“Predicting Financial Fortune Using Geospatial Tech“
What if we told you that geospatial technology could actually predict corporate sales, the stability of stock prices, and a whole other host of things? We’ve also got to mention the gray area of legalities concerning the distribution of that information to the highest bidders!
It was shown that by taking satellite images of the amount of vehicles in a Wal-Mart parking lot, that they could ACCURATELY determine the direction of sales. When there are less cars, obviously there are less sales and the converse of that is also true. If you were to compile that information over the course of a year to develop an understanding of their sales patterns, you could effectively arrange the marketing strategy to increase sales, know when to hire more people, etc.
Now consider if a competing corporation was able to get a hold of that data first? How could that be weaponized?
“Therein lies the rub!” as our old friend Shakespeare used to say.
There was another scenario according to this article from The Atlantic in which 268 wagons of iron ore were derailed. This, of course, made iron ore prices skyrocket, affecting the price of “everything from furniture to paperclips” [sic].
Thanks to our new friend Geospatial Technology, analysts were able to determine that the ore had been derailed in a flat area, meaning it could be easily recovered. The people with that information KNEW that the prices were going to subside so they just…waited. Of course the stocks returned to level and BOOM: profit.
Companies now spend hundreds of millions of dollars on “alternative-technology” in order to access those fortune telling capabilities. Again, there’s a gray area as far as ethics go, although this is all perfectly legal!
