New technologies for modern geoinformatics

Abstract

The article is devoted to new information technologies that are already in use or are promising for use in geoinformatics and geographical research. The historical moments of development, technical characteristics, areas of use, features of application in the geographic branch of research of the main information technologies that have become popular in recent decades, as well as their shortcomings are considered. The technologies of mobile Internet, social networks, big data, social data mining, cloud technologies, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks, virtual and augmented reality, robotization, use of unmanned aerial vehicles, infographics, multimedia, images in non-Euclidean metrics, distance learning and distance education are described sequentially with the disclosure of the main features and components. The analysis and generalization of new information technologies designed to improve the quality of geographical research in the study of nature, ecology, environmental protection, socio-economic phenomena are carried out. The materials are arranged in the order of the relatedness of technologies to each other. The texts are illustrated with associative digitally created pictures. The considered technologies are summarized in the table, which presents the advantages of technologies, features of their application in geography and geoinformatics, as well as disadvantages, including social and environmental problems. The article notes that new technologies are promising in terms of the concentration of large amounts of data, their analysis, building models of geographical phenomena, their dynamics and forecast. Powerful technologies continue to develop and improve in the directions of increasing the speed and quality of information processing, delivering it to the user, reducing in size, reducing the cost and improving hardware. Information technologies are capable of changing a real person, socio-cultural reality, biotechnological evolution is taking place. The environmental problems of the world are intensifying: electricity consumption is growing, CO₂ emissions are increasing and the greenhouse effect is increasing, the amount of electronic waste is growing with the imperfection and environmental unsafety of its processing technology.