An article this week in The New York TimesPolice Use Surveillance Tool to Scan Social Media about Chicago company Geofeedia’s use of text, photos and videos from social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to aid in law enforcement sparks controversy about law enforcement vs. civil liberties.
The use of location technology to solve crimes is nothing new. The use of social media content in a specific location is relatively new, and a potent resource for law enforcement.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing, or is it, like all new technologies, fraught with the potential for misuse as well as for the common good? It is sort of like the case of the hammer: you can use it to build a house, or to hit someone over the head with it.
We have covered Geofeedia quite extensively in GISCafe news, for use in retail, public safety, disaster response and law enforcement etc. Additional uses for Geofeedia services remain to be seen, but it may be extremely helpful for averting violence at certain events.
It looks as though Microsoft Corp. is moving into a paradigm shift with its move toward a $7 billion acquisition from Nokia to thrust it into the mobile market. Nokia will still remain a company after Microsoft buys the company’s handset business. While Microsoft is acquiring what Nokia is best known for, the Finnish company is holding on to two if its major businesses: networking and mapping. Microsoft has been hoping to take a slice of the mobile market from smartphone moguls Apple and Google, and meanwhile has been partnering with Nokia for three years.
As the markets closed this Monday, Google (GOOG) shares are at $249.1 billion, much higher than Microsoft’s ($247.2 billion). Despite Microsoft’s healthy performance over the past year, in which shares are up nearly 20 percent, it is reporting it’s first ever quarterly loss since going public.
Industry experts say that although Windows 8 is debuting this month, the Windows platform is waning in popularity. Microsoft has been slow to pick up mobile, and now has come forth claiming that the new oeprating system will translate well from PCs to mobile devices.
At the Esri International User Conference held in San Diego today, Esri announced a strategic alliance with Microsoft to assist public and private agencies and communities around the world during disasters. As part of this agreement, Microsoft will display Esri public information maps on its cloud-based Disaster Response Incident Portal, as well as point citizens to the maps via its online outlets, such as MSN and Bing.
At Rio+20 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janiero, Brazil last week, was originally titled the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development. Varying reports have emerged from that conference, with many seeking to find answers to the problems surrounding sustainable development and environmental challenges.
In the beginning the conference’s aim was to set of Sustainable Development Goals that would replace the U.N. Millennium Development Goals—which were agreed to in New York in 2000 and are set to expire in 2015—to address global poverty.
Concerns were more broadbased than that at this Summit as parties recognized and pressed forward with votes to support the need for many progressive changes in the development and environment agenda, such as broad approval for addressing an array of ocean sustainability and agricultural issues and the creation of a new high-level forum that will draft new Sustainable Development Goals by 2014.
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