Blogs

At the Polytechnic University of Catalunya, we have been advancing technology for interoperable marine sensor networks on the OBSEA cabled observatory in the Mediterranean Sea.

The advent of smartphones and the use of GPS technology has sky-rocketed in recent years. All of us have had the experience, however, of following the directions provided by the device and finding ourselves “not quite” at the destination. This is often because the geo-coordinates accessed by the device are usually rendered by satellite and represent a general approximation of home or business, not necessarily the “front door”.

ProgrammableWeb, an online news and directory for web-based application programming interfaces (APIs) references more than 13,900 APIs, which is up from 6,000 registered APIs in May 2012. This phenomenal growth! The number one category of web APIS by far is Mapping with more than 4,500 APIs. This is more than Social, Mobile or Finance! Perhaps this is why over the last 6 months there has been considerable discussion in the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) concerning APIs: What is an API, is there an ontology for classifying APIs, does the OGC develop APIs, and so forth.