A VerySpatial Podcast - Episode 794

You're listening to episode 794 of A Very Spatial Podcast. It is October 7th, 2026 Take your time, dear. Slow down, don't stop breathing. Don't you lose yourself now in the middle, no, now. Hello, and welcome to A Very Spatial Podcast. I'm Jesse. I'm Sue. I'm Barb. And this is Frank. And this week we are going to do something podcasty That's, that's all I really know so far Anyone?

Anyone? No? Okay. So we'll, we'll, we'll start with though our, our known thing of news. Okay, first up in the news, some remote sensing news because always gotta have that when I see it. Sentinel-3C, so the next in the Copernicus, so the ESA's Copernicus Sentinel series has been launched. And- Which, which, which- atmo- … sensor type?

Atmosphere, ocean temps, stuff like that. Thank you. Yeah. Sea surface temps various things. But also interestingly it had a, it had a friend on board the Flex Earth Explorer satellite. So, I don't… I'd have to look up. I'm not sure what Flex is doing, but they were essentially deployed first the Sentinel-3C and then the Flex, so deployed on the same flight, and I think they're gonna be working together.

So, going through testing now, and I believe again, I, I think we just said, but I think it's ocean-related stuff for Sentinel-3C, sea surface temperatures. Well, the, the atmospheric support, but Flex is sort of along the same lines looking at the better understanding of plant health and the role of photosynthesis in- Photosynthesis.

Yes, that's what it was … carbon and water cycles, so a very good pairing. I think it's cool that they're, they're gonna be working kind of together. And I think EUMETSAT is gonna take over, like, the actual running of the satellite after the testing diagnostics are done and it's actually bringing down data.

Let us, let us speak of, of additional- Earth observation things, I guess Yes. And in addition to the mid-September launch of Sentinel-3C earlier in the summer a set of FireSat, the first set of FireSat satellites launched and reached orbit in July. But their first images were released mid-September, a little bit later in September.

We didn't get a chance to cover it. So this is interesting because these satellites are actually being put up as part of a, an envisioned much larger constellation from Earth Fire Alliance, which is actually a non-profit which was put together, and it includes a number of partners and donors including Google Research and some others.

But their idea was to put together satellites that have quicker response time, and they envision this constellation, I think 50 is the total. But the reason why we're kind of talking about it in the news right now is some of their first sample images are, are coming out. But it's interesting because, of course, in fire research and remote sensing, a lot of it has been from our environmental satellites.

So, it's more about the extent of fire, burn scars, things like that because of the revisit times are kind of low. But this particular constellation, the hope is with FireSat to have a very quick revisit and the ability to sort of, bring first responders or responders to these incidents into the mix.

So that's interesting. And I think it's crazy. I had to look at one of the, the spec things for it. I think they envision 20, something like 20-minute revisit with the whole constellation in place, which is… Yeah. And it does have, sorry, infrared on board, a couple of things, so these are one of the ways that we detect fire.

So, a really interesting kind of project, and I hadn't really heard about it until recently when I first saw the test images. Yeah, and they, they call their test images First Light, which, you know, that just hits you in the, the heart. But some of their imagery in the package is looking at the big grass fire along the Oregon-Idaho border in the United States.

And they're looking at, you know, an area that burned that's about the size of Los Angeles. So if y- you know, they can get that very quick turnover that's gonna be so helpful for any, you know, emergency responders and firefighters and everyone that, that work with that. And so, you know, on this article, it highlights certain bands.

If you go to the Muiun space page, I wasn't able to find the specific list of bands from that. But they talk about the composites of shortwave infrared, near infrared, and red for a lot of their multicolor imagery, so three-band imagery. But they also have a long wave infrared for temperature, a midwave infrared, which is looking at both temperature and surface type, and I think there's another.

There might be a diff- a second midwave infrared as well. So, you know, a multispectral scanner, but not necessarily the, the spectrum that we're used to thinking about a lot of times with our more traditional you know, Landsat ESA base imagery satellites. Any other satellite news for this week? Those are the only ones I saw.

No? Well, I think that we, we should have a moment to talk about the fact that World Labs, which again, we just talked about how they released their, their second big model just a month ago or less than a month ago. And this is one of those physical AI companies, spatial AI companies. It's really about creating visualizations of worlds, whether they're real or, or imagined, and that's kind of what it was being built around and being developed to do.

It has been acquired or is- The acquisition is proposed, I guess, 'cause given the size of it, it's probably gonna be a little bit of, of checks and balances, but $8.9 billion by AMD. And I just wanna say, and this is for Sue's brother, who never listens to the podcast but was a trader at the time. Whenever I wanted to buy AMD at $4, he was like, "No, that's probably not a good investment." I'm just saying.

But that's a whole other thing. But- I believe he was all about Micron back then … Probably. And, and to be fair, right now, you know, they, they basically completely stopped making personal chips to sell to AI, so they're probably making bank as well. But it's, you know, it's, it's just this recognition that this lab … And again, whether they're doing this because of the gaming opportunities that this will provide for AMD graphics card and things like that, or the recognition of how everything from us understanding the world around us to robotics is gonna use these, these spatial models.

You know, either way, I, I think it's a, it's insightful on AMD's part to do this. I'm just curious to see what the impact is gonna be on the models that World Labs had started to spin out. And you know, a lot of it was using Gaussian splats and things like that in addition to the, the base models, the spatial models they were trying to, to build out.

But yeah, I'm, I'm curious to see what happens in the long term, but even though we don't necessarily talk about them as much as being a spatial company like Esri or somebody like that it's definitely what they were building towards for their AI models. Yeah, smart play by AMD. And I mean, if you have almost $9 billion just lying around, that's a good buy.

I just can't believe the amount of money that's just going around for all these companies now. But I was thinking about that with the earlier article in that Muon Space has only been around really since 2021. And the word they keep using for this AMD partnership or, or buyout is acceleration, and I think that's what we're seeing happening.

Because they said, you know, they had teams working together at AMD, and then they just realized they were a natural fit for the AI ecosystem. And I think that's, you know, something we're gonna see more of as people start to see these things that, that work together that used to be more siloed or separate.

Our Holodecks are coming. I, I mean, my God, we pretty much have the technology now I, I find this a weird acquisition, to be honest with you. A, a lot of the things that NVIDIA are doing, we understand the context of it. It's, you know, how do you make money in a bubble? You sell the shovels, right?

So NVIDIA's making money hand over fist by creating the basic infrastructure for AI. I'm curious what AMD sees in this, considering that's the dominant race that's going on now. AMD is much less of a competitor in the AI space than, than NVIDIA, obviously. But I'm, I'm, I, I'm kind of curious if that has anything to do with AI, AI at all.

But if it does, how does it, how does it factor in? And given that we're hearing reports now that the memory and chip shortages are gonna continue until 2028, you have to think that everything is around AI at some level when it comes to chip manufacturers. So I, I, I am really curious what piece this plays I mean, as, as an AI company, I think it's answering the question since it's A- AMD's attempt to get into- No, it's an…

But it, it's an application as opposed to, a- as opposed to a piece of infrastructure application. That's the thing I'm really getting at, is that, you know, how do you kind of capitalize that? It may be an obvious answer to everyone else, but to me, it's a little confusing. I don't know. I don't think any of this one, any, any, any of this is an obvious answer of anything even when it comes to NVIDIA, 'cause that's where we get into bubble talks.

But I think this one is a, a recognition that it, this spatial is infrastructural In a way that a lot of the LLMs are not focusing on. And so if you can be that company that's backing the thing that helps us actually understand the physical space, and that's, you know, the whole physical AI aspect of this, spatial AI I think that is going…

And again, I'm ballparking here. Spitballing. Yeah. So I, I… That, but that would be why I would think, I- AMD would want this, and it makes sense to me. Again, doesn't need to make sense to everybody, I don't think. It only needs to make sense to AMD and, and World Labs as the- Yeah, clearly. Well- But I, I get, I get what you're saying, definitely.

And I think, and a question, sorry, and a question too, like, and this is something I don't understand, right? In the, in the AI space and stuff like that, the role that IP plays, right? So you talk about a lot of acquisitions that we could boil it down to, "We wanted your patents," or we, you know, "We don't care about the rest, we're gonna dismantle it," or, "We wanted your team," as I think you mentioned earlier, right?

Because of what they could do for us. And so that part I guess I'm not sure about here as to, you know, is there hidden value that, that's maybe just not being seen by people who aren't part of the, you know, aren't players in it? Yeah, and that may be the crux of my question, is it feels like they can do a thing and know a thing that's gonna radically change the AI chip landscape in A- AMD's estimation.

And a- and, maybe they're absolutely right, but I, I'm, I'm just kinda curious that, that how does AMD see this and, and NVIDIA not, given the, how much bigger NVIDIA is. Well, I, I think r- right now we're seeing some of that decoupling of models from NVIDIA because of the cost of NVIDIA. There's a lot of people who are working on various models who are…

You know, whenever we're talking about Gaussian splats for instance, that was almost completely tied to NVIDIA and CUDA cores. But, oh, I just forgot, is it Vulkan? Or whatever it is I think Vulkan is- Vulkan is the AMD one … there's a lot of models that are moving towards that training, engine environment to get away from reliance on just one type of graphics.

And so, you know, it works better on, yeah, still works great on N- Nvidia, but also will work on Mac or AMD as well, or Intel. We'll toss Intel a little knowledge, acknowledgement. Yeah. It'll, you know, just a, a little bit of a bone, but- Well, I mean- A teeny bone … I, what I get the feeling of is that we're in for another shift, and whether it's long-lasting or not, it seems like in 2028, all of a sudden we're gonna be inundated with the newest and the greatest of things.

You think it's gonna take two years? Come on. It's the AI space. It'll, it'll right itself by then. Well, no, I think she's talking about the chip manufacturer. The chip manufacturers. 'Cause I mean, that does take more time. I, I don't know. I think. I mean, they just dropped two nanometer and they're already talking about sub-nanometer at this point So, yeah, I don't know.

It's weird. It's funny we're talking about that in like, much like we would talk about data fidelity and, and, you know, It's sub-meter accuracy Yeah, it's, it's just funny we're talking about that way. Apologies for those who are not hardware wonks- Yeah … and, and care at all about the width of your transistor and…

Or, sorry, never mind. Gonna move on. Yeah. So yeah, that, I just wanted to get that one in there as well. So anything else? I mean, it's been a while, so I think we're probably missing a lot just because we've had a West Virginia disease impact Yeah … Very Spatial North vaccines hit Very Spatial South.

There was at least one tooth cracking somewhere in there as well. So it's been what? Three, four weeks almost? It, it's been an ailing Very Spatial- Yeah … September. And I even got the last episode out so late, so it, it may not seem as long to those people who are listening, but yeah, in terms of last time we recorded, it's been a while.

Well, you know, it's also important to note when we talk about the consumer side of things, and often related to that is going to be the geospatial side that sort of tied to the consumer side of things. There's a lull that happens in the August, September timeframe a lot of times just because people are gearing up for the big holiday things and the end of year things and all that sort of stuff like that.

And this happens under this administration, it's obviously very different in all ways. But October 1 starts the federal fiscal year in the United States, so it often leads to new programs and new announcements as well. So there may be energy happening soon. I guess I should point out that you know, speaking of that last kind of gasp at the end of summer there was Energeo, there was a lot announced.

It's mostly hardware, which, you know, we talk about a little bit, but, you know, in terms of new scanners, new sensors, new GPS GNSS devices all of those type of things. You know, just go look at any of the big hardware companies for geospatial, and they probably announced at least one thing, if not multiple things at Energeo last month.

And yeah, that was a, that was a whirlwind, as it always is. Someday, someday we'll make it to Munich for, or I'll make it to Munich tour, for it. I don't know when. Probably after I've retired from my day job, but- Deep breaths. And that's it for this. Don't stop breathing. Don't you lose yourself now in the middle.

Know that all the stars will align. So this week in the topic- In their season now … I think, I think it's that time of year where we talk about Geography Awareness Week. We are just weeks away. What is it? Six weeks away, I think, right now as we're recording this. And so there's still time to plan a GIS d- day event, a Geography Awareness Week event in your local neighborhood or online so that you can share it with a broader community.

So what are you guys thinking about this year? Well, just as a reminder, Geography Awareness Week is November 16th through the 20th, I think. Yeah, so that's the exact timeframe. Okay. I've been invited as a guest lecturer at Fairmont State University in West Virginia, virtually. Very excited. You have, and you are going to be speaking to students who are hosting you from basically what would be our Digital Earth class that can be a drop-in by, you know, faculty, staff, students in the community.

And try- We have speakers that are tied into every course and topic, and it's worked out well. We do it in a high flex environment so that we can record it and, and share it with the world. And it's been a good way t- for people who can't attend something on the week of Geography Awareness Week or GIS Day to include their students in it by having them watch and, and talk about it.

So I encourage other people that, you know, it's worth recording things to have them be used by classrooms. And we'll be sure to, to re-share it on the website. We also have speakers from across different fields you might not know of. You know, a lot of us think of extraction industry and mapping being things like coal or energy, but there is a natural stone industry around the world, and it's still sort of like the old get a Jeep, go up a mountain, look for the natural stone, mark it, keep it, and then the, the artistry of figuring out how to make it into your marble countertops and things like that.

It was very interesting. I… It was a whole industry I knew nothing about that's, you know, uses a lot of spatial in it of all types, and very expensive. What are you guys doing? We haven't made plans, but in the area previously I think this is… we've talked about this before, right? Geography Awareness Week and, and GIS Day for those who are professionals is a good chance sometimes, too, for those who are doing geography-related work or GIS-related work in our public agencies, our s- local governments, and even private companies to host open houses or, you know, invite people to come so that they could see, right, what it is they do behind the scenes.

And so, there has periodically here been an event on GIS Day. We've had some of that. We've had lectures before. Sometimes we'll do movies. Haven't done that recently, though. Yeah. The, the city of Morgantown is bringing out all their old stuff they've done in the past to sort of create a timeline display and poster contest, which I thought was neat and something that a lot of other organizations could do.

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of leeway with Mapping the Future, right, is this year's theme, so. You can go to aag.org/program/geoweek To, to find those pieces of information. You can also reach out to them to get more information on how you can set up a Geography Week, a Awareness Week event. This of course started out largely as a National Geographic Society activity, but it was, what, about a half a dec- decade ago that AAG took lead on the themes and those type of things.

It might have been r- before COVID even, so a little bit longer. Yeah. Not 100% sure, but… Can, can I just point out if you go to the story map for this year's theme we're listed as one of the partners. We've been a partner for five years now. Whoa. I encourage everyone to become a geo advocate and then and work with AAG.

They provide a lot of resources for you to, to do good things in your community. Very, very well developed with folders, with information. You, you know, just put your stuff in. That's both a very special podcast and Fairmont State University- Yeah … whenever Frank says we. We're lagging at Coastal Carolina with our combined anthropology and geography.

We should, we should stop. Oh, and sustainability, right? 'Cause mapping the future, right, we want it to be sustainable. I I did mean very spatial specifically, but yeah, Fairmont State also is one of the partners. You know, it's kind of interesting. I like the theme, Mapping the Future. It's I think a very an incredibly relevant theme given particularly in the United States.

We have a rather important election happening just six days before Geography Awareness Week happens. There's a lot of questions on the political scape, what the future looks like. But also when you're looking at things like the super El Niño event that we've got going on right now and will continue well into 2027 and you look at things that are going on in AI like we talked about in the news, and how this is gonna, you know, is fundamentally changing the landscape, both figuratively and in some cases literally.

Then thinking about what this has to look like in terms of geography, geographic principles, in terms of cartographic representations, all those things. It's kind of a pretty exciting theme. Yeah, and it's one where we can actually get into deeper discussions at younger ages. That's something that comes up when you talk to people for Geography Awareness Week, is to really talk about what you do and to talk about the deeper issues.

That it, it doesn't have to be on the, the level that it, it was in the past. That we can, you know- We have the technology, we have the ability to, to bring in a lot more than before. And so we encourage you in fact, I specifically encourage you, if you do have an event, to head over to the AAG's story map, Mapping the Future story map, and add your event.

'Cause right now there's, there's no events listed. There need to be more, 'cause we know there are lots more going on. We know there are lots of events, yeah. Yeah. So it's a lot less full than the, the Esri GIS Day map. So yeah, check that out. And I'm, I'm gonna give a shout-out. Like, if you wanted to…

Like, something to do, and if you're from the Bay Area, you're gonna be there. If you wanna experience something, one of the coolest yet relatively unknown things I think that I've done in a while, and it, it's not super overwhelming, so, but we went to see, we talked about on the podcast, I think, the Bay model, the San Francisco Bay model done by the Corps of Engineers, and it's housed in a, a, a warehouse, kind of warehouse building, kind of big in Sausalito.

So you go over the bridge from San Francisco. But they created a, a scale model of the, the hydrography, right, the waterworks of the, the San Francisco Bay. And they did it, like, and it's all physical. And you could go and walk around it, see it. Like, some of it isn't working as well anymore. It was built- But it's an amazing, like, it's a piece of history, first of all.

Second of all, it just shows the dedication of so many of our scientists in all levels of, of public service. I mean, it's just, it's an amazing thing. And you might go and, like, you know, be a little overwhelmed or underwhelmed, I guess, if you're expecting, like, fancy stuff. But when I look at the 1980s, like, videos and things like that, and you can walk all around it.

Like, we were there for, like, an hour. And I have to say, like, that's the kind of thing, like, if there's something that you just are curious about, you know, geography. And I say that even in the theme of Mapping the Future, right? Because they under- they knew that to plan for the growth in this, in the area, right, in the San Francisco Bay Area, to understand, like, how to take care of the population and the environment there, they had to better understand what was going on with the water.

And so they made it happen. And I, I, that's one of, I think, the most amazing feats that I have physically gone to see of engineering, like literally engineering in quite a while. Like, and it's, it's gotta be top three overall. And again, like, it's not really that well-known, but that's an example o- of kinda something I would say, like, if you, if you're gonna, like, do something yourself to celebrate geography, that'd be cool.

So if you're in that area and you can make it, I would go. And if you can go to any museum of natural history right now, clearly that's a, an important thing. They're not necessarily getting as many people attending. Philadelphia is closing its- Museum of Natural History There might be hope for that Oh, there might be hope for it now?

So, so I've- Okay … yeah, so I've seen kind of back and forth. But yeah, I mean, you know, get out there, support these organizations that have been bringing us and representing the world around us in so many different ways that are all part of geography. Oh, and, and inspired by Sue and everyone, I've got one that always gets attention if you're an organization or a group or something like 4H or Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, or a school which is donate a book to the library.

You mean, even if it's, you know, not for Dolly's Imagination Library, but it always is a good photo opportunity for the library and the people that are donating. Make sure in the, the book to put down who you are, your organization if it relates to what you do, and have in there that you're willing to go talk to, you know, schools and things like that if they, they have the book.

And we found that that's a very fun way to do outreach, and everyone loves it. And we all have our own favorite books, you know, for different levels of learners from, you know, young kids on to adults that are, are learning and studying and, you know, preparing professionally. Hand out copies of Phenomenology of Landscape, right?

Sure. I was thinking John Nelson's cartography book. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so GIS Day, Geography Awareness Week. I'm not sure there's gonna be a Geography Day. I don't remember it being, the last couple of years, being as much of a highlight. But you can check out the, the website for that too. Just Google it and see if there is anything going on.

That would be the Monday of Geography Awareness Week Yeah. Take advantage of it. Enjoy the thing that you like doing and sharing it with others … deep and slow down, don't stop breathing. Don't you lose yourself out in the middle. Know that all the stars will align and you'll see the sun On to Events Corner.

As always, we encourage you to go check out events around the world. That's right. On the geography theme we mentioned some, I think, last time, but there are AAG regional meetings that always happen in the fall that are precursors to the big conference in the spring. Yep, and if … Get your abstracts ready for AAG and for Esri.

The call for abstracts are out. I'm sort of hoping for the extension that comes with AAG, but try to get them in in time. I think this year, this coming year, 2027, it's in New York, right? Yes. I think that's where it is, yeah. And Esri will be in San Diego. As always. Yeah. As always. The real news would be if it wasn't.

Yeah. Yeah, that'd be something. I'd be like, "What?" Where did they find? What city are they taking over? Did they kick everybody out of? Yeah. But that'll be, that'll be good. I don't know if we'll make it this year. We'll see. It'll be our 20th anniversary from our first very spatial Esri UC. So our first one- Wow was 20-- well, 2007.

And so July 2027 will be our, our 20th anniversary, our first Esri UC. Generational. Yep. Multi-generational, I guess, at this point. 'Cause we're talking about the technology, and that- Yeah … hit 20 years. Well, us as, as Very Spatial- Yes, yes … generational. As people, yes. As media, no. No. We've been through many generations of podcasting.

All of them, technically. Yes. I guess. That's correct. I don't know. What else? Any other event-type things? Okay. So, of course, if you would like us to add your event to the podcast, feel free to email us at podcast@veryspatial.com. If you'd like to reach us individually, I can be reached at sue@veryspatial.com.

You can reach me at frank@veryspatial.com. I'm barb@veryspatial.com. And you can reach me at kindaspatial, and of course you can find all our in- information over at veryspatial.com/contacts. As always- We're the folks from Very Spatial Thanks for listening. And we'll see you in a couple weeks. And we do still have Esri content coming.

We just wanted an episode that wasn't. Take a deep breath, slow down. Don't stop breathin'. Don't you lose yourself out in the middle. Know that all the stars will align in their season now, now, now Count your blessings know, don't waste a minute. Mm Say goodbye to the past. You got here and Too damn sure for all the crying.

So tell me how Back and forth to fund your weekend

A VerySpatial Podcast - Episode 794

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