Geographical Information: Benefits of Using Technology in Geographical Information - Coursework Example

Running head: GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION Geographical Information Insert Insert Insert 25 February Geographical Information Benefits of Using Technology in Geographical Information The use of technology for geographical information is beneficial in many ways such as providing the means to establish a land information system and a simple computerized cadastre of the place. It makes possible a continuous monitoring and analysis of the changes in the settlement, provided that updating mechanisms are put in place. More so, the use of technology for the geographical information is also beneficial in the sense that, information is rendered more reliable. The maintenance of networks of infrastructure depends on reliable information regarding dimensions, capacity, location, and depth. Use of technology ensures more reliability (Culpin, 1983, p.144). In addition, information linking location and development potentials allows local tax assessment collection to be carried out in a more transparent and easier manner, as all the records can easily be accessed; this has been one important benefit. Another benefit is that technology provides a good platform for establishment of transparent and reliable information systems, as it makes data more accessible and systematic. When there is easy access to data, then governance is improved (Culpin, 1983, p.145). In using technology for the GI, when doing Household Travel Surveys, one is able to collect data in a more efficient manner. Moreover, the data quality is improved immensely and the survey costs minimized. Moreover, technology provides a platform for integration of data and products to better interpret survey results (Richardson, 1996, p.74). Disadvantages of Using Technology in Geographical Information Although using technology for geographical information has many important benefits, it also has disadvantages. Huge costs are incurred in using technology with regards to hardware, software and staffing. The cost of using technology for the geographical information can sometimes be high, depending on the availability of electronic maps and other data. The cost of purchasing the necessary software, hardware and training staff to use technology is a big factor that affects the overall cost of using technology. The use technology for geographical information brings about potentials for mismanagement of the technology. This can result into an inefficient and disorganized delimitation process. Planning, good training, and ample time and resources must be put in place if technology is to be properly used.  Moreover, the use of technology in geographical information may lead to misuse of the technology. For example, the GIS software can be misused for political reasons where one malicious user can manipulate constituency boundaries to retain control of parliament. Because one has easy access to collected data and information, one malicious user can easily interfere with the same information to fit his own interests, for example, a politician sending a malicious user to tamper with population figures to gain political mileage with the electorate (Lisa, 2004, p.126). Influence of Future Use of the Technology Access Data The first aspect is Influence of Future Use of the Technology in terms of access to data. Technology will greatly revolutionize access to data in Geographical information. Generally, technology affects GI in several ways. The internet is currently being used for access data transfer, while in the future, technological advances will ensure that internet is accessible to more of the world’s population in a cheaper and faster way. This will mean that access to data will be readily available. The internet also allows the dissemination of GIS analysis outputs and information of a spatial nature to a larger audience. Even recently, people have been able to conduct a search and query analysis on-line, for things of a spatial nature without using any expensive software. This shows how technology is likely to influence the future of Geographical information by ensuring easier access of data.     Furthermore, technology has enabled, and will even enable universal access of data in future. This is made possible by technological tools such as the internet. The Alexandria Digital Library (ADL) project is constructing an indexed repository of spatial information from diverse collections to make it available to the public over the Internet. This will obviously affect access of data for the Geographical Information (Peng & Tsou, 2003, p.4). Access data will result in more complex and efficient data centers unlike those used to house telecommunication systems, computer systems, and data access associated components, which generally include redundant data access. The use of technology will oversee the development of data centers into more efficient and effective servers that control information access with regards to authorization of individual users. Indeed, the use of technology has enabled the use of server systems by organizations in line with the specific organization structures such as those dealing with a wide range of clientele. Such organizations will be able to apply the use of clientele servers to facilitate fast and efficient access of data by its clients safely. Organizations such as those offering banking services use client servers to enable access of information about individual bank accounts by their customer in more efficient network system. Usage Data The second aspect is the influence of using Technology on the future of Geographical Information in terms of usage of data. Technology will affect the future of Geographical Information in terms of usage of data in that, analysis results and information of a spatial nature will easily be disseminated to an audience through technological tools such as the internet. The public in a wider view will be able to directly access spatial information and utilize or use spatial relationships from libraries that are public or from their home Web browsers. Furthermore, technological tools such as the internet have enabled GI processing by allowing dynamic downloading or uploading GIS processing components. Future technological advancements will enable usage of data by allowing people to work on GI data interactively without having to go through the process of installing GIS software (Peng & Tsou, 2003, p.4). The influence of technology in the use of geographical information will render users of information such as learners more capable with regards to telecommunications technology and advance computing. Data usage among learners will become enhanced as usage of data is enriched through manipulation of data using computers graphics displays and controlled presentations to the intended audience. Data could be easily manipulated to fit the users and the intended purpose of data among learners. Through the internet and teacher learner interface, learners widespread around the world can be able to use data provide by their teachers on-line. More over, teaching complexities such as experiments would be easily displayed visually through computer graphic and display all around the world. Companies and individuals would be able to use data in a more accurate and sophisticated to communicate to other people. Companies would easily use digital pictures and computer aided graphics to advertise their products and services through the internet. More so, individual clients would be able to use relevant information from the internet to make informed decisions concerning their transaction with the advertising agents at the comfort of their home web browsers. The use of technology could further propagate customer agent relationships where real time information can be used by both the advertising agents and customers to make prior transactions. Data Availability The third aspect is influence of using technology on the future of Geographical Information in terms of data availability. The influence of technology on the future of GI in terms of data availability will also be significant. Technological advances such as Distributed GIS will be accessible across the board and across platforms, regardless of the OS the person is using. This means that data will be available to all users provided they have access to the internet. All data and modules for analysis will be available on the servers of the network. The end user will be able to easily access data on demand, and the data will be readily available to the user through this Distributed GIS. Influence of using technology on the future of geographical information would enhance availability of large amount of data through safer flash technology as back up storage. Flash technologies would facilitate huge data applications that require new systems to pre-fetch available data from a flash. Use of technologies would influence the use of data in memory to fetch and access huge amount of data in a mode that is safer and permanent. Improved reliability and lower costs of data storage would be enhanced through the flash technologies unlike server, which facilitates easy data access rather than storage and reliability. Server networks are subject to hacking and access by unauthorized individuals, thus presenting a big risk to organization holding sensitive and risky information such as those of banking services. However, the use of technologies would enhance availability of data that is risky to organizations operations in safer modes such as in-memory database and flash technologies. Use of flash technologies through systems architecture would reduce the possibilities a moving around with data alongside improving durability and performance. More so, other technologies such as data-in-memory architectures, I/O tiering and in-memory database would go a long way in rendering data readily available and safe. The use of the ecosystem of flash technologies would influence the future of geographical information towards a more reliable and safe availability of data that is not subject to hacking and unintended access by unauthorized individuals and organizations. Sources of Data Technology will have an influence on the future of Geographical Information in terms of sources of data in that, users will have a wider field from which to source data. This will be made possible by the Distributed GIS, which will be a dynamic system. With Distributed GIS, all clients in the network could act as data sources in that, the server will be able to access the clients data then make it available to the other users by using tools such as cloud computing. Cloud computing will be a widely used technological tool in the near future. Cloud Computing will ensure that Community Clouds are available for use by the community. With this, communities will collaborate for a particular concern or mission. In our case, communities could collaborate to share data. Hence, the community cloud could serve as a source of data, and in that case, influencing Geographical Information in a big way (Furht & Escalate, 2010, p.14). Cloud computing involves delivering of hosted services through the Internet infrastructure-as-a-Service, software as a service and platform-as-a-Service. Infrastructure as a Service would provide a virtual server instance that enables the starting, stopping, accessing, and configuring of geographical dispersed virtual servers and storage of among the intended users of data. On the other hand, the platform as a service in the cloud is a set of product development tools and software hosted on an infrastructure provided by service providers for access by relevant users. This technology would enable service providers to provide a wide range of data sources to customers in need. Cloud computing generally provides data and applications, which provide a free source of data from virtually all sources in the world interconnected by the internet. The use of technology has widened the scope of source of data from any corner of the earth to the global village through internet connection using public clouds. A public cloud provides a source of information the World Wide Web as compared to the private cloud that provides a source of data to a limited number of individuals. Cloud technologies have gone a long way in providing easy to not only information technology services and computing resources but also a global access to data sources. References Culpin, C. 1983. Urban Projects Manual: A guide for the Preparation of Projects. Liverpool: Redwood Books Trowbridge. Furht, B. and Escalate, A. 2010. Handbook of Cloud Computing. Springer. Lisa, H. 2004. Delimitation Equity Project Resource Guide, IFES. Center for Transitional and Post Conflict Governance. National Research Council and Transportation Research Board. 1996. Conference on Household Travel Surveys: New Concepts and Research Needs Peng, Z. and Tsou, M. 2003. Internet GIS: distributed geographic information services for the Internet. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Read More