Blog Assignment for Week 7:

Here is a 2-D map of the UMASS Lowell campus with at least 5 points of interest.


View Larger Map

Geospatial Data
Google Earth is changing the way government and industry are using geospatial data. Below is a map of a busy city and traffic conditions. The dots are actual cars live data. Their speeds are reported and then overlayed onto the map. The green dots indicate cars traveling at or near the speed limit, the driving conditions are good. The yellow or orange dots indicated cars that are traveling well below the speed limit but not quite bumper to bumper. The red dots indicate almost bumper to bumper speeds. You will see on ramps and off ramps get an orange or red dot most of the time.

Below is a table of the various features from Google earth.

Here you can see the various "Points of interest" such as grocery stores, galleries, airports, etc.
Here you can see the reported weather overlayed onto the map. It displays the current temperature for the windowed area
Here is a shot from "Street View". Googles trucks travel all over the world, taking millions of still images and linking them to their maps, creating a street view.
Here is a shot of the Empire State Building in 3-D. Alot of buildings in the larger cities have a 3-D view to view.

With the satellite images from Google earth being a matter of two years old; it really doesn't raise many concerns with me. There are many benefits to having this date and it certainly outweighs the security concerns.
However when the day comes that we can get a day by day or even minute by minute shot of every location in the world, we may have some issues. Imagine analytics imaging tracking your vehicle and running algorithm that could be sold to organizations letting them know where you go and what does and doesn't work in advertising. What if your employer could track you on sick days or see when you take that personal time to go on an interview. What if your insurance company can see that you go to McDonalds 34% of the time when you get a meal and simply increase your coverage amount. What if your credit card company could, um actually they already can. The number of situations and examples are endless.
So with the great concern for privacy and satellite imagery becoming more and more sophisticated every day it has a lot of people covered, and rightly so. Perhaps somewhere down the line there will be an equivalent to the do not call list for telemarketers that restricts the satellites from tracking you. There more than likely will be programs where people can opt in and donate all data about themselves to companies and organizations in exchange for money and or products. There will be advertisements sold on top of large cars, public school buses will have banner ads on their roofs.

Blog Assignment for Week 5:

Blog Assignment For Week 3:

The major players for the commercialization of information will continue to be Google. Google recently released it’s new G Phone which runs on the Android operating system. This OS is very user friendly and has most of Google’s web features built right in. You can sync with Gmail inbox, contacts, calendar and tasks. There are multiple applications easily downloadable at the Google android market place and a lot of them are free. Some applications have Google ads built right into them and some have advertising in the beginning while some have none.

You have the option to turn on your location for almost any application. For example if you take a picture with the phone app you can tag the photo with the GPS coordinates. This information can be easily imported into Google maps and integrated into a smashup website to show say all bird pictures in the 06002 zip code.
There are a couple of developments to help make the deep web more available. Google developed the Sitemap Protocol that will allow search engines to discover deep web resources. DeepPeep is a project at the University of Utah which gathers deep web resources from different domains.

The intellectual property issue on the internet raises a lot of concerns on many levels. With the crippling of one’s ability to sample from intellectual property will cause more harm than good in a lot of people views.

Blog Assignment for Week 2:

Social networks have a negative connotation these days. Social networking websites have real people on the other side and those real people are the same people you see out on the streets every day. There are bad people in the world and those bad people use computers. There are also good people out there who use computers. You should use caution when going on social networking websites, however you should not be afraid of social networking web sites.

You wouldn’t just walk up to a stranger and then introduce them to your wife and kids then tell them where you live. You may want to share that information with some though. You should get familiar with whatever site you are on before you go “all in”. For example, you may not want to friend your company’s facebook page and then see your mother write something on your wall about not getting a raise. There is so much to take into consideration and without knowing how any of it works you should remain cautious.

But to avoid social networking website out of fear is not recommended. If you heard of a lot of people being robbed at Yankee stadium, would you avoid it all together? You would get tips from friends on where to carry your cash or how to talk to people. Some people fear social networks because they hear they are bad and they do not understand what in fact is bad about it.

I have met many professionals thru linkedin, re-connected with past friends thru facebook update many professional and personal friends thru twitter. I have gotten many job leads and flown out to places for interviews . I am searching for engineers to work with in my general vicinity right now. We have dozens of leads and it will all be done thru social networking.