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Home 2023 January 11

Daily Archives: 01/11/2023

Geospatial Data Provides Useful Solutions for the Realty Insurance Industry

By
Rituparna Sengupta
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Geospatial Data Provides Useful Solutions for the Realty Insurance Industry

Geospatial Data is today providing valuable solutions for the realty insurance industry. Geo -Technological interventions and collaborations are being seen to add value to one industry after another. One of the latest industry to be embraced is the property insurance realm wherein geospatial data has slowly entered key discussions and decisions.

The question of ‘where’ is most relevant for any home discussion parameters. In fact the importance of ‘location’ follows almost all property decision threads and inevitably integrates with the matters related to its protection and maintenance. The entire realm of insurance sector safeguarding the realty space follows this matter of ‘where’ to ascertain critical decisions like – locational vulnerability to natural elements, accessibility factors for utility linkages and also degree of safety and security of the surrounding areas.

“Now, more than ever, insurance carriers are looking for advanced technology solutions to better select, understand, and evaluate risks to properties instantly and at scale” shared Kavyan Farzaneh, Head of Marketing at California based company ‘Cape Analytics’ in an exclusive interview with Geospatial World. In an exclusive conversation with Geospatial World he shared examples of how geospatial data is providing useful solutions to the realty insurance sector through the experiences of his company’s business solutions.

Today innovative insurance leaders are identifying great opportunities in using geospatial technologies. What are the key trends in the integration of geospatial technology and insurance industry needs?

Now, more than ever, insurance carriers are looking for advanced technology solutions to better select, understand, and evaluate risks to properties instantly and at scale. All of this needs to happen with an eye towards carriers’ workflows: from faster quoting to streamlined underwriting, from optimizing inspection programs to sharpening renewal decisions, and from wildfire risk assessment to hail storm claims triage — the possibilities for leveraging geospatial intelligence are vast.

Regardless of the application, the best solutions can integrate seamlessly into each insurer’s unique systems and workflows to help realize the most value from the insights that geospatial technologies provide. Data and technology given to insurers without ongoing guidance does little to help an organization reach their goals.

Today many insurance companies are recognizing the value of geospatial software and data for improving different aspects of their business. How can they apply it best in their organization and use it to their benefit?

The use of geospatial insights requires both the data provider and insurer are aligned on the carrier’s goals. Receiving the most accurate information means nothing if it isn’t put to the correct use. It’s also important for carriers to start with a focused use case.

One insurer may leverage a property characteristic like roof condition to help select risks at the underwriting stage, while another may use it to verify the need for a physical inspection of a property. Others may want to start with a review of their current portfolio to see if any major changes have occurred since they underwrote the policy, such as adding a building extension or a backyard pool.

What are the key challenges in applying location intelligence successfully to address insurance industry challenges?

A key challenge we’ve identified in applying location intelligence is in the commercial insurance underwriting process. Suffering from inconsistent policy submissions and complex properties with multiple structures, many commercial carriers are left to rely on overly complicated, time-consuming, and costly patchwork systems that leave the underwriter without clarity as to the exact structures that are a part of the policy. Without getting the basics right—which structures an underwriter should include in a policy—additional information cannot be leveraged.

Our team has focused on many of these first-order problems to create solutions like CAPE Property Mapper, which can correctly locate and map multi-structure properties, emulating the actions that a human underwriter would take. From there, the insurance carrier can more easily automate a larger proportion of their business.

Climate change and related natural events have led to colossal losses which need to be reviewed by the insurance sector. Such climate induced losses are getting magnified in recent times. In this context how is AI powered property intelligence for insured risk being received by the overall insurance industry?

Wildfire, wind, and hail-specific insights have been well-received across the industry in the face of ongoing climate and weather challenges. AI-powered geospatial analysis can allow carriers, for the first time, to understand risk on a property-by-property basis and how exact construction types or characteristics like vegetation can alter a property’s risk profile. We saw this early on, with insurance carriers in Florida and other hurricane areas, quickly adopting roof characteristics like condition and shape to better assess home vulnerability to high winds.

More recently, we’ve seen tremendous interest in AI-powered wildfire risk scores. CAPE offers one of the only solutions that provides vegetation density for homes in wildfire-prone areas, allowing insurance carriers to better judge structure vulnerability and suggest actionable steps on how homeowners can reduce their risk.

Lastly, we’re seeing renewed interest in hail solutions. Hail losses continue to rise and carriers have has few solutions to deal with this challenging weather peril. CAPE recently partnered with Canopy Weather to create a first-of-its-kind metric that can accurately predict which homes have sustained hail damage, within hours of a hailstorm, allowing insurance carriers to automate the payment of those claims.

CAPE Analytics has pioneered the creation of ‘new, predictive, property insights.’ – Please can you share more on these innovative offerings?

CAPE Analytics was the first to apply AI to geospatial imagery and to provide property risk insights specifically for insurance carriers. In 2016, CAPE created the gold-standard Roof Condition Rating, which is now being used for pricing insurance policies in over 35 states. The company now serves information on over 100 million properties across the United States and Canada, across both residential and commercial offerings.

In addition to over 70 imagery-derived property characteristics and weather risk scores for wildfire, hail, and wind, CAPE recently introduced a next-generation data prefill product called Purefill. Purefill is powered by a machine learning platform which can ingest multiple data sources (both imagery and non-imagery data) to provide more accurate insights into critical property attributes such as a home’s living area, its quality grade, and the number of stories. These insights help carriers create more accurate replacement cost estimates and reduce the likelihood of underinsurance.

Real life testimonies speak the loudest for any business endeavor. Please can you share any significant client story with us?

We have countless examples across the 70+ enterprise clients we serve today, including some of the largest insurance carriers in the world. One client, Florida Peninsula, reduced their inspection expenses by 20% when they started using CAPE and can monitor their entire portfolio on a monthly basis. Another client, CSAA, saw a threefold increase in the productivity of their inspectors, by focusing them on the right properties.

Another client, Hippo, integrated CAPE’s AI-powered property insights to further streamline their underwriting capabilities and tailor policies based on the most recent and accurate property information. Lastly, State Auto (now owned by Liberty Mutual) dramatically increased the number of policies they could automatically underwrite by leveraging CAPE insights.

Also Read: Using Geospatial Imagery, AI and Risk Relevant Data For Insurance Industry

Esri India User Conference to focus on Community Transformation

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News Desk
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Esri India User Conference to focus on Community Transformation

Community transformation

Esri India, the country’s leading Geographic Information System (GIS) solutions provider, today announced that its flagship conference, Esri India User conference is back in-person this year. It will be held on January 18, 2023 in Delhi and on January 20, 2023 in Kolkata. The biggest GIS conference in India is looking at welcoming more than 1000 GIS professionals, thought leaders, and influencers from the geospatial industry to experience the next big thing in GIS.

The theme of this year’s conference is ‘GIS — Transforming Communities’. As our world faces serious threats of climate change, sustainability, and social and economic inequality, communities are transforming themselves by adopting a geographic approach. GIS helps us understand all these interconnected problems holistically through visualization and analysis. At Esri India UC, user organizations from across the country will showcase how GIS is helping them solve some of the most crucial social and business challenges.

Agendra Kumar, Managing Director, Esri India shares, “Communities evolve better when they collaborate to solve common problems and GIS is an important enabler here. From uncovering trends and patterns that eventually bring transformation both in perception and behavior, GIS has the potential to empower us immensely. GIS enables us to make informed and timely decisions for transforming communities in a positive manner. As the GIS community connects at the Esri India User Conference, through networking, sharing stories and learning together, we hope to set stronger grounds for Transforming Communities through GIS.”

Esri India UC will include an extensive range of enriching discussions through engaging Plenary sessions, technology tracks and user presentations on the latest innovations and best practices in the adoption of GIS technologies. More details about the event can be found here: Esri India User Conference.

Rocket Factory Augsburg’s first launch to take place from SaxaVord Spaceport

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News Desk
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Rocket Factory Augsburg’s first launch to take place from SaxaVord Spaceport

Launch service provider Rocket Factory Augsburg AG (RFA) and SaxaVord Spaceport have today announced their launch operations partnership. RFA will have exclusive access to Launch Pad Fredo for orbital launches, meaning the company’s first launch of its RFA ONE launch system – currently planned for the end of 2023 – will take place from the northernmost point in the UK.The commercial Spaceport in Shetland is ideally located for RFA to launch payloads at high cadence into polar and sun-synchronous orbits. Existing logistics and infrastructure, launch readiness, as well as rapid implementation and matching mentality were key factors why RFA chose to partner with SaxaVord. With the multi-year partnership, which includes investments in the double-digit million pound range, RFA is securing its first-flight launch site in order to be able to provide its services individually and flexibly to customer requirements.The launch pad and launch stool were fully completed by the end of 2022. The RFA launch pad is therefore the first for vertical orbital rocket launches in the UK and mainland Europe. In the future, the launch pad will not only be used for orbital launches, but for testing and qualification of the RFA ONE core stages. These tests are expected to begin in mid-2023. The first launch will then be into a 500 km high sun-synchronous orbit.“We are super excited to launch our first flight from SaxaVord. This partnership of privately financed companies enables the spirit and speed that we need, to be on top of the commercial small launch competition,” said Jörn Spurmann, Chief Commercial Officer at RFA. “The SaxaVord team was incredibly determined to build our launch pad and get the operations up and running. We are proud to be part of this historic event for the UK having built the first launch pad in mainland Europe. We firmly believe in the UK’s strategic space vision and are absolutely convinced that the double-digit million investment in the site is well placed on our part.”SaxaVord Spaceport CEO Frank Strang said: “We’re delighted to kick off the New Year by announcing our partnership with RFA. We will support RFA across the entire lifecycle of a launch, from facilitating testing, inspections, fueling and safety, to supplying MET weather data and access to our ground station network for data capture and distribution. The entire team cannot wait to welcome RFA and work closely as we edge closer to the UK’s first vertical space launch in Unst.”The partnership will allow RFA to launch satellites, the majority of which are active in two major areas: Earth observation and communications. The data collected by these satellites can benefit any industry. Examples of applications include: Optimization of logistics routes, early detection of forest fires, Internet of Things, analysis of ground conditions, maintenance of infrastructure, collection of health data, self-driving cars, climate and environmental protection. In this way, RFA acts as an enabler to better connect, understand, and protect our Earth.

Geospatial Evolution for Integrated, User-Centric Ecosystems

By
Nibedita Mohanta
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Geospatial Evolution for Integrated, User-Centric Ecosystems
Geospatial Evolution for Integrated, User-Centric Ecosystems

Georg Gartner, professor of cartography in Vienna, Austria and Abbas Rajabifard, professor in spatial data infrastructure and modernization of the land information system, talk about the future of geospatial ecosystem and the role of artificial intelligence and big data for map making to improve citizen services.

Teledyne e2v Releases Hydra3D+,Time of Flight CMOS Image Sensor

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News Desk
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Teledyne e2v Releases Hydra3D+,Time of Flight CMOS Image Sensor

Teledyne e2v, a part of Teledyne Technologies announced the release of its Hydra3D+, a new Time-of-Flight (ToF) CMOS image sensor which incorporates 832 x 600 pixel resolution and is tailored for versatile 3D detection and measurement.

Designed with Teledyne e2v’s proprietary CMOS technology, Hydra3D+ features a brand-new 10 µm three-tap pixel which provides very fast transfer times (starting from 10ns), and displays high sensitivity in the NIR wavelength, alongside excellent demodulation contrast. This precise combination enables the sensor to operate in real-time without motion artefacts (even if there are fast moving objects in the scene) and with excellent temporal noise at short ranges, essential in applications such as pick and place, logistics, factory automation and factory safety. An innovative on-chip multi-system management feature enables the sensor to work alongside multiple active systems without interference which can lead to false measurements.

The excellent sensitivity of Hydra3D+ enables it to effectively manage lighting power and handle a wide range of reflectivity. Its high resolution, with powerful on-chip HDR, featuring an on-the-fly flexible configuration, enables the best trade-off between application-level parameters, such as distance range, object reflectivity, frame rate etc. This makes it ideal for mid, long-range distances and/or outdoor applications such as automated guided vehicles, surveillance, ITS and building construction.

The sensor has been thoughtfully designed for customers seeking real-time and flexible 3D detection with uncompromised 3D performance. It offers large field-of-view scenes captured in both 2D and 3D by a compact sensor which makes the system very cost effective.

Ha Lan Do Thu, Marketing Manager for 3D imaging at Teledyne e2v said, “Today, many Time-of-Flight sensors suffer from motion artefacts and can’t instantly perform in changing operating conditions. With Hydra3D+, our customers can easily achieve reliable 3D measurement with the highest levels of 3D performance, uncompromised image quality in both 2D and 3D modes, and in all distance ranges and conditions even where multiple systems operate or in outdoor environments.”

Percepto to Deploy Automated Beyond Visual Line of Sight Drones

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News Desk
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Percepto to Deploy Automated Beyond Visual Line of Sight Drones

Percepto announced that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has allowed operators to use Percepto’s drone-in-a-box solution to perform highly automated Beyond Visual Line of Sight (HA BVLOS) inspection and monitoring operations at a large Texas solar power plant.

The drone operations are approved for up to 200 feet above ground level, double the altitude of any previously approved HA BVLOS drone operation in the U.S. This uniquely high altitude will enable greater operational flexibility to monitor larger areas and taller structures, including mapping and modelling use cases.

Without a pilot or visual observer on site, Percepto’s advanced technology enables an automated detect and avoid (DAA) cycle. This eliminates the need for remote pilot in command intervention if other aircraft are detected within the airspace.

This automatic airspace deconfliction capability paves the way for centrally controlled drone-in-a-box fleets of multiple sites in the future.

“Gaining this approval marks a significant milestone to provide remote and autonomous inspections at industrial sites, fulfilling Percepto’s mission to provide safe and reliable critical infrastructure,” said Percepto Policy & Government Affairs VP Neta Gliksman. “We are grateful to the FAA for their diligence in reviewing Percepto’s safety case, and we look forward to continue to support the critical infrastructure community across the U.S.”

The solar power plant deployment for which this approval was provided serves as a model for many other industries, including oil & gas, mining and utilities, to increase site efficiency through automated remote inspection operations.

Percepto’s automated drone-in-a-box technology has been deployed by many of these industries to streamline preventive maintenance, drive efficiency, increase safety and reduce operational costs.

FinTech+GeoInt Synergies Driving Development in St. Louis Downtown

By
Richard Fleming
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FinTech+GeoInt Synergies Driving Development in St. Louis Downtown

Earlier this year, Geospatial World Magazine highlighted the evolution and placemaking impacts of a new “urban insight district in St. Louis at the Heart of America,” the Downtown North Insight District.

This tech-focused center city Innovation District is unique in several respects: one, its technology focus includes both Geospatial Intelligence and FinTech anchors, along with several other key tech institutions; and, two, its downtown location spans most of the entire northern portion of St. Louis’ Central Business District.

The District also is proximate to two anchor public institutions — the now under construction 3,100- job, $1.75-billion, 1 million square foot, 100-acre National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency (NGA)western headquarters, as well as with the now expanding 500,000 square foot America’s Center Convention Complex (home of the 2021 and 2023 GEOINT Symposia).

The focus of previous 2022 Geospatial World Magazine feature articles about St. Louis has been on the continued growth of Geospatial Intelligence firms and institutions and the geospatial intelligence ecosystem in the new District. This article focuses on the companion growth of the FinTech sector and its unique relationship to Geospatial growth within the St. Louis ecosystem.

Malou Damgaard of Denmarkbased MapsPeople describes the relationship of FinTech and Location, “These days, FinTech is a buzzword. Already used by over 50% of financial customers worldwide, the sector is growing rapidly.” She concludes, “It is not just a trend anymore, it is an innovative industry’…it is a global movement.”

In a June 2022 article in Forbes, Enterprise Tech, “The Rise of Spatial Finance,” Brian Cross of ESRI described “Spatial Finance” as the ability to quantify and analyze the effects of business on nature, and nature on business as a competitive advantage in corporate finance. He observes, “Spatial finance relies on innovative geospatial technologies including a modern geographic information system (GIS), remote sensing, and artificial intelligence.”

He concluded, “The rise of the practice is being magnified by the abundance of near real-time imagery and information generated by satellites, drones, and IoT sensors – and the use of machinelearning algorithms that rapidly process images and sensor readings for insights, anomalies, or patterns.”

The September 27, 2022 edition of Financial IT carried the headline —”How Geospatial Data Is Expected To Revolutionize Fintech & Banking.”

One of the co-founders of the Downtown North District is St. Louis-based global FinTech entrepreneur Jim McKelvey, who is also Co-Founder of Square (now BLOCK) with Jack Dorsey.

Jim spoke recently to the rationale for FinTech and Geospatial Intelligence combining to stimulate innovation: “Larger banks and financial institutions are highly regulated which limits their ability to explore new ideas and innovate. These institutions partner with younger and more flexible technology companies to gain access to new markets and to better understand their customers. This allows the providers to create products and services that meet their needs.”

It’s in this context of innovation that McKelvey is also pursuing yet another combination of disciplines; namely, downtown revitalization, tech innovation, and real estate.

Two and a half years ago, along with his real estate partner John Berglund, the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of their real estate development firm, The StarWood Group, Berglund and McKelvey announced that they had purchased the then-headquarters of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper, and had signed a 15-year lease with San Francisco-based Square (now BLOCK) and were moving all 500 St. Louis employees of Square to the totally renovated nearly quarter million square foot Post-Dispatch Building, and making high-tech space for an eventual 1,400 employees in the building.

At the same time, the seeds were planted for the development of a multi-block downtown Innovation District, initially called the “NOW Innovation District,” referring to North of Washington, St. Louis’ initial Washington Avenue tech corridor, from which both Square and The Globe Building are 2 blocks north.

Jim McKelvey Co-founder, Square (now BLOCK) and Co-founder, The StarWood Group.
John Bergund, Co-founder of The StarWood Group, at the renovated former Post-Dispatch HQ

In their announcement of Square, McKelvey and Berglund indicated that they “wanted more than just the Post-Dispatch building.” As the St. Louis Business Journal chronicled The StarWood Group’s intentions: “Ultimately, it came down to wanting more. They wanted more people. They wanted more growth. They wanted more vibrancy for a forgotten corner of downtown.”

John Berglund has observed, “we knew out interest had to be more than just a building. We believed the north side was an untapped opportunity.”

The decision of BLOCK/Square to locate in St Louis follows a national trend of decentralizing technology jobs outside of Silicon Valley into communities which provide more cost-efficient ways of delivering services. An excellent example is MasterCard’s decision some years ago to locate its Global Operations Headquarters and 3,500 jobs in St. Louis. Today, virtually every MasterCard transaction in the world, 24/7, every day of the year is processed thru St. Louis.

Map of the multi-block Downtown North Insight District in St. Louis

Speaking to the unique synergies of FinTech and GEOINT in the District, Berglund notes, “Integration of geospatial and fintech is a natural progression of two industries expanding rapidly. It is estimated that the Global Fintech market will hit north of $300 billion in five years. Geographic and location data are being collected daily and mined for retail advantage, climate risk, location of competitors, and so forth. This allows them to track foot traffic, demographic data, and customer preferences based on habits.”

He continued, “Banks are competing to provide an increased level of personalized service that customers see as standard. Intuitive customer interface while maintaining necessary security protocols are important on a mobile platform. Location of the nearest ATM is just assumed. Location data plays a part of this.”

St. Louis’ goal is to continue to ride that trend to showcase how St Louis continues to be the choice for other FinTech and GEOINT companies.

The STL 2030 Jobs Plan, completed last year, provides context here: noting that the 2.8 million-person St. Louis region already includes 22 Global headquarters established there; has a cost of living which is just 88% of the U.S. Average; and that there are presently over 275,000 jobs in the GEONT, FinTech and Digital Transformation sectors. Meanwhile, on the GEOINT front itself, as NGA’s new western HQ continues to progress towards a first quarter 2026 opening just several blocks from the Downtown North District,

Geospatial Intelligence firms and specialized intel facilities also continue to expand at The Globe Building. The recent location of General Dynamics at The Globe — joining MAXAR, T-Kartor, Ball Aerospace, and Geospatial World — underscores The Globe as the “location of choice for GEOINT firms in St. Louis.”

In this regard, The Globe Building was recently named the “St. Louis Development of the Year for 2022” by St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones.

“The District has rapidly become the nucleus for the St. Louis effort to achieve its vision of being a global geospatial intelligence hub,” says GEOINT expert Keith Masback, currently Plum Run, LLC. “The unique combination of a startup ecosystem, world-class workplaces, and a massive multi-tenant classified space – all proximate to Next NGA West – is unparalleled, and is clearly the strategic differentiator for GEOINT in St. Louis.” Masback served as CEO of the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) for over a decade.

Planning for a Community Improvement District is underway, along with both long terms plans for the overall District by The StarWood Group and their civic colleagues.

Today, this unique synergy of Fintech and GEOINT is helping to chart a new north for St. Louis.

Capella Space Raises $60M to Expand Satellite Imaging Capacity

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News Desk
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Capella Space Raises $60M to Expand Satellite Imaging Capacity
capellaspace.com

Capella Space announced it has closed $60 million in growth equity financing from the U.S. Innovative Technology Fund.

Capella will leverage this growth capital to expand its imaging capacity and develop new data products as customer demand grows for its frequent, timely and high-quality SAR imagery and analytics capabilities.

Based in the U.S., Capella is revolutionizing the way that critical industries across the public and private sectors collect and analyze Earth observation data to make informed and accurate decisions.

Its synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites can penetrate all types of weather conditions – clouds, fog, smoke, rain – to capture clear imagery day and night, delivering accurate and timely data about what is happening anywhere on Earth at any given moment.

Coming off the heels of the company’s $97 million Series C financing in April, this follow-on round reflects the rapidly increasing demand for Capella’s end-to-end radar-powered, high-quality SAR imagery and analytics services.

Access to reliable, 24-7, high-quality Earth observation data has never been more critical as the world today faces intense geopolitical, environmental and humanitarian challenges. This funding will enable Capella to build and launch its next-generation Acadia satellites, which the company manufactures entirely in the U.S. at its facilities in California and Colorado.

This new technology offers an enhanced design to deliver higher resolution and quality, increased imaging capacity and faster delivery capabilities for customers, many of which rely on Capella’s data to inform mission-critical decisions.

The company will also expand its automated, intelligent advanced analytics offerings within the Capella Console, the company’s on-demand tasking platform, to continue delivering the highest quality, highest resolution SAR imagery with the fastest order-to-delivery time.

“Technological competitiveness is vital to our country’s future,” said Thomas Tull, Chairman of USIT. “Capella’s cutting-edge SAR technology allows us to have accurate, real-time information about what is happening on our planet, enabling decision-makers to more quickly make critical decisions about pressing geopolitical challenges. This work that they are doing is essential to the world’s future and I’m proud that we are able to support Capella and their mission to democratize and innovate space data.”

This year has proven to be one of the company’s strongest to date. Capella announced it has tripled revenue since 2021, with a twofold increase in imagery collected, and grown its headcount by more than 50% in 2022.

Capella Space expects to grow even more in 2023 as the company doubles down on sales and marketing efforts and explores new business lines.

“Our customers are solving some of the world’s toughest problems, from geopolitical conflicts to humanitarian crises, climate change, supply chain logistics, and more. They need high-quality, high-resolution Earth observation data to inform them of potentially life-saving decisions, and Capella Space is stepping up to ensure they have accurate, timely information,” said Payam Banazadeh, CEO and founder of Capella Space.

“As we enter this next phase of growth, I’m excited to announce this follow-on round of funding from USIT, who understands our value to the world and will help us take Capella’s work to the next level. Expanding our leadership team with Chad, Paul and Glen underscores our growth, and they will all play key roles in helping us accomplish these goals.”

Cepton, ALP.Lab and TE Connectivity Complete Project Periscope

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News Desk
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Cepton, ALP.Lab and TE Connectivity Complete Project Periscope

Cepton,a Silicon Valley-based lidar solutions company, ALP.Lab GmbH, an Austrian-based provider of autonomous vehicle testing solutions and TE Connectivity, which produces sensors and connectors, have completed a proof-of-concept project called Periscope. Periscope is a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) solution, which extends a driver’s field of view using lidar sensors installed at intersections to warn of road hazards ahead before they are in view.

The companies created Periscope in response to the global issue of traffic accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists. The V2X solution communicates information about road conditions in real time, providing more time to react, preventing accidents and enhancing overall safety.

For the proof-of-concept project, Cepton provided its Helius Smart Lidar System, which combines lidar sensors with edge computing and perception software to provide real-time, 3D object detection and tracking. TE Connectivity contributed its V2X hardware components in the vehicle used for testing and for the surrounding infrastructure, as well as provided technology for an on-board display of the vehicle’s location and road hazards. ALP.Lab supervised the system integration and testing, while also providing the testing area and infrastructure.

Combatting Cyberterrorism via Spatial Insights

By
Nibedita Mohanta
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Combatting Cyberterrorism via Spatial Insights

Social media has emerged as a new turf of terrorist groups and organized crime syndicates. In this scenario, data-based insights and geospatial visualizations play a key role in tracking these activities.

While social media has enhanced connectivity and is a rich source of diverse information, at the same time, it poses several threats, ranging from impersonations, and identity thefts to cyber terrorism, and racketeering. The dark underbelly of the internet is a hotbed of all sorts of illicit activities that often tend to escape the lens of regulatory agencies.

As per estimates, cyber-attacks have spiked by up to 240% since the second half of 2021.

According to the Cybersecurity Ventures report, the estimated cost of cyber crimes would reach up to $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, representing one of the greatest wealth transfers in history.

Had cybercrime been a country, it would have been the third largest economy in the world, after China and the USA, as Cybercrime Magazine forecasts.

How Do Extremist Groups Use Social Media?

Along with disinformation and fraud, the use of social media for terrorist propaganda, recruitment, and funnelling funds, is a big global threat. Counter-terrorism agencies globally are increasingly monitoring social media platforms to prevent these.

As per a study by Gabriel Weimann from the University of Haifa in 2012, nearly 90% of organized terrorist activities on the internet take place via social media.

“Terrorist groups such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah have long used social media for a variety of purposes: training, recruitment, planning. Groups such as ISIS have used video sharing sites to post training videos on how to carry out beheadings,” says Professor V.S. Subrahmanian, Walter P. Murphy Professor – Dept. of Computer Science & Buffett Faculty Fellow, Buffett Institute of Global Affairs, Head, Northwestern Security & AI Lab (NSAIL), Northwestern University.

“Closed groups have been used to plot attacks, but in order to join such closed groups, potential new members typically need a reference from someone already in the group,” he adds.

The estimated cost of cyber crimes would reach up to $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, representing one of the greatest wealth transfers in history

Lure of Online Networks

Extremist activities are not only confined to social media but other online networks such as gaming platforms and video channels as well.

There are over three billion gamers worldwide, out of which millions are active users on gaming and gaming-adjacent platforms. Considering the huge population, which mostly comprises teenagers, and adults aged between 20-35 years of age, who invest their leisure-time on gaming platforms, it has become a breeding ground for those with extremist ideologies. The attackers exploit the popularity of this space and accumulate the data about users for spreading propaganda, training and communication efforts.

These online networks and platforms allow terror groups to engage with their target audience, whereas previously terror groups would release messages via intermediaries. Social media platforms allow terror groups to release messages directly to their intended audience and converse with their audience in real time through chat boxes.

Prof. Subrahmanian says that terrorist groups use social media to target people that they don’t know. For a long time, ISIS was posting instructional videos on how to carry out beheadings. When those kinds of videos started getting increasingly detected and blocked quickly, they changed tact. They started posting videos on how to cut a melon instead, at some level, melon being like the human head.

“They’ve taken the problem and sort of mapped it onto an analogous. They’ve taken their problem of showing would-be terrorists how to carry out terrible beheadings to an analogous problem, where the would-be terrorists, they’re expecting to follow them, are nonetheless trained, but in a domain that none of us could have anticipated, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,” he adds.

“Social media was now a “loss leader” for groups like Islamic State (IS),” Cyber terrorism experts Prof Maura Conway, from Dublin City and Swansea universities was quoted as saying.

“IS and the like still post on Facebook and Twitter etc., but they know that they’ll quickly be removed, so they use a scattergun approach to entice the most number of people in the limited time their message will be seen,” she added.

ALSO READ: AI to Strategically Reshape Global Security Landscape

Geospatial for Intel Gathering

Terrorists gather all the vital information about the area through their local source and chalk out the plan and the pattern of attacks. This is why they target young people, especially from the marginalized community of the area, who are either in need of money or a job to carry out their organized crimes.

With the use of geospatial analytics, these activities can be identified and tracked. Demographic mapping and distribution can come in handy in spotting areas and populations most at risk.

Geospatial Information System (GIS) is used by defense authorities to identify cyber-crime and locate them on maps to track the criminals pre-emptively.

The US cyber-security firm, Mandiant, used geospatial technologies like social network analytics, intelligence and real-time event scoring to trace cyber-criminal activity in Shanghai, China in 2013.

Geospatial technologies are transforming from identifying traditional crimes and analyzing cyber activities to protecting valuable data and information of the country. It provides important information rich with intelligence analytics to make informed decisions.

Data Conundrum

With the vast availability of online data and the model of aggregation and monetization by third party companies, there is a risk of this data being used for psychological profiling, behavioral manipulation, and indoctrination by terror groups. However, data-based insights come to aid in tracking criminal activities.

“Ten years ago when I started crowdsourcing data on sexual and gender based violence most people did not understand what I was doing and how the dataset could be useful,” says ElsaMarie DSilva, Founder, Red Dot Foundation.

“We are now actively mapping sexual and gender based violence in 17 countries besides India with partner organizations and it is interesting how they plan to use the data”.

Source: Geospatial World Analysis

New Response Plan

The behavior and actions taken by social media companies over the last five years have significantly improved the landscape in terms of the ability of terrorist groups to carry out these kinds of things.

“Governments have primarily tried to combat terror groups’ social media presence through legislation and regulation. For instance, in the early days (2010- 2015), terrorist content on mainstream social platforms was quite extensive.

In examples where a group was posting about how to cut a melon, it was not immediately clear if the video was a terrorist video or not, leading to delays and complications in taking the videos offline. In recent years, most major social platforms have cells that are dedicated to taking down such content as soon as possible,” says Prof. Subrahmanian.

“We cannot blame the social media, the real people to blame are the bad guys. The social media companies do have to be put on notice that they need to invest sufficient resources and have a game plan to deal with this kind of thing, and that’s part of regulation,” he adds.

There’s a need for compliance guidelines that are unambiguously mentioned. “Just like the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) puts out cyber advisories, we need to put out social media advisories, and extensively monitor social media.” he concludes.

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Airbus and VDL Group to produce airborne laser communication terminal

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News Desk
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Airbus and VDL Group to produce airborne laser communication terminal

Communication

Airbus and VDL Group have signed a partnership agreement for the development and manufacturing of a laser communication terminal for aircraft, known as UltraAir. Based on the development led by Airbus and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), the two companies will now prepare a demonstration of a prototype and a first flight test in 2024.

As of 2024, Airbus and VDL Group – a Dutch high-tech industrial supplier – will further industrialize the prototype in order to make it ready for integration with a hosting aircraft. VDL brings design for production to the partnership and will manufacture critical systems. A flight test of this industrialized prototype is planned in 2025 on an aircraft.

UltraAir will enable the exchange of large amounts of data using laser beams in a network of ground stations and satellites in geostationary orbit at 36,000 km above the Earth. With unparalleled technology including a highly stable and precise optical mechatronic system, this laser terminal will pave the way for data transmission rates that could reach several gigabits-per-second while providing anti-jamming and low probability of interception.

In this way, UltraAir will allow military aircraft and UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) to connect within a multi-domain combat cloud thanks to laser-based satellite constellations such as Airbus’ SpaceDataHighway. This is a key milestone in the roadmap of Airbus’ overall strategy to drive laser communications further, which will bring forward the benefits of this technology as a key differentiator for providing multi-domain combat collaboration for government and defence customers. In the longer term, UltraAir could also be implemented on commercial aircraft to allow airline passengers to establish high-speed data connections.

Regarded as the solution for data traffic in the quantum age, laser communication technologies are the next revolution in satellite communications (satcom). As satellite bandwidth demand is growing, the traditional satcom radio-frequency bands are experiencing bottlenecks.

Laser communication brings 1,000 times more data, 10 times faster than the current network. Laser links also have the benefit of avoiding interference and detection, as compared to already-crowded radio frequencies they are extremely difficult to intercept due to a much narrower beam. Thus, laser terminals can be lighter, consume less power and offer even better security than radio.

Co-financed by Airbus and VDL Group, the UltraAir project is also supported by the ESA ScyLight (Secure and Laser Communication Technology) programme and by the “NxtGen Hightech” programme, as part of the Dutch Growth Fund, led by TNO and a large group of Dutch companies.

Making Geo Data Available to Everyone

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Meenal Dhande
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Making Geo Data Available to Everyone
Olivia Powell, Head of Geography & Geospatial, Office for National Statistics, UK

Data from a single source is no longer enough. With ever more complex issues to solve, there is a greater focus on integrating data assets. Geography is the common language that integrates information from various sources, believes Olivia Powell, Head of Geography & Geospatial, Office for National Statistics, UK.

What is the vision and mission of your organization?

The Office for National Statistics is the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and its recognized national statistical institute; it is responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating statistics about the UK’s economy, society, and population for the public good.

Its mission is to provide high-quality data and analysis for the public good to inform the UK, improve lives and build the future. We are driven to work in ways that deliver radical, ambitious, inclusive, and sustainable solutions.

The Geospatial Unit supports this mission by making geography and statistics easy and accessible to all.

What do you envision the future geospatial ecosystem to be like? How different do you think it will be from the current geospatial ecosystem?

More and more organizations, including government departments or agencies, are turning to cloud solutions to be able to handle, manipulate and analyze data. At the same time, the challenges we face are increasingly complex and cannot be tackled or resolved in silos. Data from a single source is no longer enough. With ever more complex issues to solve, there is a greater focus on integrating data assets. ‘Geography’ is the common language that integrates information from various sources.

Internationally we can see a global uptake of multilateral geospatial frameworks such as the United Nations’ Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF), developed by the UN’s Committee of Experts for the Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM).

There is also an increasing need for collaboration and data sharing between organizations and government departments, where technology allows for data to flow within various geospatial ecosystems, providing the opportunity to pull disparate datasets together in a single context to produce a bigger picture. There is a real drive to share data more broadly, but due to the vast and increasing amount of information, there is also a need to limit data duplication in multiple systems.

With the increasing adoption of geospatial technology and data across sectors, how does your agency keep track of the evolving demand and requirements of users?

Being the most data-driven government department, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is always looking at improving the accessibility and findability for content, which users find under the Open Government License (OGL). However, publishing and disseminating data so widely also has challenges when understanding our user requirements. At ONS Geography, we’re keeping an eye on what’s happening around us, especially concerning best practices, standards, and innovation. We work across teams to deliver the best products we can. We are currently looking at ways to engage more with our user base and how to reach out to gain insights into their requirements.

Is your agency making efforts to make geospatial knowledge accessible to non-spatial experts? If yes, what are the initiatives involved?

The Office for National Statistics delivers statistics for all, and to do so, we follow very complex data and analytical processes. Because of our vast range of users, we always strive to make it easy for them to find the data they need—our user-base ranges from public members and policymakers to skilled analysts. Most are unlikely to have spatial sciences acumen.

We continuously review our services and have a range of initiatives to ‘make data easy’ for users. Our Digital Publishing team launched a new data visualization service this year through our interactive Census Maps (Alpha). It provides easy-to-understand visualized data from our latest Census 2021 data release, one indicator at a time and at a localized level.

We aim to make geography easier for our more advanced users, such as data analysts, who might need to be spatial experts.

Regarding experts such as analysts, who require access to multiple datasets, the ONS is leading a UK cross-government initiative bringing together ready-to-use data to enable faster and broader collaborative analysis for the public good: the Integrated Data Service (IDS).

This will provide improved forms of data, alongside analytical and visualization tools, in a secure multi-cloud infrastructure. Data from multiple sources is brought together through a robust data engineering process that enables the de-identification of datasets using data linkage based on a comprehensive data management solution called Reference Data Management Framework (RDMF).

This framework allows for the vast volume and variety of data that we increasingly handle to be processed, managed, and linked through five key referencing indexes, including its two major and pivotal indexes: the Address Index and the Geography Index. Location is at the heart of this and helps maximize the benefit of data standardization, transparency, and consistency.

The ONS Geography team also leads capability building for geospatial and statistics across the UK government and internationally. We publish guidance, training resources, and other materials, such as code and tools, on our GitHub pages.

How does your agency deal with the increasing demand for digital transformation? What are the major challenges associated with digital transformation?

The increasing availability of faster data sources, such as Earth Observations and mobility data, unlocks the potential for us to analyze and understand issues previously considered too complex for us to approach, building new use cases and demonstrating the value of geospatial data.

At a national level and around the world, the pandemic sparked a greater need for spatial data to inform central government policies. The ONS’ geospatial division in the UK was flooded with data requests like never before.

A resulting challenge from this influx of data, which resolution and timeliness improve daily, means that greater computing power was necessary to harness those new opportunities. Cloud technology is an essential part of this, enabling further automation and machine learning.

There is still a lot of work to be done to ensure we have a robust and flexible yet secure spatial data infrastructure that enables us to continue improving our services, including promptly providing a more comprehensive range of statistics.

Are new business models being explored to adapt to the evolving roles and mandates and the new modes of collaboration? If yes, what are the new business models being adopted or explored?

A trend that is apparent and emerging from the growth in data and technological advancements is a greater need for collaboration and better data integration.

Collaboration between organizations is key. The ONS has a clear agreement with key organizations. Still, from a geospatial perspective, there is an increasing drive to work closer with other geospatial agencies, such as Ordnance Survey, for things like developing new geospatial data products, etc.

ARCOS Acquires Treverity to Supercharge Insights with Utility Analytics

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ARCOS Acquires Treverity to Supercharge Insights with Utility Analytics

ARCOS, a workforce management solutions for utilities and other critical infrastructure industries, has acquired Treverity and its analytics and collaboration platform Utility Insight.

It helps utilities understand their blue- and gray-sky operations in real time and take action from a single pane of glass. Utility Insight integrates and complements ARCOS solutions such as Mobile Workbench, Callout, and Crew Manager to connect field and back-office staff for safe, efficient and reliable operations.

“Utility Insight gathers data from across a utility and creates a powerful set of ‘work views’ that includes data from ARCOS and any other IT platforms,” said ARCOS CEO Odus “Boogie” Wittenburg. “Acquiring Treverity broadens the operational insight and intelligence we provide utilities; that’s fundamental for building the digital utility of the future.”

Utility Insight pulls, caches, and analyzes data from virtually any source (e.g., OMS, GIS, AMI, etc.) and then delivers near real-time, actionable intelligence via easy-to-use dashboards for workers in the control room and field when and where they need it.

For instance, when field service technicians arrive at a customer location, employees can use Utility Insight to see not only the work order but also past outages, nearby crews, and recent calls to customer support – the history of everything the utility knows about the customer.

Unlike traditional dashboard tools, Treverity enables users to easily act from the same interface – such as initiating a callout or sending a notification to a field user through Mobile Workbench.

“The Treverity platform combines and analyzes data in real time from our systems to provide our distribution control room, managers and executives with the situational awareness and insights they need to provide reliable power to our members,” said Eddie Dauterive, chief operations officer for Pedernales Electric Cooperative. “Having a real-time analytics platform is essential to our daily operations.”

“Treverity’s capabilities add to our platform of high-reliability, mission-critical software to help utilities run more efficiently and reliably,” added Wittenburg. “Treverity’s existing products are great complements to our current capabilities in the control room and field, and their technology platform will accelerate our roadmap.”

As part of the ARCOS acquisition, Treverity’s leadership team and staff with decades of experience in utility operations, analytics, and software development will join ARCOS.

FocalPoint Announces Collaboration with General Motors

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FocalPoint Announces Collaboration with General Motors

FocalPoint, the UK software company which provides next-generation positioning solutions for mobiles, wearables and vehicles, has announced an investment from GM Ventures, the venture capital arm of General Motors, and a collaboration with GM to explore the application of next-generation GPS technologies to the automotive market.

FocalPoint’s SupercorrelationTM technology addresses the critical issue of GPS inaccuracies from current receivers in cities, bringing navigation positioning better in line with modern customer and business demands.

The collaboration with GM will focus on the possible application of the technology in future vehicles, including potential enhancements and expansion of its Super Cruise advanced hands-free driving assistance technology and its upcoming Ultra Cruise advanced driver assistance system in the coming years.

● Technology revolutionizes the accuracy and security of GPS and other global navigation satellite systems in dense urban areas
● Companies to collaborate on the potential application of SupercorrelationTM in EVs and AVs
● Technology redefines the state of the art for safety and reliability of positioning

“FocalPoint’s Supercorrelation technology can make navigation and positioning more precise, especially in dense urban environments, which we believe can have significant benefits for the ongoing growth and capability of ADAS and AV systems,” said Scott Pomerantz, FocalPoint CEO. “We’re delighted to expand our advanced technology into the automotive sector with GM, a leader in advanced driver assistance systems.”

“We’re constantly researching technologies to support and enhance the growth and performance of our vehicles, both within our internal research and development operations and through collaborations with innovators beyond our company,” said Kent Helfrich, President, GM Ventures. “This collaboration with FocalPoint targets a specific aspect of the ongoing expansion of Super Cruise and Ultra Cruise going forward.”

FocalPoint was founded to address the critical issue of GPS inaccuracies of current receivers and bring navigation and positioning better in line with the demands of businesses and individuals in the 21st century.

This latest investment follows the announcement in September of a Series C funding round of £23m, led by Molten Ventures and Gresham House Ventures. FocalPoint has also secured funding from the European Space Agency’s NAVISP programme to develop a live demonstration and rapid prototyping system to accelerate FocalPoint’s activities in the automotive and mobile sectors.

Having already licensed some of its technologies to u-blox, the leading European manufacturer of wireless communication and positioning technologies, for use in their GNSS receivers, this collaboration signifies the first steps into the booming automotive market.

Currently, over a trillion dollars of the US economy and over 800 billion euros of the European economy depend on positioning and timing systems.

Solving the critical issue of GPS inaccuracy and spoofing FocalPoint’s groundbreaking SupercorrelationTM technology enables a new class of satellite positioning receiver that can measure the directions of the incoming signals, allowing them to ignore reflected signals and fake ‘spoofed’ signals, making them more accurate in cities and more resilient against spoofing attacks.

Spoofing is used by criminal networks, maritime pirates, and fraudsters to broadcast fake satellite signals and confuse the receiver. This is a critical threat to businesses and consumers, particularly as criminals become more sophisticated and the cost of spoofing technology comes down.

FocalPoint’s unique technology can instantly detect fake signals as spoofers, ignore those signals, and pinpoint where in the physical environment the signal is coming from. It is the only consumer-grade product in the market capable of these unique performance characteristics.

“This is a major milestone for FocalPoint as we work with General Motors to explore the deployment of our technologies in EVs and AVs. Accurate positioning for autonomous cars and driver assistance platforms is an opportunity for the industry and we are proud to be providing a much-needed solution,” commented Ramsey Faragher, FocalPoint Founder, President and CTO.