New Emerging Technologies

This forum will hold posts about new technologies and how they could be or are being used to benefit the Church.
carlos.jango71-p40
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New Emerging Technologies

#1

Post by carlos.jango71-p40 »

Well friend, A new feature in Google Earth, the company's satellite imagery-based mapping software, allows users to view the sky from their computers. The tool provides information about various celestial bodies, from stars to planets, and includes imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope and other sources. It also allows users to take virtual tours through galaxies, including the Milky Way, from any point on Earth they choose. & what's unique about this is you have all of the imaging data over the whole of the sky actually streaming. So I can look at something that covers most of the sky, say our Milky Way galaxy, and I can zoom right into a tiny galaxy that's in the formation cycle
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BenJoeM-p40
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#2

Post by BenJoeM-p40 »

This will be great for our members on other planets. They can easily draw stake boundary maps between galaxies.

Just kidding, This is exciting.
tonyduf-p40
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I'm excited about emerging tecnologies and their implenmentation as gospel tools

#3

Post by tonyduf-p40 »

Yes the new Google Earth has potentials that can be used to map out stake and ward boundaries, along with home teaching and visiting teaching routes, and also fast offering collection routes. Perhaps even mapping out visits for in home sacrament service.
Here are a few other emerging technologies that I believe can and will have affect on future Church programs:
First, Wimax (search for Wimax in Google search), a new emerging high speed internet technology; which is already being deployed by AT&T and Sprint in cities in the United States, and by Alcatel-Lucient in Germany
Alcatel-Lucent builds 'first' German WiMax network
For example here in my stake, The Taylorsville Utah Stake, we have a stake building and two other meeting houses, and if Wimax were to be deployed in the area, computer and satellite programs from Church headquarters could be beamed to towers in the mountains, then to the stake center and / or from the stake center up to the tower and then down to the other two buildings. Of course if there is direct line of site, and with a small antenna on each building, transmissions can be accomplished within a ten mile range.
Second, VOIP technology to save on long distance calls for the Church in Stakes that are vast in areas of responsibility. I am partial to Skype, http://www.skype.com, with Skype; for an annual fee of about $30.00, I can call anyone in the United States and Canada; for example, my daughter who is studying at the university in Juneau Alaska. She'll be living on campus where they have high speed internet and so she'll have Skype on her computer, and I'll have it on mine, and thus we can communicate with each other free of long distance cost. In addition, since as ward clerk in my ward I am making calls to ward leaders and members, and although it does not involve long distance calls, I still like to use Skype in conjunction with the leadership and membership list on our ward web site, as I like the hands-free ease of using an ears and mike headset. I am using a java script that runs under Greasemonkey in the Firefox browser; which shows each telephone number in Skype format, and which I can then click on to make my desired call.
There are so many emerging technologies; almost to many to mention, as I am sure others will think of also. So for now here in one other emerging technology that I think is worth mentioning:
The use of call phones has become a necessity for many leaders and Church employees. Yet in many areas the strength of the cell phone single is very weak, if existent at all. Here is one company that is addressing this problem:
http://www.wi-ex.com/ Searching Google for other wireless extenders will probably develop other similar web sites.
I am excited to read about what emerging technologies you see as possibilities in the future of the Church.
Maybe someday someone will invent a keyboard that knows how to spell right, ha ha.
:D
gkearney-p40
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Geocoding the ward

#4

Post by gkearney-p40 »

I geocoded every household in our ward so that home teachers could be assigned by geography. I have a google map with push pins for every family. I think having geocoding lat long attached to the membership records would be very helpful.
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Enigma1-p40
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#5

Post by Enigma1-p40 »

I use this feature (Skyview) of google earth all the time to communicate with my stake president in the Andromeda galaxy.. I needed to see exactly where he lived so I could make my way there in 2.5 billion light-years.

in all reality the 2 best features I have found with google earth is the geocoding and also the streetview pictures of the houses. it is not as much a big deal in utah wards seeing as how all the members live in the same small neighborhood. As for places like North Carolina and other cities where there is a smaller population of members this view has really helped find the members houses from the view I see while driving
RossEvans
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#6

Post by RossEvans »

Enigma1 wrote:in all reality the 2 best features I have found with google earth is the geocoding and also the streetview pictures of the houses. it is not as much a big deal in utah wards seeing as how all the members live in the same small neighborhood. As for places like North Carolina and other cities where there is a smaller population of members this view has really helped find the members houses from the view I see while driving

The geocoding feature of Google Earth, like the Google Maps web site and its competitors, is very handy for one-at-a-time plotting interactively. But the geocoding of batches of address records in Google Earth is deceptively error-prone. For better or worse, Google is taking Google Earth Plus (which allowed geocoding of small batches for $20/year) off the market, leaving only the Google Earth free version (with no batch import for geocoding) and the Google Earth Pro version. So now a customer must spend $400/year on the "Pro" version to get the error-ridden geocoding.

Regarding Streetview, I believe that is a feature of the Google Maps web site, not Google Earth. But GE does have the satellite imagery that can be zoomed and tilted to give a pseudo 3D view.

For most mapping purposes of local LDS units, a key advantange of Google Earth is its architecture. As a standalone, local application, it keeps all the private data on the user's computer. Using the Google Maps web site for similar purposes would violate the Church's policy guidance against uploading membership data to third-party servers. Too bad, because the web site does have superior 2D street maps, and is much better for printouts.
jdlessley
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#7

Post by jdlessley »

boomerbubba wrote:Regarding Streetview, I believe that is a feature of the Google Maps web site, not Google Earth. But GE does have the satellite imagery that can be zoomed and tilted to give a pseudo 3D view.
Actually it is a feature of both. The Google Maps implementation is better than the Google Earth implementaion, IMHO. The Google Maps street view stitches the 360 degree photographs together to create a view that can move along the street. The Google Earth street view uses the same photographs but they have not yet been stitched together. Therefore to move from one photograph position to another requires a user to click on the camera icon from the view position they are in to move to another position while in the street view bubble.

In Google Earth a user must have the "Street View" layer selected for this feature to be available.
JD Lessley
Have you tried finding your answer on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org Help Center or Tech Wiki?
RossEvans
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#8

Post by RossEvans »

jdlessley wrote:
In Google Earth a user must have the "Street View" layer selected for this feature to be available.

You are right, of course. I forgot that one of the first things I did with Google Earth was to turn that feature off. It's all part of my love-hate relationship with the product.
techgy
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#9

Post by techgy »

Although these discussions are interesting, please keep the topic of the thread in line with technologies as they relate to the Church.
RossEvans
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#10

Post by RossEvans »

Techgy wrote:Although these discussions are interesting, please keep the topic of the thread in line with technologies as they relate to the Church.

While I see that the original post from 2007 was a little far removed from that mission, I honestly think that most of the comments today in the resurrected thread were not. They discuss two functions: geocoding members' addresses for mapping, and viewing members' homes via Google imagery.
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