The 'Tricorder' used by Mr. Spock appears to have become the role model for the development of earth data gathering instrumentation. The simultaneous acquisition of aerial photographs with LiDAR scans is almost passe. Researchers are working towards simultaneous acquisition of multi thematic data (not to be confused with the TM or ETM of LandSat...) be it gravity, LiDAR, Optical, Radar or location. The simultaneous acquisition will solve one major headache of referencing these themes. The future is hyper-thematic data acquisition. Would the craving by an exploration geologist for a few more themes like seismic or resistivity scans be too much ? For the lesser of the geo-techno geeks, presently Immersive Media has come up with 'georeferenced immersive movies' which are being used by Google Maps for delivering street level imagery. The'Dodeca 2360' camera with its eleven 'eyes' delivers the 360^° seamless eye level views – now, what if this is made available as data for 3D GPS navigation with the gaming option I mentioned last week ...

The use of GPS for vehicular navigation is nothing new. To use it for managing commuter ticketing in mass rapid transport systems, may have been thought of. But, implementing it to manage 4.5 million passengers, 650 thousand km of operation, a fleet of 3400 buses everyday, is being successfully attempted by the BrihanaMumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) in Mumbai, India. The entire technical operation is being managed by Kaizen Automation, who by the next quarter, plan to introduce a similar commuter ticketing system for the Mumbai Suburban Trains, the only difference will be the number of passengers they will have to address - a whopping 6.5 million every day...