Mapping India: Global positioning system - earlier, India lacked the culture of using maps, but it is changing now. Today, we use maps every day on our mobile phones and laptops to find a variety of information, whether it’s a nearby hospital or a good cup of coffee. Even businesses rely on maps to create new efficiencies in their operations - especially radio taxi service providers. 

There is no doubt that radio taxi providers have brought better service for customers in Indian metropolitan cities, not to mention freedom from frequent quarrels with auto/taxi drivers on fares or refusal to travel to certain parts. They offer good quality service and are available round the clock, but have you ever wondered how these taxi operators are able to have quicker pick up and faster response time to a call for a cab?

It’s not rocket science but technology is coming to the aid of the traveller; not mobile phones or age-old walky talky but global positioning system (GPS) to be precise. An avid user is Meru Cab, India’s largest cab provider and the third largest taxi operator globally. Meru Cab oversee over 20,000 trips a day across the four massive metros of Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore—using geospatial services (electronic maps), they have pioneered the concept of GPS-enabled taxis in India.

Each cab is fitted with GPS-based tracking device that helps to identify the nearest cab from a customer’s pick up location. The customer’s address and other details are communicated back to the driver on the display screen. The printed receipt for the fare is a boon to the customer as each cab is fitted with a tamper-proof digital fare meter. What’s more the location information and fare details are continuously sent by each cab back to the control room for tracking purposes. 

Radio taxi operators are not alone in the use of geospatial technology. Today, we use maps every day on our mobile phones, laptops and tablets to find a variety of information, whether it’s a nearby hospital or a good cup of coffee. Businesses rely on geospatial services (electronic maps as well as satellite imagery) to create new efficiencies in their core operations, find ways to better target their customers, create leaner operations, and make smarter strategic decisions. Yet have you ever stopped to think about the industry behind the maps we use every day, the contributions it makes to our economy, and the benefits it provides to both consumers and businesses?

Put simply, geospatial technology is driving economic growth and job opportunities in India. This is evidenced by a Boston Consulting Group report, commissioned by Google. The report reveals that the Indian geospatial services industry generated $3 billion in revenue in 2011 alone while accounting for approximately 1,35,000 jobs. The industry is composed of geo-data providers, location-enabled device manufacturers, geo-app developers, and a growing network of geospatial experts and educators.

According to the BCG report, geospatial services help Indian businesses drive $40-45 billion in revenue, save $70-75 billion in costs and affect 8-9 million jobs in India. The report also found that Indian consumers are also willing to pay $1.5-2 billion more than they currently do for geospatial services such as online maps, navigation systems and local searches.

Geospatial services allow consumers, businesses, governments, and other organisations to make decisions based on geographic data. The primary ingredients of geospatial services are electronic maps and satellite imagery describing our physical and human environment.

Commenting on the report, Lalitesh Katragadda, country head—India Product, Google says, “Geo services helped generate $2 billion in revenue within the Indian accommodation and food services industry alone. In the report, restaurants reported benefitting from new customers finding them through local searches. Users benefit as it makes it easier for them to find the information on local offerings and creating valuable efficiencies in their day-to-day lives.”

Currently, geo services represent 0.2% of India’s GDP and affect 2% of the national workforce; however there is tremendous room to grow this industry and create a lasting source of competitive advantage for India. The Indian geo services industry is comprised of companies that process the location data, companies that produce geo-enabled software, and expert industries that use geospatial data to generate insights. Beyond the industry itself, a wide variety of other industries in India also use geo services to make their businesses more efficient and productive.

“Geo services such as the Google Maps APIs are helping to grow the Indian economy by enabling job opportunities, and paving the way towards future innovation. To enable continued growth, governments, companies, researchers and consumers all need to encourage mapping innovations and investments in India,” Lalitesh adds.

Indeed, geospatial services industry in India is still at a nascent stage. Google Maps, Google Map Maker and the Google Maps APIs are revolutionising the geospatial industry and making maps more widely available, but there’s a long way to go. To ensure that these mapping services continue to be a valuable driver of the Indian economy, there is a need to invest in it—through support of open data policies, product innovation, better satellite technology, and pushing for more geography education programmes in schools.

Most important, a consumer is a distracted user and expects a map to respond instantly to a mouse click or a swipe across a tablet’s screen. Therefore, a map must be responsive, easy to use and should offer a compelling user experience.

Courtesy of eCommerce Times

Facebook may be joining tech rivals Google and Apple in offering up more location-tracking features for its users. A rumored Facebook tracking app could mean revenue from targeted ads to members and a way to boost the company's mobile strategy. However, it could also reignite longstanding privacy concerns about the world's biggest social network.

The Google Maps app is seen on an Apple iPhone 4S on December 13, 2012 in Fairfax, California.

How much has mapping software changed your life?

The anecdotal impact is easy to assess. Look no further than the uproar Apple faced after it switched the iPhone’s default mapping program from Google Maps to its own much criticized service.

Or consider the glove compartment. Twenty years ago, that catch-all space under the dashboard was home to road maps, TripTiks and — probably — a magnifying glass. Today, you’re more likely to find a smartphone charger.

But when it comes to fixing an actual value — on the online mapping industry and on the service it provides — it gets much trickier.

Google, which has embarked on an almost zealous mission to map the whole world, said Wednesday that it’s trying to get a handle on how to gauge that value. The company commissioned two studies, one from Boston Consulting Group and one from the European firm Oxera, to look at the geo-services industry in the United States and worldwide.

According to the research, U.S. consumers placed a $37 billion value on mapping services, said Charlie Hale, a Google policy analyst. The American industry, defined as those who work with global positioning satellite systems and mapping, generates $73 billion in yearly revenue and employs half a million workers, Hale said. Worldwide, that number jumps to between $150 billion and $270 billion a year and $90 billion in wages.

Hale said Google wanted to underwrite the studies to take a step back and study how its products and others were changing business and consumer habits.

“There’s been a sea change in technology,” he said. “We’re seeing it as a way to put a flag in the ground and understand what the technology means.”

The studies also ventured into the somewhat fuzzier math of examining the impact of mapping software based on how businesses use it. Hale said that this could include the money that businesses save by using maps and map software to plot ideal driving routes, find new sites for buildings or consult traffic flow to find the best places to put billboards.

All in all, the study found these uses add up to a value of $1.6 trillion. Hale said that Oxera’s study predicts that the industry will see 30 percent growth per year, as consumers rely even more on their smartphones for navigation.

Google commissioned the studies to get a comprehensive snapshot of the landscape, he said, and consider how it should invest in mapping software in the future.

“It helps us make the argument that it’s a growing and important kind of technology,” he said.

The studies, Hale said, also reveal a nice comeback for geography teachers facing questions from students about why they need to know geography: According to the research, students who know how to use geographic data and software on average earn salaries three percent higher than those who don’t.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal has a story aboutgeolocation gone wrong.  Two years ago, the retired 59-year old Wayne Dobson started to have to deal with strangers knocking on his door, demanding that he give them their missing phone back. Police have been called on him, he has received letters from people begging him to return their missing phones, and he has been called on his home phone more times than he can count.

The reason for this harassment: a programming glitch that normally allows users (as well as police) to track down their missing cellphones via GPS and triangulation keeps erroneously sending people to his small Las Vegas home. This glitch has been confirmed with at least one cellphone company (Sprint), and it has gotten Wayne into a lot of serious but undeserved trouble.

Since 2011, Dobson has had to deal with strangers approaching his home at all hours of the day and night. He has had to deal with trespassers, police accidentally arriving at his location for domestic violence calls, and he also has had to deal with strangers who are desperate for their phones who almost turn violent when he says that their phone isn’t in his home.  Even those Dobson has posted a sign in front of his Las Vegas home stating that he does not have peoples’ phones and for them to call the police, people keep knocking.

Both smartphone users and police use cellphone tracking for various purposes. Normal users track their cell’s location when they lose or have their phone stolen. There are even special apps on the marketplace for people who need to find their phones. Police now often use GPS cellphone tracking in order to reply to 911 calls that have been made via cellphone when the user is unable to provide a location.

Before GPS tracking was a common feature in cellphones, callers who would dial 911 without providing a location to police would get routed to the local police department based on the caller’s area code since there was no way to track the origin of the call. For example, if a person from New York with a 212 area code was visiting Chicago and got into a major accident, protocol would normally be to forward the call to the NYPD.  Now, the use of the phone’s GPS and triangulation from nearby cell towers provides an approximate location of the caller.

The glitch that Sprint users have to deal with is actually a problem with almost all cellphone providers’ GPS tracking. The GPS tracking doesn’t give an exact location for the phone but a location within 50 to 300 meters of the true location of the caller (Mashable published a summary of a study by Shopkick comparing cell phone locations based on GPS readings with the actual location of users within the stores they had just entered and found errors of up to a 1000 feet (a little over 300 meters).  For Sprint, one of these general GPS starting locations is Wayne Dobson’s home. Despite this problem persisting for two years, engineers at Sprint still do not know what is causing the GPS tracker to send people to Dobson’s house.

The mystery of the glitch GPS tracker is one that both the police and Sprint are taking very seriously. They are currently examining multiple possible sources for the problem, from the nearby cellphone tower to the carrier’s switchboard. Meanwhile, police are using Dobson’s strange situation to highlight to why people still need to have landlines in their home for emergency purposes.

Unfortunately, Dobson is not alone in experiencing this glitch.  WSDU reported in April of 2011 of a woman in Algiers, New Orleans who was having the same problem.

Find my iPhone can help users track down lost or stolen phones.

Courtesy of GIS Lounge

Never get lost again with these GPS shoes.  Know of someone with the worst sense of direction? Well, there is good news for those who frequently get lost while they are out on walks around town – there is a new pair of shoes that will always be able to guide them home. Artist and designer Dominic Wilcox has created a pair of shoes with GPS technology included inside of the shoes.

At first glance, these unique shoes look like a regular pair of grey leather shoes with tiny, barely noticeable glowing lights on them. However, they are not ordinary shoes by any means.   The desired destination is uploaded into the shoes via a USB port, which then sends out signals to a GPS tracker that is stashed in the left shoe. The red tag at the back of the left shoes houses the GPS antenna.  The closer the person wearing the shoes gets to the destination, the more lights will begin to glow on the tip of the right shoe. The further away the person walks from the destination, the fewer lights will be left aglow on the shoe.

Wearers of the shoe can also figure out which way to walk by simply looking at his or her feet while wearing these shoes, guided by the circle of LED lights on the left shoe. In other words, these shoes are designed to be a perfect silent roadmap.

It took a lot of thought and a lot of careful planning to make sure that the shoes would actually be functional when it came to their GPS abilities. Much of the problem lay in keeping the GPS’s power on, the shoes’ location easy to track, while also keeping the shoes looking tasteful. All of this was done using wireless communication, and has been powered by batteries similar to the ones in use for by cell phones. The shoe’s location is found by transmitters that are hidden in leather tags on the backs of each shoe.

GPS shoes by Dominic Wilcox. The shoe worn on the left foot (on the right in this photo) has a circular set of lights to indicate the direction a person should walk. The shoe worn on the right foot lights up red lights sequentially to show progress with a  green light at the end once the destination has been reached.

Wilcox calls these unique shoes the “There’s No Place Like Home” shoes, and is proud to say that they were commissioned by Global Footprint, one of Northamptonshire’s largest visual arts programs. In order to add an extra special homage to Dorothy and the shoe’s Wizard of Oz inspiration, Wilcox took the time to etch in an intricate illustration on the bottoms of each shoe, detailing a map to a cozy-looking home. The shoes’ red interiors, as well as the red tags that are used to conceal the GPS transmitter are both carefully planned nods to the famous Oz book series.  Similar to Dorothy, the wearer activates the GPS capabilities of the shoe through a heel click.

With the Wizard of Oz as the inspiration, Dominic Wilcox calls his shoes, No Place Like Home GPS shoes.

Wilcox’s artwork and designs have been on display in many parts of England, in both solo and group exhibitions.