location

Episode 15 with Masoud Kalantari and Luke Buckberrough
Episode 15 with Masoud Kalantari and Luke Buckberrough 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

On this episode of Nowhere Podcast we’re joined by Masoud Kalantari, CEO of The Rubic, and Luke Buckberrough, Chief Growth Officer at The Rubic. The Rubic is a development company that specializes in creating autonomous robotics and industrial automation solutions.

Supply chain is not something most people have great knowledge about, yet it represents one of the largest industrial ecosystems in the world. When you break it down, there are several points to consider: product storage, inventory management, order fulfillment, packaging and labeling, and receiving. It’s an expansive process.

This can also be a very intensive process, especially when it comes to the demands on human time and energy, as well as operational budget. However, humans are flexible and adaptable, which is something automation has lacked previously. The Rubic aims to offer this flexibility using robotic design.

The robots created at The Rubic are designed to map a warehouse using a combination of lidar technology and a camera vision system. They use AI learning technologies to remember what can be found where, gaining the ability to efficiently fulfill their duties over time—no barcodes required.

Anything that can be automated likely will be automated in the future, and that includes the supply chain industry, but spans across industries too. Using AI technology and robotics inside a warehouse setting allows a business to maximize their spaces in ways they couldn’t before. It helps reinforce the workforce, and it can save a business money too.

Episode 13 with John Norman
Episode 13 with John Norman 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

Our guest in this episode is John Norman, Director of Strategic Research and Development at Teren, in Lakewood, Colorado. Today, we’ll be talking about wildfire reclamation and the role of geospatial technology in this work.

The 2022 Hermits Peak fire in New Mexico was the biggest in the state’s history, and 60% of its coverage was on private land. Private land owners in this area vary greatly, from those who live off the land by cutting firewood, to those who have a secondary home there. These socioeconomic conditions make this fire one of the most unusual that John has worked on.

Because of the history and private ownership of the affected areas in Hermits Peak, there were thousands of individuals that needed to be contacted so the federal government could start the reclamation process. This was especially difficult because many people in the area do not use technology or are very skeptical of the government.

While also using publicly available terrain and satellite imagery, John and his team were rapidly flying LiDAR and 4-band imagery over the burned area. This process impressively only took about a week, despite covering around 600,000 acres. They were even able to analyze individual trees with the data they acquired.

These fires are occurring more often, so John believes that task forces will be established to immediately come in with technology to quantify exactly what areas are the most at risk. He also hopes to see geospatial technology used to mitigate risks in areas that are prone to fires before they even happen.

Episode 12 with Emily Craven
Episode 12 with Emily Craven 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

Emily Craven, Founder and CEO of Story City, joins us for this episode. Today’s discussion revolves around locative content and the power of location to connect people to places via stories, as well as how Story City ties it all together.

Locative content is content in the form of stories, media, film, and audio which can only be experienced in a specific physical location. This kind of content is important because it’s the roots that make people feel as though they belong.

Story City was inspired by the idea of wanting to create stories, but also allowing others to be a part of those stories. People can interact with the characters in particular adventures by allowing them to be in the same exact setting.

Users are then prompted to choose how their story goes. They are given maps to allow them to dictate where they go and how their story continues, giving each user a different experience based on where exactly they are.

This also serves as an educational tool by giving information on things such as the history of the location. It allows for a unique social and recreational experience that brings people together.

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Episode 10 with Travis Riedlhuber
Episode 10 with Travis Riedlhuber 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

Travis Riedlhuber is joining us for this episode. He is the managing director of RainBarrel, an Edmonton-based company that uses geospatial data to help advertisers deliver their message to the right people.

Digital advertising is going through a lot of changes. Focus is shifting to privacy, and new technology is setting in to emphasize regulatory action. New businesses are forming to find solutions to work within this new era of digital advertising.

Advertisers who have been reliant on using cookies need to pivot, as this kind of tracking is slowly being phased out. New identifiers like loyalty programs and apps are emerging in its place. What makes RainBarrel unique is that they utilize location data to group people with similar attributes, and they only use data given with explicit consent.

The cohorts they put together are a minimum of one thousand unique devices, but the typical audience is within tens of thousands or even millions of devices. This not only goes a long way for protecting privacy, but it also helps advertisers reach a larger group of people to generate the return they expect.

In the past, there haven’t been a lot of regulations in this area of the digital advertising space, and a lot of work was being done in the shadows. Now, this is headed in a more transparent direction, which RainBarrel fully embraces and supports.

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Episode 09 with James Floyer
Episode 09 with James Floyer 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

James Floyer, the Program Director and Senior Avalanche Forecaster of Avalanche Canada, joins us for this episode. Avalanche Canada is a non-government non-profit that focuses on avalanche safety for individuals in the backcountry.

Avalanches can happen anywhere there is steep terrain and significant snowfall. There are also a few different types, with loose snow and slab avalanches being the most dangerous. Because there is a lack of infrastructure, those most at risk to avalanches are people in the backcountry.

The MIN, or Mountain Information Network, is an observation system used by Avalanche Canada to assess risk. Individual users can submit information to this network, as it was created in response to recognition of an untapped resource for safety: the public.

Avalanche Canada puts out the call for public user support early in the season, and generally the response is quite strong. People feel called to step up to the plate and submit data, and looking at this data is where avalanche analysis and safety really begins.

Avalanche Canada also has six field teams, five of which are located in Western Canada. They go out about four times a week into data-sparse areas to gather information about snowpacks and make observations of conditions to feed back into the forecast center. They also demonstrate best-practices to the public to help keep everyone in the backcountry safe.

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Episode 08 with Sean Gorman
Episode 08 with Sean Gorman 900 450 Nowhere Podcast

On today’s episode of Nowhere Podcast we’re joined by ​​Sean Gorman. Sean was the CEO of Pixel8.earth until the business was acquired in 2021. Pixel8.earth took a crowd sourced approach to location mapping, and today Sean is still focusing on taking further strides forward in location technology.

Current commodity GPS isn’t incredibly accurate. It relies on triangulating satellites and estimating times between signals, but if it bounces, it can create errors. If you’ve ever found yourself looking at where you are on the map and found you were on the wrong road or the wrong side of the street, this is the common culprit.

Sean sees the future of location technology going towards growth in augmented reality, drone navigation, and autonomy. Right now, the focus is on solving the long-tail problems that are blocking exciting possibilities.

Some of the fun areas that new tech could have an interesting impact on are interactive gaming and athletics. Right now, if you go hiking with a partner or friend, the location technology in your phone is susceptible to errors. These errors build up and can lead to great discrepancies between devices.

Solving current problems in location technology could unlock benefits that will benefit individuals and society as a whole. When you have enough people pushing for solutions from enough different angles, there are going to be even more opportunities to explore in the geo-spatial world.

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