft Left Internal Passwords Exposed in Latest Security Blunder
by Jess Weatherbed
An unprotected server accessible by anyone on the internet was locked down after researchers discovered it
Microsoft reportedly locked down a server last month that exposed passwords, keys, and credentials of Microsoft employees to the open internet, as the company faces mounting pressure to bolster its software security.
According to Techcrunch, three security researchers at SOCRadar -- a company specializing in detecting corporate cybersecurity weaknesses -- discovered that an Azure-hosted server storing sensitive data linked to Microsoft's Bing search engine was left open with no password protection, meaning it could be accessed by anyone online. The server contained a variety of security credentials used by Microsoft employees to access internal systems, housed within various scripts, code, and configuration files.
Read full story at The Verger…
In Utilities
NYPA Approved for Drone Use Beyond Visual Line of Sight to Inspect Energy Assets
by Sean Wolfe
An FAA waiver expands the Power Authority's ability to use drones to monitor and inspect its transmission, generation and canal assets throughout the state.
The New York Power Authority (NYPA) announced that it will be expanding its drone capabilities as part of the asset monitorization and inspection of its electric infrastructure around the state, following the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) granting of a waiver to fly drones beyond visual line of sight.
The FAA granted NYPA license to fly unmanned aircraft systems beyond the visual line of sight of the pilot in command in a one-mile radius in any unrestricted, or Class G, airspace without prior approval. The approved waiver expands the Power Authority's ability to use drones to monitor and inspect its transmission, generation and canal assets throughout the state.
Read full story at Power Grid International…
Power Grids Are Facing More Demand Than Ever. Policy Needs to Catch Up
by Todd Snitchler
There is a gap between operational realities and aspirational policies. That gap is growing, and not shrinking as it must.
For the first time in decades, power demand is growing rapidly across nearly every part of the country due to a host of factors -- data centers, reshoring of manufacturing, growing electrification and the rapidly growing power demands of artificial intelligence are all important contributors.
The exact shape that this demand takes over the coming decades may still be uncertain. But what is clear is that the policy approaches of today are not sufficient to meet the challenges our grid is facing.
Read full story at UtilityDive…
US Electric Utilities Brace for Surge in Power Demand From Data Centers
by Laila Kearney, Seher Dareen & Deep Kaushik Vakil
U.S. electric utilities predict a tidal wave of new demand from data centers powering technology like generative AI, with some power companies projecting electricity sales growth several times higher than estimates just months earlier.
Nine of the top 10 U.S. electric utilities said data centers were a main source of customer growth, leading many to revise up capital expenditure plans and demand forecasts, according to a Reuters analysis of company earnings reports from the first three months of the year.
Read full story at Reuters…