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MapStudio OS: Google Code to Manage MapGuide Open Source

Posted: February 29th, 2008, 8:15pm CET

Tags: Open Source

MapStudio OS is a Google open source project (LGPL license) that does what MapGuide Studio (an Autodesk products does, roughly). I thought the OS tool for this was going to be Web Studio from DM Solutions.

via a comment at SlashGeo

REAL Files against Many Real Estate Groups for Patent Infringement

Posted: February 29th, 2008, 3:57pm CET

Tags: Patents

The new suit follow a suits filed against agent Diane Sarkisian for using map-based software for real estate searches that the patent owner, REAL, claims infringes. The suit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by REAL is against:

The National Association of Realtors (NAR), with approximately 1.3 million real estate broker and agent members nationwide;
Nationwide real estate brokerage firms, including RE/MAX and Keller Williams Realty;
Home builders, such as Pulte Homes and Ryland Group;
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB);
Enterprise computer software providers to the real estate industry, including Fidelity National
Real Estate Solutions, First American Corporation, and others;
MOVE, Inc., the company that operates flagship real estate websites such as Realtor.com, MOVE.com, HomeBuilder.com, RentNet.com, and SeniorHousingNet.com; and
More than 25 other defendants representing nationwide classes of claimed infringers: real estate brokers, agents, multiple listing services, new home builders, and rental property owners/managers.

REAL is putting together five class action suits to demand remediation for "direct infringement, contributory infringement, and inducement to infringe." REAL expects compensatory and triple damages.

Mark Tornetta who originated the patent, explains that he and REAL have tried to get organizations to license the patent with little luck. Now, he said, they can't wait any longer.

News on this story has always come from Inman.com (a real estate site, which I suspect has this behind its pay wall) and via Scott Tatro, an interested party who often passes along information. This story, a press release which I found at the American Homeowners Resource Center, is based on a material from Linden Alschuler & Kaplan, Inc., a Public Relations firm. That tells me the plaintiffs want to get the story out in a big way. Update: Scott Tatro sent me a copy of the release after I'd posted this.

- AHRC

Photo Location Tagger for Nokia Cell Phones

Posted: February 29th, 2008, 3:15pm CET

Tags: lbs

Nokia has announced a beta product, Location Tagger that uses internal or external GPS information to tag photos taken with some of its phone (Tested with: Nokia N95, N95 8GB, N82, E90, N73. Should work but not fully tested with: all Nokia devices based on S60 3rd edition).

via The Register

In These Times on "The New Cartographers"

Posted: February 29th, 2008, 2:17pm CET

In These TImes is "is dedicated to informing and analyzing popular movements for social, environmental and economic justice; to providing a forum for discussing the politics that shape our lives; and to producing a magazine that is read by the broadest and most diverse audience possible." Editor-at-Large Jessica Clark looks at the "maps are everywhere" phenomenon and highlights many sites you may already frequent and few that may be new to those very focused on practical apps.

Garmin Sued Over Nuviphone Name

Posted: February 28th, 2008, 3:15pm CET

Tags: gps

Overland Park, Kansas based Internet telephone provider Nuvio Corp. is doing the suing. It doesn't like Garmin using "Nuvi" in any of its device names. Nuvio wants payment for past infringement. No comment from Garmin.

- IntoMobile
AP story

Sun/MySQL Meet Mashups

Posted: February 28th, 2008, 2:31pm CET

Following the completion of the acquisition of MySQL by Sun Microsystems, the company has established a number of "Meet Mashups" around the world for users to learn what's next for the development of the open source database.

Google: Please Add "Bike There"

Posted: February 28th, 2008, 1:45pm CET

Tags: google

A statewide bike advocacy e-mail list circulated a request to sign a petition that encourages Google to add a "Bike There" option along side it's "Drive there" and "Take public transportation" buttons for getting from A to B. You can find a link to it at Google Maps Bike There.

I'm a bike commuter and recreational rider, so I'm all for more information on the safest, "best" routes. My questions are:

Has Google ever added content to Google Maps because of a petition? I'm not saying this won't work, just curious about a precident.

How labor intensive will it be to collect bike route data in comparison to say public transit data? I know there's bike data out there and more and more communities are hiring bike coordinators (my city and many neighboring ones do) but pulling together nationwide or even big-city wide data is a challenge beyond public transit.

What's the return for Google? As much as we love to think Google Maps is all about us, it's at least in part about advertising.

Could/should this be a mapplet? I know this means it's not right in the interface, but it'd be available and perhaps quicker to implement than waiting for Google to take up the challenge.

And Now, Autodesk is Slammed for Reporting Good Earnings

Posted: February 27th, 2008, 6:20pm CET

Tags: Autodesk

You have to wonder what investment analysts are thinking. Autodesk (ADSK) reports record revenues of $599 million for Q4 2007, a 20% increase of last year's numbers and the stock is slammed over $6 per share, a roughly 15% drop. But here is what get's them nervous. Their earnings release included the following statement: "For fiscal year 2009, the Company is maintaining its previously provided revenue guidance range of $2.425 billion and $2.475 billion. However, the company is lowering its previous estimate of earnings per diluted share."

BAM! And the stock tumbles. But what is bad news for some, is good news for others. The Motley Fool has a different take in their pronouncement that "Autodesk Will Rise Again." ADSK was selling for $50 per share as recently ad December 28^th.

Quote of the Week

Posted: February 27th, 2008, 3:08pm CET

Tags: Satellite Navigation

A researcher at Chrysler told me that navigational systems in cars have an 80%-20% rule, only it's more like 95%-5%. 95% of the time gps is used by 5% of the people, and the majority of those folks are salesmen, and on the road most of the time. 95% of the time we get into our car, we know how to get to where we are going, and don't need directions. This may be changing as features like "best route" and "congestion avoidance" are added, but still seems to ring true.

- Leslie Rule writing at Media Shift Idea Lab (a PBS blog)

Google Maps Search by Neighborhood/Rating

Posted: February 27th, 2008, 2:46pm CET

Tags: google

The new addition was announced yesterday. Ok, I get user ratings, but neighborhoods are interesting! Well, not so much for me. I did my generic local search "somerville coffee" and was offered the chance to refine by neighborhood. Alas, the neighborhoods (just 3) were in Boston (Fenway, Downtown, Kenmore Square).

- Mashable

GPS-enabled Phones for OneCall

Posted: February 27th, 2008, 2:29pm CET

Tags: lbs

I found this in an article about updating OneCall in Ontario, Canada, but the pilot program is in Virginia.

Excavators at a Fairfax County, Virginia site are using their GPS (Global Positioning System) enabled phones to walk the entire perimeter of proposed excavation areas.

After the outline of the area is complete, a file of the demarcated perimeter is sent to a one-call centre.

- Daily Commercial News and Construction Record

AdNav - Ad Supported Navigation

Posted: February 27th, 2008, 2:01pm CET

Tags: lbs

The name says it all. AdNav refers to itself as a GPS Solutions Marketing Company. The idea is to subsidize satnav distribution by hotels, car rental agencies, airlines and make money by offering ads on the devices to local businesses. The platform is called Boomerang and it allows the partner to customize the data offered. Among the offerings are weather, directions, Internet access, city guides. Among the partners are Tele Atlas, CustomWeather, Ask and others. I didn't see any listing of who's advertising yet.

While very clever, my sense is that regular business travelers will be in the habit (soon) of using their phones for such things. Vacationers are a more likely target, but they'll have to learn of the offering before they pick up the NeverLost enabled car at Hertz.

via SmartCompany (Australia)

Tracking Where You've Been via Hair Samples

Posted: February 27th, 2008, 1:38pm CET

Tags: Tracking

Yes, it's all very CSI, but it's real. In fact the article from researchers at the University of Utah published the article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The bottom line, the amount of hydrogen and oxygen isotopes in your hair reflect where you've been. So, after analysis in a mass spectrometer the "fingerprint" of your hair is matched to a map that shows, regionally, where you've been. Mostly, the impact comes on differences in the water you drink, though there are other factors. And, since hair is a record of your diet, the longer the hair, the further back in time your location can be traced.

- Tech Review (lots of maps)

Why are academics using Google Earth imagery instead of...

Posted: February 26th, 2008, 7:29pm CET

Tags: google

I was totally into yesterday's NPR story about a group of researchers in walking the route of a new road from a remote village to the big city of Iquitos. It was all rough terrain and jungle and the idea was to explore the impact of the road on deforestation and human health, including the spread of malaria. The one statement that stopped me dead:

Pan has brought the only maps they have Google Earth photos from 2003.

Later researcher Pan notes:

"I learned that the parts of the road that look on the satellite image as cleared are actually not as cleared as it appears. And there's not as many communities as we had thought there might be."

I have what are perhaps naive questions. Surely there are newer images available? Why then are they using old images from four years ago? Is there no funding to acquire newer imagery? If there is no or little funding did the researchers at least ask for a break on price from commercial providers?

Quote of the Week

Posted: February 26th, 2008, 7:25pm CET

Tags: google

"Because Google Earth doesn't keep accurate metadata, it's not a good idea to use Google Earth as evidence in court."

- Rick Crowsey, writing in the Jan/Feb issue of Earth Imaging Journal (article not online, so far as I can tell)

Intermap Stock Slammed Despite Good Earnings Report

Posted: February 26th, 2008, 2:38pm CET

Yesterday, Intermap (IMP) took a nose dive losing 13% despite reporting a 55% increase in total revenue to $33.8 million, as compared $21.8 million in 2006. Almost all sectors of the company's business showed stellar results but the decline in share price might be reflected in continued losses even though they were much less at $0.22 per share compared to $0.30 per share in 2006. After reaching a high of near $11 per share last November, the stock tumbled in early January only to recover to about $7.75 per share as late as last week.

Podcast: Search and the Google Effect Two Years Later

Posted: February 26th, 2008, 8:00am CET

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: google

It's been two years since Google Earth blasted onto the scene helping neophyte and experienced geographers gain better appreciation for geography and their world. But where are we now? What's the future of globes? What are the next steps? Who will take them? Our editors have some ideas.

Subscribe to Podcast RSS

Listen Now (to download, right click on the link at left and choose "save target as")

Read the show notes

Missed any podcasts? Want to subscribe via iTunes, Yahoo, etc? Here's the index with all the info.

Creating Neighborhoods in Sturgis, Michigan

Posted: February 25th, 2008, 2:19pm CET

I wrote about the recent interest in neighborhood level data in Directions Magazine. I learned that many neighborhoods have fuzzy boundaries since they are not formal designations. The names, too, tend toward informal. But in Sturgis, Michigan (population in 2000, about 11,000), there's a move to formally name and bound neighborhoods. An article in the local paper explains how volunteers are working on the project which is expected to make for better representation of citizens to the city government and encourage neighbors to help neighbors. Once determined, residents will learn about the suggested neighborhood name via utility bills.

Geotagged images on the Net? About 5%

Posted: February 25th, 2008, 1:19pm CET

Tags: gps

That's according to Flickr, noted in an AP article about the wonders of geotagging. While touting the upside of automatically allowing the finding of images for an area and the rebirth of at least one photographer's stock imagery business, the article notes the downsides:

There are privacy considerations, and the failure of satellite-dependent GPS to work reliably indoors. Also complicating matters is the fact that GPS devices tag the location of the photographer, while the landmark being photographed could be miles away (British entrepreneur Richard Jelbert attempts to solve that by embedding a compass that can help calculate the landmarks actual location.)

But most importantly, geotagging typically involves carrying an extra gadget and fiddling with software on a computer at home.

Old Poll, New Poll

Posted: February 25th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: Poll

A while back I asked about which "geo" past-time takes up the most time. Of 62 respondents, the breakdown was:

Reading geoblogs - 36%
Exploring online 2D/3D maps/globes - 33%
Building "not for work" mapshups/apps - 12%
Something else - 12%
Visiting virtual worlds - 9%
Building "not for work" 3D models - 2%

Next up, what's most likely to sway you to push to attend a geo conference?

Vote in the lower right hand side of our homepage.

Quote of the Week

Posted: February 25th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

"I've said before that there's nothing sacred about the ZIP code appreciation map. We just do it that way because it's convenient and interesting."

Housing analyst Larry Murphy, of SalesTraq, in the a Las Vegas Review Journal article noting that in 56 of 61 ZIP Codes in Las Vegas had lower median housing prices in 2007. There's a map, but it has no legend I could find.

Updated Real Estate Site Touts Proprietary Map Search

Posted: February 25th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: google

Why would a press release about an updated real estate site for Chicago note its "extraordinary, proprietary interactive map and address search that lets users see everything there is to do and see around a specified location?" I understand "extraordinary" and "lets user see everything"; I guess proprietary still means not only "we are the only ones who have it" but also, "it's way better than everyone else's."

It did work on me; I checked out the site which offers a Google Maps-based search tool and that includes overlays of locations of restaurants, gyms, grocery stores, etc. It's sort of a combination local search/real estate search tool. Also of note, you can fill out a form to receive a free printed Chicago neighborhoods map. (pdf) I guess I'd have put that in the press release!

By the way, I found no sources for the data on the mapping app, but was disappointed that mousing over say a museum didn't reveal its name, but rather its address.

NGAC Looking To Many Sources for Input...Including the Consumer

Posted: February 25th, 2008, 8:53am CET

Tags: google

I had a chance to hear Ann Hale Miglarese, the newly minted chairperson of the National Geospatial Advisory Comittee (NGAC). She provided the nominal mission of NGAC as follows: The committee will provide advice and provide recommendations on federal geospatial policy and management issues and provide a forum to convey views representative of partners in the geospatial community. This committee will help provide advice and perspectives from a broad range of our partner orgs as we continue to develop new ways to utilize geospatial information for the benefit of the public.

But Ms. Miglarese had a very interesting observation: "In the future, we need to find a way to partner with companies that are spending $400 or $500 million dollars a year," referring to Microsoft, Google, and NAVTEQ. "What we have done for years and years are now coming down to the consumer. That casual consumer will drive many of our policies. The National Geospatial Advisory Committee is a place where that dialog can occur and about what we should be debating and how to grow the NSDI."

Homeland Security Data Model and GDM-O-Matic

Posted: February 25th, 2008, 8:01am CET

Tags: ESRI

At the ESRI FedUC, it was discussed that version 2.0 of the Department of Homeland Security's geospatial data model (GDM) is a major rework of the model. It eliminates overlaps of the re-cast model into flattened more approachable form and incorporates hundreds of comments from users across the modeling community. Also ongoing is the development of version 2 of an Oracle 10g Spatial implementation model with an expected release in March 2008. More information can be found at the FGDC website.

In addition, DHS is developing an implementation model translation tool with the unusual name of GDM-O-Matic. GDM-O-Matic is a simple tool to construct format-compliant XML files and a standardized way to look at geospatial data to compel geospatial data sharing. It was designed to be a transformation tool that would understand intricacies of the DHS GDM. It also enables NGA-authorized users to load Homeland Security Infrastructure Program (HSIP) data directly into a GDM-compliant geodatabase.

Reuters, Calais, and the Semantic Web

Posted: February 24th, 2008, 8:43pm CET

Reuters, the news service is sponsoring Calais, and initiative to create metadata for for material on the Web to help drive the Semantic Web. Here's the press release from January.

Here's a down and dirty quickie reminder about the Semantic Web if you've not thought about it for a while. Or read up at Wikipedia.

It's the idea, put forward by Tim Berners-Lee that ultimately we can make the Web smart enough to answer questions which are "beyond" search today. For example: Find all the barber shops that offer mohawks for under $25 in a radius of 20 miles from Boston and are open on Tuesday nights until 10 pm? You can do bits of that now, and certainly much of the information needed to answer the question may be on the Web now. The challenge is that right now we can't quite use it. The Semantic Web, with appropriate tagging, goes the vision will make that data more findable and usable.

Ok, so this Calais tool, at this release (a few more are planned for the rest of the year) can create metadata (RDF). From the FAQ, here's what Calais does:

From a user perspective its pretty simple: You hand the web service unstructured text (like news articles, blog postings, your term paper, etc) and it returns semantic metadata in RDF format. Whats happening in the background is a little more complicated.

Using natural language processing and machine learning techniques, the Calais web service looks inside your text and locates the entities (people, places, products, etc), facts (John Doe works for Acme Corp) and events (Jane Doe was appointed as a Board member of Acme Corp) in the text. Calais then processes the entities, facts and events extracted from the text and returns them to the caller in RDF format.

That metadata, then can be used to answer questions. For now, there's an API and some sample apps.

So, why is this cool. Well for one, it pulls out location using natural language processing (form a company called ClearForest). That could be useful for managing all that local search information, right?

For two, Reuters, a major publisher of news content is behind it. Clearly, that company is thinking ahead about making its content available in new ways and ideally making money in new ways.

via FIR

Twixtr - Twitter for (Geocoded) Images

Posted: February 24th, 2008, 8:16pm CET

Tags: Social Networking

To keep up on new media I just added a new podcast to my regular list: "For Immediate Release." Some good tech stuff, in addition to PR fiasco's like the bugaboo caused when an anonymous source noted that Edelman teaches its staff to lie on behalf of clients. (From the top execs at Edelman: they do not!)

Anyway, of note this week was another social networking service from FON - a quick, mobile image services - sort of Twitter for images. It's called Twixtr and the big news for geo types - it automatigally geotags pictures with the location from which they were sent. The current client is for the (jailbroken) iPhone (others to follow). And, there's a public API. But of course, this is all in beta, so all the usual warnings apply.

Now about that geotagging - it's called "location guessing." (I like the truth in advertising there!) Per the FON founder's blog post, that geo information comes from cell carriers: "Also thanks to cell providers the iPhone also has some rudimentary geolocalization so that is tagged to the Twitx." I thought iPhone location information was from Skyhook.

In any case, while many are noting "we already have too many of these" things like Twitter, the one hot spot seems to be the addition of location.

via Simon Says blog (he's one of the guys on the FIR podcast)

No NYC Crime Data for EveryBlock...Yet and More on EveryBlock Mapping

Posted: February 23rd, 2008, 2:41am CET

Tags: Open Source

The Gotham Gazette's Wonkster reports the request from the site for crime data were denied by the city police force. NYC's ComStat (typo corrected per comment) program is widely praised, but the data unlike that from Chicago is not provided at the block level. The next step? A Freedom of Information Act request.

That post linked me to yet another interview with Adrian Holovaty, the fellow behind EveryBlock. Here he mentions one the open source mapping tools:

We use an open-source library called Mapnik to render the maps, so that library does the heavy lifting for us. Paul is also working on a how-to article, in the spirit of giving back to the open-source community, that explains how to use Mapnik.

I know of Mapnik, but this forced me to finally confirm what I'd always suspected: the fellow behind it, Artem, was at Cadcorp with me back in the day. (Interview with Artem at Nestoria here.) The world is small my friend!

Also of note, an article by Paul Smith, EveryBlock's mapping guy, that explains the why and how of the solution.

Private vs. Publicly funded Base Maps Is Google Earth a Public Trust?

Posted: February 22nd, 2008, 4:27am CET

Tags: google

In speaking about having a common operating picture and an available imagery data store, Mark Eustis of the Department of Homelands Securitys Geospatial Management Office said during his presentation at the ESRI FED UC meeting that, "the most common operating pictures in the world are in Microsoft and Google."

Is there something a bit "off kilter" when federal agencies talk about using Google Earth (GE) or Microsoft Virtual Earth (VE) as their standard for a common operating picture (COP)? The reliance on a privately funded base map and imagery database for mission critical applications in homeland security and emergency management draws into question just how much Google or Microsoft have assumed the role of a public trust. In fact, the money that either company is investing in developing geospatial data for their mapping platforms runs into the tens of millions. If the market has spoken, in this case the federal government, then the market doesn't see any conflict using a system that is essentially funded by advertising. Are we not rendering The National Map as obsolete and do federal agencies differentiate the substance of each? Is the fact that GE or VE has become more accessible, easy to use, and more comprehensive drawn a comparison with federally-funded base maps that are sometimes bogged down with too many constituent requirements?

The idea that private companies have become a public trust is not new. Indeed, Microsoft Windows could be considered a public trust, or a world trust, since so many of the worlds computers run Windows. But is this case different? Agencies buy the Windows operating system software and assume a level of support from the vendor. In the case of GE or VE some federal agencies are relying on an open and free platform in which to ingest data. Licensing of APIs or enterprise editions was not mentioned and thus was not entirely clear from Eustis' remarks. But GE and VE are now so ingrained as providing one of the most widely used COPs that agencies may want to address some of the long-term ramifications.

Spy Satellite Shoot-down Debris Field Simulation

Posted: February 22nd, 2008, 2:55am CET

Enclosure: [download]

AGI (Analytical Graphics, Inc.) has made available a debris field simulation, and other computer generated graphics, based on publicly released information, of the U.S. spy satellite that the military is attempting to shoot down.

Quote of the Day - "Adding technology to a bad process..."

Posted: February 22nd, 2008, 2:27am CET

Tags: ESRI Fed UC 08

Jim Geringer, former governor of Wyoming and ESRI's director of policy and public sector, and speaking at ESRI's FedUC, had a few pointed words for those in the public sector who think technology solves most problems: "Adding technology to a bad process only adds speed to a very bad process," said Geringer. Geringer, during his time in office, recognized overlaps and redundancies to processes that could have benefited from best practices. He proded the audience to understand the nation's processes as a system. "GIS must provide a 'simple' way to explain the system and grasp the issues, said Geringer.

As an example, Geringer told the story of how as governor he was asked to evaluate a particular environmental problem. He received several reports some coming from his health department, the EPA and others. He asked, "Why cant we have one report for this project?" After not receiving the answer he expected, he said, "W-E-L-L G-E-T O-N-E!"

While GIS may not eliminate the number of reports we get from various constituencies, it should be an imperative of our government, federal, state or local, to provide a common picture, a common base map and a common set of criteria to decision makers.

DOI to "integrate and modernize its resources for managing map and geospecific data"

Posted: February 21st, 2008, 8:23pm CET

Tags: ESRI

That from said Jason Cason, associate deputy secretary of the department who spoke at the ESRI Federal User Conference. Alas, the article in GCN doesn't really explain how that will happen, but lots of DOI projects were shown like GeoCommunicator. Said Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne via video: "In short we're using geospatial technologies to save lives," Kempthorne said.

Remote Sensing Suggest Link Between Light at Night and Breast Cancer

Posted: February 21st, 2008, 2:51pm CET

Tags: Remote Sensing

Update: Here are the details, via the Washington Post

"By no means are we saying that light at night is the only or the major risk factor for breast cancer," said Itai Kloog, of the University of Haifa in Israel, who led the new work. "But we found a clear and strong correlation that should be taken into consideration."

The report is in this week's online issue of the journal Chronobiology International.

--------minimalist original post --------

"Using NASA satellite imagery to plot high emissions of light at night, researchers found breast cancer rates were as much as 60-percent higher in high-light areas than in darker ones."

- NBC 12, Virginia

Sharper Image Owes Garmin

Posted: February 21st, 2008, 2:42pm CET

The Sharper Image declared bankruptcy yesterday. Among those with unpaid bills is Garmin, which hopes to get some of its $2 million. UPS is owed $6 million.

- New York Times

Geotagging is Hot

Posted: February 21st, 2008, 2:36pm CET

Tags: lbs

How do I know? It's the headline for an upcoming Nokia N82 firmware upgrade: "New, yet to be released, Nokia N82 firmware to include geotagging ..." I can't quite figure out this comment from the post: "Privacy advocates hold your horses, I'm sure this will be turned off by default."

- IntoMobile

Pocket Virtual Worlds

Posted: February 21st, 2008, 2:20pm CET

Tags: education

The technology, a result of a partnership between Case Western Reserve and Bowling Green, uses a mobile device to explore photograph-based virtual worlds. There's no GPS, nor Wi-Fi used, as I understand it, for the navigation of the worlds. It's not clear how the datasets are knit together. Even if I don't quite follow how it works, the New Media Consortium identified it as one of six emerging technologies in its 2008 Horizon Report. The end use?

This three-dimensional photographic virtual world is likely to be introduced to higher education and specific organizations within the next five years.

- Pocket Virtual Worlds website (flash demo available)

- The BG News

Yahoo Maps My News

Posted: February 21st, 2008, 2:13pm CET

Tags: Yahoo

At least it does in the Rocky Mountain News. The app is here (flash-based) Stories are color coded as news, sports, business or spotlight.

Global Map of Hotspots in Past Disease Outbreaks May Predict Locations of Future Ones

Posted: February 21st, 2008, 1:46pm CET

The research from the Zoological Society of London, the Wildlife Trust and Columbia University is published in Nature. (Payment needed to read the article itself, but a public news article covers the ideas and offers a small map.) The BBC has a different map.

Bottom line (from News-Medical.Net):

They have produced a detailed map highlighting the world's hotspots for emerging infectious diseases and the main hotspots are located in low latitude regions, like South Asia and
South-East Asia, which were not the financial focus of global funds to prevent the spread of EIDs.

Peter Daszak from the Wildlife Trust, says the world's public health resources are misallocated as most are focused on richer countries that can afford surveillance, when most of the hotspots are in developing countries.

Dr. John Gittleman from the University of Georgia describes the map as a "seminal moment in how we study emerging diseases".

I wonder if like the "human impact on the ocean map" this'll get buzz?

- News-Medical.Net

Soil Mapping at AAAS

Posted: February 21st, 2008, 1:23pm CET

Our podcast this week spoke to the "popularity" at least in the world press of a new map of the human impact on the seas. It was announced in Science and at the AAAS meeting here in Boston. Another mapping thread at that meeting is about soil mapping. However, since there was no announcement of a map (there is data however), I suspect it won't get the buzz. My point, as we suggested in the podcast, if you want buzz, create a simply to understand/interpret global map. I hope I'm wrong and in part point this point because I want to be wrong!

Quote of the Day - Dangermond: "Fully employed for a long time"

Posted: February 20th, 2008, 6:36pm CET

Tags: ESRI

Speaking at the opening plenary session of the ESRI Federal User's Conference at the Washington Convention Center (Wash. DC), Jack Dangermond expounded on the many applications his user's were employing at the federal level. But he also mentioned one key issue: lots of problems in the world, environmental, political, and health-related, create lots of opportunities for GIS. "I am certain that you and I will be fully employed for a long time."

This of course once again highlights the dearth of trained GIS professionals that many have alluded to recently, especially at the federal level and perhaps the expanding need be recognized as a GISP to provide a foundation for the required training.

New Touch Table to Rival Microsoft's Surface?

Posted: February 20th, 2008, 3:39pm CET

The table, the Touch Table EES, is from ToyQuest and is 21 inches. It includes games and can play DVDs but can't connect to the Internet. But it does include a "Google Earth"-like geography exploration tool. At $499 it's alas just a toy, I guess.

- Tech Amok

How satellites saved the world

Posted: February 20th, 2008, 3:15pm CET

Tags: Remote Sensing

MSNBC offers up the article with that title and explores the satellite "shoot down" and the history of earth observation, one topic being addressed the AAAS meetings this week in Boston.

TopSat Microsatellite Helps with Disaster Relief After African Earthquake in Early Feburary

Posted: February 20th, 2008, 3:07pm CET

Tags: Remote Sensing

Response to a February 3 earthquake in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo include e imagery captured by TopSat. TopSat is a micro-satellite built by a consortium of UK companies.

Disaster relief operations being led by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs relies on the free imagery. In November 2007 QinetiQ, the lead on the project, agreed to include TopSat in the International "Space and Major Disasters" Charter, making it available for this type of work. The UN activated the Charter on Feb 6.

Azooptics

GPS Game Wins, Comes to Indoor Show; How Will it be Played?

Posted: February 20th, 2008, 2:48pm CET

Tags: lbs

Games on Deck reports winners of a mobile gaming contest, the Independent Games Festival (IGF) Mobile awards; they'll be on display at the 2008 Game Developers Conference this week in San Francisco. Among them is KnowledgeWhere's PhoneTag Elite, which won Innovation in Augmented Design Award, Presented by NVIDIA. The game is described as high tech hide and seek using cell phone GPS.

According to the report, all the games will be playable in a special pavilion. "All finalists will be featured in playable form within the special pavilion on the Game Developers Conference 2008 show floor." I wonder how PhoneTag Elite players will access GPS?

Nokia Submits EU Docs on NAVTEQ Acquisition

Posted: February 20th, 2008, 1:57pm CET

Tags: lbs

Yesterday Nokia submitted the required paperwork. Today the EU said it's inquiry deadline was set for March 28.

Quote of the Week (III)

Posted: February 20th, 2008, 1:21pm CET

Tags: Autodesk

"I think the only poor slobs that still put up with AutoCAD are the lonely GIS market where the users were foolish enough to write a bunch of custom LISP code. "

Technical Editor Paul Rako of EDN (that's Electronic Design News) in a blog post about how Autodesk is like eBay.

Garmin's Got Great Numbers but...

Posted: February 20th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: lbs

Garmin had its best quarter ever (pr), but things are not that bright:

- prices for GPS devices are down
- margins are down
- there's no carrier yet for the nuviphone
- prices fell after conference call

- Forbes
- ZDnet Blog

Girl Scouts Do Local Search

Posted: February 19th, 2008, 3:55pm CET

Tags: google

The Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania are apparently the first to offer an online tool to find the nearest "cookie sales booth." The app, accessible by clicking on the giant thin mint on their site, is put together by an official GS contractor and ultimately taps into Google Maps for directions. It's sort of too bad senior Scouts didn't get a chance to build the app themselves...

- The Morning Call

Getting on the Map Without an Address

Posted: February 19th, 2008, 3:39pm CET

Tags: Local Search

Chris Silver Smith in the Locals Only column at Search Engine Land takes on the question: How do you get your business in Google Maps if you don't have a physical address? Who has that sort of problem? Contractors who work out of their trucks - painters, roofers, etc. - who live somewhere but cover a territory elsewhere and who many not want their home addresses listed. The short answer from Michael Jones: get a PO box.

Perhaps the next iteration of local search will be geared more to business territories. Pizza places can geographically draw where they deliver or painters can determine their range, etc.?

Terralink Drives New Zealand

Posted: February 19th, 2008, 3:10pm CET

Tags: lbs

Privately owned Terralink has the video topped cars and plans to cover every street in the country in two years. One of its main shareholders is Ian Taylor the man who pioneered Americas Cup sailing technology - and the data is expected to be sold to public safety, navigation and mapping companies.

- TV3

Tech Review on PhotoSynth

Posted: February 19th, 2008, 2:48pm CET

Tags: microsoft

The article offers up history and asks the question "what's it for?"

The key bits:

- the team hopes to release it by end of the year
- the most promising potential use:
"One is to integrate it more fully with Microsoft Virtual Earth, making it that tool that takes users to the next step in deep zoom. "

Hertz NeverLost Offers "Plan Ahead" Service

Posted: February 19th, 2008, 2:34pm CET

Tags: Navigation

The idea is that before you pick up the rental, you use your computer to key in your destinations at the NeverLost website, then save them to a USB device. When you pick up the car, you insert the device and off you go. This solves the time consuming task of keying in the information to the in-car device.
- Hertz Online Trip Planning

John King, CNN's "master manipulator of the Multi-Touch Collaboration Wall"

Posted: February 19th, 2008, 1:46pm CET

NOLA.com's Dave Walker writes about All Star Weekend, held in New Orleans during the holiday weekend. It notes celebrities in town including CNN's John King:

Also in town for the All-Star festivities on Time-Warner's dime was John King, CNN's chief national correspondent and master manipulator of the Multi-Touch Collaboration Wall.

It's a good thing "chief national correspondent still comes first in his title, but I wonder how long it will be his prime descriptor? Based on the media's take, the wall (and it's master as side kick) is becoming the star. The article goes on:

If you don't know what that is, you're not among the huge numbers Blitzer said are plugging into CNN's political coverage.

The wall, developed by a New York company named Perceptive Pixel, is the breakout media star of the campaign so far.

It's basically a giant iPhone screen -- touch-sensitive and fronting enough computing power to allow King -- or whoever's poking it at an individual moment -- to zoom, squeeze and whoosh through maps and graphics.

It's "Minority Report" meets a pollster's fever dream, and King, a political correspondent for The Associated Press before joining CNN in 1997, is its first maestro.

"My son jokes with me... that he actually likes what I do now," King said. "But I'm a little worried about it, because the cab driver who brought me here today said, 'I love that map board.' It's obviously connecting with people in a way beyond what I would've thought.

"It scares me a little bit because I don't want it to become a gimmick. There are a lot of things in television that are for show and not for tell. I think this is great show and tell. You can use the technology to bring some of the nuts-and-bolts of it closer to people."

I wonder if soon instead of students learning to use PowerPoint (what a horrid thought!), they'll also learn to present using the Multi-touch Wall in school.

Podcast: Two Newsworthy Maps, One Gets All the Glory

Posted: February 19th, 2008, 8:00am CET

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: education

Researchers published two studies this week that included important maps. One highlighted the human impact on the world's oceans. A second documented the past, current and future vulnerability of the U.S. population to natural disasters. Press coverage of the first study was considerable, with the map distributed far and wide on the Web and beyond. Coverage of the second was limited to the scientific and geographic press. Why the disparity? Our editors review the maps and offer their thoughts.

CSC Has LOFTy Idea; Tracks Tour of California Bike Race

Posted: February 18th, 2008, 6:16pm CET

Tags: google

CSC is launching their Location Object Field Tracking (LOFT) technology, designed for military and defense applications, at the Amgen Tour of California this week. According to an article in Washington Technology CSC Chief Technologist Dan Munyan says, "LOFT delivers a four-dimension, contextual, Web 2.0 interface through combining the birds eye view perspective of GPS with associated historical attributes and the context of real-time information on location, motion and status." The LOFT Tracker for the bike tour shows a map-based, real time route track of the participants. The CSC website is employing a Google Maps interface while the Amgen Tour of California website is showing the race using a Yahoo!Maps interface. Hmm.

Oblique Aerials Support Tornado-affected Areas

Posted: February 18th, 2008, 6:06pm CET

Tags: Remote Sensing

Marty Sellers of Sellers Photography provided the following information:

Rob Perrin of Jackson, TN has vertically photographed the tornado track through Jackson TN, stitched the images and created a movie on his website where viewers can follow along the path.

[www.mountup.us]

Quote of the Week

Posted: February 18th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: google

"Since GIS tends to be related to critical infrastructure, its data tend to be of impeccable quality, better than what are available with Google Earth or Microsoft Visual Earth, which are more of geo-browsers and dependent on satellite imagery."

- Anivrvan Ghosh describing why GIS is a profitable business, specifically in medical response, for India-based Rolta in the India Times

Mountaineering Museum Opens in Colorado

Posted: February 18th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

The Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum opened this week in Golden, Colorado. Said to be the the first museum in the country dedicated to the history of mountaineering. It
features a true-to-scale 3D foam map of Mount Everest, a climbing wall that's open to the public, and historic artifacts from famous mountain climbers around the globe. The museum honors mountaineer and cartographer, Bradford Washburn. He grew up in the Boston area and founded the well-regarded Boston Museum of Science. He died last year. (obit)

- Daily Camera (Boulder)

Windows Enterprise Launch Feb 27; SQL Server Late

Posted: February 18th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: microsoft

Microsoft has planned the launch of Visual Studio (VS) 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 for Feb 27th. One thing to note: SQL Server 2008, the version geo folks have been waiting for, due to its geospatial support, will be late.

SQL Server was set to ship later than Windows Server or Visual Studio, but the target date has now slipped by a full quarter, according to a Jan. 26 blog post by Francois Ajenstat, director of SQL Server product management. Ajenstat insists the delay won't detract from this month's launch event.

The next Customer Technology Preview (this will be #6) may well be released on Feb 27. This CTP is expected to have 99% of the full final technology.
- Redmond Developer News

Create KML Via Spreadsheet

Posted: February 18th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: google

It's a tool for "the rest of us" to easily create KML.

- Wired

Quote of the Week (II)

Posted: February 18th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: lbs

"Many of the services [at Mobile World Congress] put the emphasis on finding your friends, not finding your way, as GPS evolves into more of a social tool."

- Peter Sayer at InfoWorld

Apple Podmap Patent

Posted: February 15th, 2008, 2:39pm CET

Tags: Patents

I saw this yesterday at Christian Spanring's blog , and didn't really understand it. He suggests Apple is getting into pedestrian navigation.

After reading this from Tech Radar, I'm still confused. It suggests that mapping would be delivered like podcasts and somehow be provided based on location, though no use of Wi-Fi, GPS or a network is required. Huh?

I tracked back to Electonista. It spins it a bit differently:

The implementation would see an application or service turn map data into a series of audio and video elements based on location; driving directions and other maps could be spoken aloud with a view of the map at that location as a guide.

My take is that it's another way to store/deliver LBS information (directions, content and ads) outside of the satnav devices (which frankly are doing much of the same thing - just not on Apple hardware). Further, it suggests GPS, while not yet available on Apple devices, might be in use and this system, or another was not available.

Next up, the actual patent. Here's the abstract:

Improved techniques to facilitate generation, management and delivery of personalized media items for users are disclosed. Users are able to influence or control content within a personalized media item. According to one aspect, personalized media items can pertain to generation and delivery of map-based media items. These media items are playable by a media playback device. For example, when a map-based media item is played by a media playback device, an audio output and/or a visual output can be provided. The audio output can be provided by digital audio, and the visual output can be provided by at least one digital image that is associated with at least a portion of the digital audio.

The claims seem to indicate you request the data (a route) and it's delivered from a server to your device and the playback includes audio and at least one image. It's sort of broad and seems to be far more about media delivery than anything else.

A Salt-focused GIS for Ghana

Posted: February 15th, 2008, 2:18pm CET

Ghana launched a National Geographic Information Systems (GIS) yesterday in part to help grow its salt industry. Annual production of salt, some 250,000 metric tons, could be much higher, say officials, up to 2.5 to 3.0 million metric tons said officials. While inefficient production methods, obsolete machinery, and lack of capital are contributing factors, so is a lack of information on the land.

The Ministry for Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and PSI with support from the Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Services and UNICEF, thus put together a GIS:

He [the minister] said the system, which would tap both unexploited and underexploited salt deposits, would be capable of providing one of the best quality salts for the people in the sub-region and beyond.

Benefits to be derived from the GIS include an information gateway for investors, a database for the salt industry, contours on producing areas in Ghana, detailed information on towns where there is salt and pictorial presentation on the salt industry in Ghana.

- ModernGhana.com

Yahoo NewsGlobe: Just Another News Mashup?

Posted: February 14th, 2008, 2:56pm CET

Tags: Yahoo

Yes, a Yahoo mashup is in the news; well actually it tracks the news. NewsGlobe is yet another answer to the question: how do we put news on a map? This time the answer is using RSS feeds, Yahoo geocoding, Flash and a a 3-D ActionScript open source library called Papervision3D to put it all on the map. Ideally stories are posted by dateline location (nothing fancy like MetaCarta analytics going on) and the number of stories at a location is shown by a 3D column of corresponding height. You can watch the globe spin in "autoplay" and take you to stories or chose "interactive mode" and spin it yourself.

I guess this is the ultimate mashup, since everyone keeps building them. I'm just not sure we want our news organized that way! That said, there may be far more interesting things developers could do with technology stack.

- Computerworld

Google Mobile Learns from John Snow

Posted: February 14th, 2008, 2:46pm CET

Tags: google

Gummi Hafsteinsson, senior product manager at Google's mobile division, cited the London cholera outbreak in his talk at Mobile World Congress held this week in Barcelona. The goal was to illustrate what's required for successful LBS on the mobile Internet. In particular maps must be:

- comprehensive,
- combinable with multiple sources of data
- open.

- EETimes

Locating Data Centers

Posted: February 14th, 2008, 1:52pm CET

CIO offers up a "where do you put the data center?" article noting key factors like stability

GISWiki.NEWS.Reader » All Points Blog » February 2008

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Enclosure: [download]

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