Digital cameras presently offer a wide-range of features, including a date and time stamp, high quality resolution and super fine pixilation. There is, however, a new feature on the horizon that could revolutionize the digital camera market: geotagging.
Geotagging is the ability to embed into your photograph the exact location of where it was taken. Today, this is only possible with an outside GPS (global positioning satellite) unit or by manually adding the site information to the photograph.
An outside GPS unit is presently the easiest way to obtain the correct positioning information for your pictures. It can be synched with the camera’s clock to assure that the location on the GPS unit matches the image taken at the same moment. This then allows the user to upload the photo and add the GPS information. The Amod AGL3080 GPS Data Logger is a relatively cheap way to do this. This device logs the data from the satellite and writes it to a NMEA file, a text file for GPS software.
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The problem with outside GPS devices is the lag time. It can take up to a minute for the unit to locate a satellite and find the exact location. This would be far too long for someone waiting to take a picture. Imagine asking Old Faithful in Yellowstone to hold its position for almost a minute. The lag time could cause great pictures to be missed
The UK startup Air Semiconductor, however, has introduced a chip, Airwave-1, that continuously tracks the user’s location. This cuts down on the lag time that hinders most GPS devices. The system monitors the location of the person. When someone is ready to take a picture, it almost instantly obtains the exact location of the picture.
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The Airwave-1 is also very power efficient. It uses only one percent of the power normal GPS units use. It consumes approximately one milliampere on average and is independent of the existing camera hardware. The Airwave-1 will start rolling out this year and is expected to really start production in 2009. Eventually, this chip will be used in a variety of other devices, including cell phones, many people’s camera of choice.
The other new device on the horizon is the Geotate Snapshot. This is a small radio receiver that takes a snapshot of satellite signals, which is then stored in the memory of the receiver. It will come on for a fraction of a second while the user is taking a picture. It is dependent on the user, but it is instantaneous and doesn’t use a lot of battery life. When the image is downloaded to a PC, data from Geotate’s server will find the exact location of the picture.
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Many camera companies are starting to come around to the idea of geotagging and ways of adding this to their cameras. Geotagging is predicted to be a very popular innovation and is anticipated to significantly increase sales.
Canon promises to have some type of geotagging support for its cameras by either the end of this year or next year. Nikon has already introduced a GPS unit, the DX-GPS, which will be compatible with two of their models, Nikon D2Xs, D2X, D2H and D280, and the other for Nikon D1X and D1H cameras. This device will attach directly to the camera’s flash shoe, eliminating carrying an extra GPS unit. It will read the longitude and latitude of an image at the time it was taken.
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While geotagging is useful, it cannot be used everywhere. Pictures taken indoors or where a satellite cannot be located will not be able to use this technology. That being said, the outdoors is where most people need a GPS unit. With the popularity of file sharing on the Web and inWeb communities, the geotagging features will make it easier to locate where a photo was taken and share it with others.