WAAS provides very precise navigation service, with both horizontal and vertical guidance over the Continental United States (CONUS) and a large portion of Alaska, Canada, and Mexico. Other countries and regions of the world also have fielded or are fielding similar systems. WAAS and each of these other systems are known as a Satellite Based Augmentation System, or SBAS. As envisioned at its inception, WAAS today provides service from enroute through approach.

We have read this article with interest and appreciate the opportunity offered to us by the Coordinates’ Editor to debate the point of view presented there regarding the evolution of Geodesy in different parts of the world. We hope the arguments presented in the following paragraphs provide valuable information regarding the current situation of Geodesy in the Latin America and Caribbean regions.

There is a saying that “it takes a thief to catch a thief”. This is because to know the modus operandi of a presumptive thief is to know when, where and how that person operates. What better way than to put a ‘tag’ that will follow every movement of that person to gather evidence in order to implicate that person. Hiding a global positioning system (GPS) on a person’s vehicle is one means of collecting information with a view to later prosecution of the driver of the vehicle where a criminal act is committed.

July 2012:

COM.Geo 2012, 1-3 July,
Washington DC, USA, www.com-geo.org/conferences/2012/index.htm

2012 Brisbane International Geospatial Forum, 8 – 11 July
Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, www.imtamaps.org/events/

When various governments raise objections
To the easy access to geospatial information for security reasons
Especially by online providers of such information,
We demand liberated and conducive policy ambience.

Crustal movement before and after the Great East Japan Earthquake: Dr Shunji Murai, Dr Harumi Araki;
The importance of mitigation of GNSS vulnerabilities and risks: Renato Filjar, Darko Huljeni;
Assisting visually impaired using smart-phone sensors: Oluropo Ogundipe;

For the blind and partially sighted the visual cues which are a significant part of monitoring the environmental flow are either severely limited or non-existent. Thus the challenge is to be able to use man-made sensors and technology such as the smart phone based sensors to assist such individuals in monitoring the environment and collecting cues/ data about the environmental flow.

Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of India has seen two major terrorist attacks in last two decades; once in 1993, when Mumbai rocked in a series of blast and second time in November 2008 when Mumbai faced a fidayeen attack where less than a dozen terrorists held the city at ransom for almost 60 hours.

Even if an upcoming revision of the said PSI Directive will lead to a duty for Member States to allow re-use, the decision about what information or data is made public would remain a domestic one. There are sound reasons for this; an important one is that the legislative competence of the EU to regulate access to national government information is limited.

Consciously or not, all humans are navigators, so it is without wonder that satellite navigation has swiftly become a backbone of modern civilisation. All of the sudden, situation awareness and management become significantly improved by introduction of the helpful and inexpensive technology that provides positioning services of unprecedented quality.