Predominantly, two references bind the subscriber to the carrier for identifi cation, authentication and authorization i.e. Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card and billing number. Near future could see mobile stores selling mobile phones without SIM cards. Inbuilt system-on-chip may require the subscriber to sign-in using their apple or Google accounts to access email, Skype and so forth

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.

To the existing tracts on the adaptivity theme I wish to offer my own observations. As musings prompted by one individual’s limited experience, these reflections cannot by any means represent a complete prescription answering this global question. Nevertheless, significant value can be gained from a response offering meaningful solutions wherever needed. In fact, solutions offered herein are asserted to give performance improvements that are urgently required.

As satellite imagery becomes increasingly ubiquitous, the mechanisms to deliver and disseminate this data have become critically important to both the consumers and providers. Aligning these dissemination tools with cloud hosting and computing is a natural

The importance of good land governance to strengthen women’s land rights, facilitate land-related investment, transfer land to better uses, use it as collateral, and allow effective decentralization through collection of property taxes has long been recognized. The challenges posed by recent global developments, especially urbanization, increased and more volatile food prices, and climate change have raised the profile of land and the need for countries to have appropriate land policies.

Land administration and ict Over the past thirty years, considerable progress has been made since the initial work on first registration programs using largely analogue, methods of data capture, presentation and records management. The early adoption of total stations and electronic data recording by land surveyors, post processing using computer-aided drafting (CAD) and GIS, as well as data storage in relational database management systems have been highly successful.

The World Bank, with the support of development partners and civil society organizations (CSO), are continuing to support the implementation of land administration and management projects throughout the world. From the World Bank side, specific support to the land sector has been provided for the past three decades. These projects have varying degrees of emphasis on social equity and economic development. In post-conflict countries, tenure security and access to land are major factors in providing long-term stability.

Paul van der Molen
In the book ‘Congo’ (2010), the author David van Reijbrouck reports about the roundtable conference in Brussels in January 1960. There, the Belgian and Congolese delegation agreed on independence of the Congo already in June of that year. From an institutional side, hardly anything was in place in the -soon ‘former’- colony. Executive staff was panicking: ‘how to get a popular census in place in six months, a number plate administration, a cadastre…’.

The global market for GNSS will grow significantly over the next decade, reaching some about €244 billion for the enabled GNSS market in 2020. GNSS market forecasting is of great interest to private and public GNSS stakeholders, for business and strategic planning and policymaking. According to the 2010 GNSS Market Monitoring report published by The European GNSS Agency (GSA), the global market for GNSS will grow significantly over the next decade, reaching some €244 billion for the enabled GNSS market in 2020. Delivery of GNSS devices will exceed one billion per year by 2020. Mobile location based services (LBS) and Road will be the market sectors with the highest revenue generation.

The global smartphone market grew at exponential rates over the last years, and analysts predict very high growth in the years to come, indicating that these devices are making their way from a niche existence to mass adoption. Standard on most smartphones phones are GPS receivers, big screens and processing power that meets the standards of early laptops. These conditions are perfect for running GPS applications that turn smartphones…