🍯 Amazon Honeycode

AWS is making its entrance into the low-code app platform space.

🌲 Using satellite imagery to prioritize vegetation management for utilities

Geoff Zeiss on combining satellite imagery and spatial analysis to identify tree encroachment in utilities:

Transmission line inspections are essential in ensuring grid reliability and resilience. They are generally performed by manned helicopters often together with a ground crew. There are serious safety issues when inspections are conducted by helicopter. Data may be collected with cameras and analyzed to detect a variety of conditions including corrosion, evidence of flash over, cracks in cross arms, and right-of-way issues such as vegetation encroachment. in North America annual inspections are mandated by NERC and are not optional. With over 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and 5.5 million miles of distribution lines in the United States, improving the efficiency and reducing the risk of inspections would have a major impact on the reliability of the power grid.

🔌 Connected Sheets

Google Sheets now supports using BigQuery data inside of Google Sheets features like pivot tables and formulas, which means orders-of-magnitude increase in data limits.