Global warming linked to national security

U.S. intelligence agencies briefed Congress today - and told them global warming is a threat to US National Security.

According to the Estimate – global warming is likely to increase illegal immigration, create humanitarian disasters, destabilize precarious governments, add to terrorism, and increase extreme weather events in the US, all of which could threaten national security - all based on a new National Intelligence Assessment on the National Security Implications of Global Climate Change to 2030.

The study used a fundamentally different kind of analytical methodology from what is typical for an intelligence product - it depended upon open sources and greatly leveraged outside expertise.

Since the Intelligence Community does not conduct climate research, they began the effort by looking for other US government entities that were experts in this area. They worked with the US Climate Change Science Program and visited with climate modelers and experts from the Department of Energy national laboratories and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA). They also relied upon support from the Joint Global Change Research Institute—a joint research program between the University of Maryland and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California.

In this environment geospatial interoperability and open access to environmental information through standards like Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) SDI 1.0 services are vital to the climate change battle.

- Jeff

CNN Using Virtual Earth

Microsoft Virtual Earth on CNN (from broadcast image, copyright CNN)

I was cruising through the news channels last week and stopped on CNN's coverage of the midwest US flooding. The devastation just seems to keep spreading and spreading.

Chad Meyers switched over to a 3D Earth zoom in and what pops up? Microsoft Virtual Earth - looking good too. Check out the video here.

CNN stays on the cutting edge!

- Jeff

Is there an Echo in here?

Our new version of Echo myPlace was recently featured in Geospatial Solutions magazine.

In the article, Mary Jo works with me as I try to explain how Echo's geosocial interactivity stands to redefine "data-sharing" — from local news to micro-targeted marketing. Some excerpts include -

"Just about the time that most people were catching on to the idea of blogging, bloggers were already establishing and driving a new form of social commentary. Today that trend is a well-established "new normal" for online information distribution.

Come this summer, however, we may see a new breed of geosocial commentators rippling through the Web space. "Echoers" — users of The Carbon Project's Echo myPlace (EMP) geosocial networking software — will share georeferenced Internet videos, news, photos, and other community-related information with other users through EMP's people-to-people technology and Microsoft's Virtual Earth.

Based on Microsoft's new Internet media platform Silverlight 2, EMP integrates a 2D and 3D neo-mapping environment with real-time content to bring georeferenced virtuality to any bit of information users want to share."

Read more here

- Jeff

CGDI Releases Interoperability Pilot Report - Gaia Featured

Gaia3.1 is featured on the just-released GeoConnections Canada web pages describing the CGDI Interoperability Project.

The main objective of the CGDI Interoperability Pilot (IP) project was to test the feasibility of using open standards-based technology to improve the management and dissemination of CGDI data.

In particular, this project demonstrated that technology from multiple vendors based on the Open Geospatial Consortium’s Web Feature Service (WFS) standard could interoperate to provide access to the most current and authoritative data; thereby maintaining currency, avoiding versioning and minimizing duplication of the data.

A secondary objective was to develop a collaborative technical network with CGDI partners to advance the overall development of the CGDI

The CGDI IP project, led by GeoConnections, included public sector and private sector participants. Public sector participants came from Natural Resources Canada, Statistics Canada, Environment Canada, Elections Canada and government organizations in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

- Jeff

The Carbon Project Becomes Microsoft Gold Partner

I'm pleased to announce that The Carbon Project has attained Gold Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program with competencies in ISV/Software Solutions. This certification recognizes the expertise of the company, its impact in the technology marketplace and its ability to meet customer needs.

Our company serves professionals, software developers, government agencies and businesses that develop mapping solutions or use geospatial data. We also provide geographically enabled solutions for sharing digital news, video content, targeted marketing and intelligence analysis.

"We’re pleased to achieve Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status. This allows us to further advance our technical expertise and relationship with Microsoft to our customers," says Nuke Goldstein, our CTO.

Customers are looking for companies that can bridge the gap between business requirements and technology. Our Gold Partner status demonstrates our expertise solving customer challenges using Microsoft products and technology.

Some of our Microsoft-based technologies include:

CarbonTools PRO – An extension to the Microsoft .NET Framework that supports location content handling and sharing from an array of sources, including Microsoft Virtual Earth.

CarbonArc® PRO – A Microsoft .NET-based extension to the ESRI ArcGIS 9.2 desktop that enables the OGC® Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) 1.0 baseline and Microsoft Virtual Earth on the GIS desktop.

Gaia 3.1 – A popular open geospatial viewer for OGC WMS, WFS, Microsoft Virtual Earth and many other sources based on Microsoft .NET.

CarbonCloud® – An advanced IPv6 peer-to-peer (p2p) framework for sharing location content and other information based on Microsoft PNRP.

Echo myPlace® – A people-to-people Geosocial Networking® application using the latest in Microsoft Virtual Earth visualization and Microsoft Silverlight 2 Internet media technologies.

For more information The Carbon Project’s Microsoft-based technology solutions please contact info@TheCarbonProject.com.

- Jeff

Secret Study Reveals Geosocial Networking Patterns

A 'secret' study of human mobility patterns just published in Nature makes the case that most people stay close to home and visit the same places over and over and over again.

The study looked at the trajectory of 100,000 anonymized mobile phone users whose position was tracked for a six-month period.

The results indicate that "human trajectories show a high degree of temporal and spatial regularity, each individual being characterized by a time-independent characteristic travel distance and a significant probability to return to a few highly frequented locations."

The study highlights how space, time and social patterns are inexorably intertwined in our environments - especially urban environments.

Understanding these geosocial networking patterns offers the opportunity to design better transportation systems, urban plans, emergency response systems, target marketing, provide for security and law enforcement and much more.

The study also highlights one of the more advanced concepts of Geosocial Networking - connectedness. In this instance, we're not talking about connectedness as one of the baseline assumptions of U.S. foreign policy, but rather a mix of the mathematical definition of connectedness combined with the assertion that people can connect with each other through shared experiences at common places they visit over and over again.

- Jeff