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In many areas such as
outside Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Seattle, Portland,
Denver, Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Nashville, Kansas City,
Minneapolis, Columbus, Cleveland, Baltimore, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, Miami,
Orlando, Atlanta, DC Subs, etc. And in NJ, NC, NV, OH lots of other fast growing
growth pockets.
When GPS devises for cars first hit the scenes at
the CES and SEMA shows in 1996, they became increasingly more popular, powerful
and better data. But like VHS and Beta, Apple and IBM, competition became
increasingly greater causing much consolidation in the industry along with
patent fights. Much of the technology was former Defense Contractors peddling
their wares through subsidiary consumer level companies. But the tight market
remained due to the costs. Meanwhile companies like DeLorme and others tried to
flood the market with low priced GPS units, which made things even more
competitive. And the bugs were not fully out of the system yet. Someday all cars
will drive themselves and people can watch TV, do video conferencing and use
their transportation as a portable office or entertainment system while they are
being driven to the location they have punched into their computer. Some things
will have to occur before this is a reality of course. But eventually your
dexterity skills to actually pilot a car will be worthless and un-needed.
First the satellites will
need to be laser aligned and use multiple satellites to get absolute locations
of ground items and vehicles. The cars will need to have additional anti
collision devises made up of networked sonar and optic flow sensors. All of
which are now available and the technology is getting better and better. Many
military applications today will be civilian tomorrow. Just like Radar,
Microwave ovens, Nuclear Energy, Cellular Phones, Satellite Communication and
Jet Aircraft in Commercial Aviation. The flow of transportation will be brought
to the next generation to serve man better.
For the time being the
incremental changes in these technologies has hit a slight road block even
though Honda, GM, Ford, Mercedes, Daimler Chrysler and Toyota have invested
billions in anti-collision and safety devices which they will add comfort and
desirable options which they can sell to customers as upgrades. Smart Car
Technologies can add Thousands of Dollars to the price of a car and consumers
are glad to pay for them. A factory GPS system with display can cost up to
$6,000.00 and they sell a lot of them on the higher end cars. It is a high
profit item upgrade, although there are some, which only cost $1000. And if you
wish to compare these, some are very incredible with many features;
http://www.gpsnuts.com/myGPS/GPS/review%20...he%20review.htm
.
There are many companies,
which sell after market computer assist items. These companies are doing quite
well and the systems work great. The big issue is just because you have a super
duper incredible GPS system, does not mean the street you are looking for is
even on the map yet. In other words it is like using an old map. If you are a
studier of maps like I happen to be, you will see the problem with older maps.
Even some companies keep printing old map data year after year without adding in
new on ramps, city streets, infrastructure freeway improvements and ring-roads,
it is aggravating for those from out of town. Even more aggravating looking for
an address or street in a new housing tract, which you can see but the devise
insists, does not exist? Then there are problems in areas like Cape Coral, FL
and Tehachapi, CA or El Paso, TX and Knoxville, TN where the roads have been
scraped and ready to put in or put in but do not connect or have nothing there
yet. Of course it is very aggravating to see a road and try to go down it and
find it is a dirt road that connects to nothing yet or an entire sub-division
that does not exist? Is it a Mirage? If so where is the white Tiger Show?
Jack Dangermond of ESRI
had set up entire networks of software makers who developed data for their
awesome software products for GPS and GIS needs. Used by government, military,
utility companies, transportation companies, private companies with GPS units to
sell to the public, First Responders and school districts for buses. After the
Dot Com crash those software companies were among some of the survivors, but had
significantly cut costs. Thus without the proper data the GPS systems bought by
the upper, upper-middle and middle class for their cars were not always good
enough to support the price point for the newest technology. This is especially
upsetting since the upper, upper-middle and middle class citizens who pay the
most taxes live in the suburbs for the most part. The chances of a middle class
American; who bought a home during the 3 years last housing boom; not being able
to find their house or street on their new GPS devise is a higher probability
then them actually finding it. We interviewed one man who bought a new Nissan
Sports car.
Who lives in a newer
developed area in the higher end Las Vegas, Clark County Suburbs, which only had
the main streets on his GPS and had huge blank spots on his device? Some GPS
devices allow the user to choose a satellite vendor and data vendor and
software, but many of the Factory units do not. People think they are getting
something really good and then find they cannot use it to navigate, which would
really piss you off considering you may have paid as much as $6,000 for the
unit. Even more dangerous is the information we learned from an EMT ambulance
driver in Dallas area who told us of looking for streets for 15-20 minutes after
battling through suburban gridlock to get to where they thought it might be. 3G
cell phone technology may assist for those using cell phones to call in data to
the dispatches. For all the training we are doing across this nation for first
responders and on-going education of police, fire, Hazmat, etc. it appears that
we have forgotten the problems of the system. Any time you build a system to
serve humankind you must make it simple and make it work, that should be the
first, the very first priority, then you can fix all the other issues.
With that said we
interviewed a lady recently one evening who had a hell of a long day working for
the Metro Police Departments Central Nervous System. The communications center
and dispatch is to what we are referring. Although she was unaware of the
problem at the center for bad data or missing data in the system, she could not
say how they were able to get the information. Luckily serving a metro area they
are probably connected to the planning departments computer, which they should
be. And if the police department has the new data and no problem in this case,
why have the software vendors not been able to access the data? It is a safety
issue if someone with a GPS system pulls out a map and tries to read it while
driving in an area they are not familiar with. It is guaranteed that in the
history of the automobile in this country more people have been in serious
traffic accidents from trying to read maps, than talking on cell phones,
although cell phones no doubt a contributing factor in many lesser accidents
will eventually pass this figure. Where the streets are, well frankly I cannot
understand the need to keep this a secret unless it is the layout of Area 51,
Prison, Power plant, Pentagon grounds, Military Bases, etc. If the emergency
first responders divisions and contractors would share the data, there might be
less accidents and they maybe able to get some assistance from the public being
the eyes and ears
http://www.lancewinslow.org/nmwp.shtml
and also perhaps they
could in fact use the idea of Smart Virtual Mobile Communities or FlashMob
scenarios since budgets are strapped as the National Security
“Red-Orange-Yellow-High-Risk-Danger-Days” come with high frequency, more police
and first responders are on duty and that costs money. Without significant
inflows the coverage of the Grid of a city is in jeopardy of slower response
times. Fast response times are the easiest way to keep the peace, everyone,
which gets away can cause problems another day and of course in case of
International Terrorist Attacks.
It is essential to have
the data for these devises and everyone is better served when communication
flows. GPS units provide that and the data should be readily available and
probably it is best to have the cities using the same formats as first
responders and the same data can be used for utilities, consumers, military and
even census data or academia studying urban sprawl and growth rates to have
infrastructures ready during expansion. Things like water and energy, which has
obviously been a major focus here.
There needs to be a
nationwide coordinated effort to see that such data is filtered into the private
sector, because as it stand the companies have been hammered in the industry and
cannot perform the services to bring this stuff to market. Communication is
important for government and citizen a like, increased efficiencies in business
will save the government money and provide additional tax base and funds on the
income of such businesses utilizing such data, as well as save money and time
for all the government services discussed above. If we want a screaming economy
we ought to be thinking how we can streamline and accelerate the flow of
information to increase efficiencies and allow a small portion of the gain from
the expanded pie to continue the growth. In other words, we make it easier for
the Florist to deliver, the school buses to pick up more kids per hour and the
soccer mom to take more kids to practice and still have time left to shop all of
which serves man. The digital GIS divide is as important for our economy as the
Digital Internet Divide. Kids in sports do less drugs, become more competitive,
have higher work ethics and soccer moms can help keep the retail economy going.
Every time you ease the flow, more things are possible. The exponential increase
in American productivity is needed to offset the time lost in traffic and
congestion. GIS-GPS systems can help in any emergency or simply driving around
town getting things done to check off one’s list for the day.
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