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IBI Taps Google Maps for WebFOCUS Solution

Posted: March 31st, 2008, 5:30pm CEST

Tags: Location Intelligence

Information Builders (IBI) is announcing the availablity of WebFOCUS for Google Maps and looks to catapult itself to the forefront of business intelligence (BI) tools that are location enabled. IBI is touting the ability to rapidly develop a mashup of its BI engine with Google Maps to visualize a business' operational data and reports. This is somewhat of a departure for IBI which had looked to ESRI's ArcIMS as their platform for geospatial data visualization.

Blue Dasher, the next Immersive Media?

Posted: March 31st, 2008, 2:39pm CEST

Tags: Remote Sensing

Joe Francica noted Blue Dasher the other day when we chatted. The company has come out of the shadows in conjunction with CTIA and is the heart of an article in the Miami Herald. Welcome to another player in the "photograph my street and put it on a website/mobile/nav device arena! Already in: Immersive Media, Everyscape and others. Blue Dasher will offer up in photo ads for businesses, but outside that, I'm not sure of it competitive differentiator.

Fish Eye Lens for Maps

Posted: March 31st, 2008, 2:30pm CEST

The technology is from Alps in Japan but sounds very much like IDELIX pliable display technology I first ran into in 2001. Alas the company's site is in Japanese. But as I understand it, both technologies put a moveable lens in front of the map, providing details in the center but context to the rest of the map at the edges. IDELIX licensing it to I think BEA for use in imaging software.

via TechRadar

General Dynamics UK to Offer 3D Near Real Time Environments for Soldiers

Posted: March 31st, 2008, 1:32pm CEST

Tags: 3D

The technology, described as an "urban intelligence and surveillance system" is called Masthead and will be announced at a special forces show in Jordan this week.

Data capture can be done with a system based on LIDAR (Light Intensity Direction and Ranging) that sits atop a jeep. Also in development: the ability to fuse data from other sensors, such as those that see through walls.

Mike Thomas, the business development manager at the company's Mission Systems division "said that by using 3-D through-the-wall radar, thermal imaging and X-ray backscatter, you can fuse data to create a picture of a building's external and internal structures, as well as detect objects and people inside."

The UK developed and GD UK funded work is not subject to U.S. technology export regulations.

- Defense News

GIS Data Sharing the Schuylkill County (PA) Way

Posted: March 31st, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

The REPUBLICAN & Herald in Pottsville, PA describes how the county shares geographic data. At this point 30% of the 67 municipalities in the county have signed the sharing agreement. It's an interesting agreement, which includes this passage:

Sharing members may only use shared data to promote clearly definable, publicly supported objectives and functions. These objectives and functions include public planning purposes, public safety purposes and other functions typically performed by governmental agencies, implementation and interpretation of scientific research and tabular information, the generation of new data sets, and the creation of hard copy maps, charts and reports

One municipality recently signed on with a 6-1 council vote. The one vote against was worried about the data might "potentially infringe on peoples individual rights." Penn State professor Donna Peuquet said that was only a possibility if the data got into the public's hands.

Businesses can access the data, too, just via a licensing agreement, that I suspect requires a fee. The arrangement has been in place since 2004.

Open Source Solution for Currier in NZ

Posted: March 31st, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Open Source

Geographic Business Solutions (GBS) doesn't want to compete with GPS players like Navman and Armada. The good news: they can offer up flexible, on-off solutions. The company took eight weeks to deliver a tracking system.

[It] allows Urgent Couriers' dispatchers to pinpoint the location of every courier on a map, zoom in on couriers and view all relevant job information. The allocation of jobs to each of the company's 85 contractors is also assisted by GPS ensuring that couriers closest to jobs are efficiently assigned to pick-ups, preventing the need for them to double back to jobs, and saving on time and fuel.
...
The new GPS system for Urgent Couriers is based on open source database PostgreSQL (with PostGIS) and an open source mapserver, UMN Mapserver. GBS built the interface and web functionality in Internet Explorer (7) and configured it to fit Urgent Couriers' dispatch system.

- m-net.com

Word of the Day: GeoTourism

Posted: March 31st, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

National Geographic defines geotourism as tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place - its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents.

The Missoulian (Montana)talks up the concept while introducing the new Crown of the Continent map which features many local points of interest suggested by locals. The article explains that the Crown, as a geographic region, covers northern Montana, southwest Alberta and southeastern British Columbia. The map is a collaborative effort of National Geographic and the Center for Sustainable Destinations and the National Parks Conservation Association, and 350 locals who nominated 700 items for the map during 64 public forums. There's an online version of the map here.

NGA Wants National Power Grid Database

Posted: March 31st, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

UPI reports that the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency feels such a database is necessary to protect infrastructure. It's rolled out a sources sought notice looking for such a database that might be shared within the U.S. and foreign partners.

Location-based IRS Audits; The IRS is Watching Where You Live

Posted: March 31st, 2008, 8:44am CEST

Tags: Location Intelligence

Last Saturday, on the CNN show "Your $$$$$$" with Ali Velshi, a guest mentioned that you are more likely to be audited if your income doesn't necessarily jive with your zip code. For example, if you are making well under the "statistical" minimum for your zip code, you have a greater chance of being audited. In general, the IRS audited 7% more returns last year. So, perhaps we are seeing a more "location intelligent" IRS.

Facebook to Focus on Location?

Posted: March 28th, 2008, 2:35pm CET

Tags: Social Networking

Investments keep pouring in: First $240 million from Microsoft, then $60 million from Hong Kong business mogul Li Ka-Shing and today another $40 million (at least) from Ka-Shing. VentureBeat suggests that Ka-Shing's company Hutchison Whampoa will ease Facebook into China and perhaps be an entry to LBS.

Pitney Bowes CEO: Rebranding in Progress

Posted: March 28th, 2008, 2:30pm CET

Tags: MapInfo

Good thing, I can't figure if its Pitney Bowes MapInfo or Pitney Bowes Software or what.

"We are in the process of actually rebranding across the entire company," [CEO Murray] Martin said. "With 85 acquisitions, it's important for us to look at the whole brand and the whole brand philosophy."

- Albany Business Journal

Surius, XM and LBS

Posted: March 28th, 2008, 2:17pm CET

Tags: lbs

The New York Times Wheels blog offers insight into up and coming offerings from the mergeable satellite radio companies.

XM is touting its new NavWeather service. For an additional $3.99 a month, current weather information is correlated with drivers positions so that warnings about impending meteorological disasters are flashed on a navigation systems screen and routes can be recalculated. One wonders how often such a feature might be useful (are tornadoes or hail storms common in your area?), but its an added hook that when tied to live traffic reports could make some drivers trips smoother.

The first appearance will be in the Accura 2009 TSX.

Not to be outdone, next door at the Sirius booth the company was hawking its new Travel Link service, which is $6.99 a month. It doesnt include weather warnings related to a drivers route (just a standard weather report), but it does have several so-called location-based services, including local gas prices and movie listings en route. Travel Link will be available in 2009 Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury models.

Wall Street Journal on LBS and Privacy

Posted: March 28th, 2008, 1:35pm CET

Tags: lbs

The WSJ is right on top of things with an article titled, Phones Will Soon Tell Where You Are. It focuses on people tracking and related services, specifically Loopt, which offers "buddy tracking," now offered by Sprint and soon, the article suggests, by Verizon Wireless.

Of interest to me:

He [Sam Altman, Loopt co-founder and CEO] set out to give Loopt strict rules to prevent misuse. The most significant is that cellphone users who sign up can make their whereabouts available only to a network of friends who also buy the service.

I guess that's a safety feature, but aren't some crimes committed by friends and relatives? Moreover, isn't that also a marketing ploy, so they don't just get you to buy in, but also your "circle?"

EU Extends TomTom/Tele Atlas Review Another 10 Days, Stock Falls

Posted: March 28th, 2008, 12:43pm CET

Tags: lbs

Thursday the EU said it would extend its review of the proposed acquisition by 10 working days. The decision was made by the commission and both companies, said a spokesperson. Tele Atlas lost as much as 3.7 percent on the news. The extension may mean the acquisition may not complete until the second half of the year. One other change: TomTom now has a bit more time to offer remedies to the concerns.

- Bloomberg

Campus Alerts, The WARN Act and Location-based Emergency Notification

Posted: March 28th, 2008, 10:29am CET

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: lbs

Location-based mobile alerts is a pet peeve of mine. I've been following the developments about how the average citizen is alerted to emergency situations: natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and more localized events that could cause alarm. It seems like every few months we hear of another campus shooting. As a parent, it's a chilling situation.

In addtion, more is being done to abide by The WARN Act, the Warning, Alert and Response Network, signed into legislation in 2006. In this podcast, Tim Lorello, chief marketing officer of TeleCommunications Systems, provides an update on his company's technology that will assist cellular carriers to provide location-based alerts.

Subscribe to Podcast RSS

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

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

Oracle Stock Drops 7.2% on Poor App Sales

Posted: March 28th, 2008, 3:47am CET

Tags: Oracle

We know Wall Street is fickle but this time the numbers add up just fine. Oracle reported Q3 results which disappointed investors because sales of new Oracle application licenses grew just 7% compared to 63% in Q2. While total software revenue grew 21%, Wall Street focused on new applications. It is important to recognize that this is the sweet spot of potential geospatial revenue as well. While we tend to think of only Oracle Spatial/Locator as a feature set, the growth in geospatially-enabled applications, specifically Oracle applications in vertical markets, is where the growth will be. If we see this part of the business slowing, then its likely the adoption of spatially-enable applications will be affected. Caution: this is just a forecast only because in speaking with Oracle at the Oracle Spatial Users Group meeting, interest in vertical applications for spatial are humming along.

Data Discounts from Autodesk

Posted: March 27th, 2008, 9:36pm CET

Tags: Autodesk

Geoff Zeiss notes on his blog Autodesk has deals with data providers to offer up discounts on data. Whose data? DigitalGlobe (via its acquisition GlobExplorer), NAVTEQ (via ADCI), Intermap and Weatherbug (that link was broken when I tried it). Offers vary - DigitalGlobe offers a limited 14 day trial and Intermap a percentage discount. Worth a look if you are in the market.

The title of offer's Web page: High Resolution Earth Images for AutoCAD Map 3D. (Might want to update that since there's more than imagery and the data are for other products, too.)

Free Autodesk DWG Reader Available for Download

Posted: March 27th, 2008, 8:55pm CET

Tags: Autodesk

The good news? DWG Trueview 2009, as the viewer is called, is free (registration form required) and from Autodesk so it's got the same engine used in AutoCAD. It converts to older formats DWG formats to other old and the new 2009 format and includes tools to print, measure, visualize.

The bad news? It's an 193 Mb download.

via Tenlinks Daily

OS Could Make MasterMap Free by Charging Fee on Land Registrations

Posted: March 27th, 2008, 1:30pm CET

That's the word from Cambridge, where academics ran the numbers. Land registrations occur any time real estate changes hands.

[It seems its possible for] a simple surcharge on Land Registry transactions to make up any loss in direct revenues from making the Ordnance Survey's MasterMap, its most detailed map, available for free. The calculated benefits according to the study by Cambridge academics for the Treasury are dramatic: for a cost of between £12m and £30m in "lost" revenues from sales of its MasterMap and Large Scale Topo products, the wider economy would benefit by £168m.

- The Guardian

The World is NOT Flat When it Comes to Talent, Innovation and Creativity

Posted: March 27th, 2008, 1:17pm CET

Richard Florida's new book is called Whos Your City and argues essentially that. As Tracy Certo puts it at Metromedia: "the creative economy is making where you live the most important decision of your life." Or, in other words, geography does matter, though it's hard for me at least to tease cause from effect. The article offers an interview with the author and a YouTube clip of him on the Colbert Report.

Clark University's Turner Heads to Arizona State

Posted: March 27th, 2008, 12:38pm CET

Tags: education

Arizona State University at Tempe's new School of Geographic Sciences has recruited Billie Lee Turner, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and most recently director of the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. He specializes in sustainability science.
Turner will join Arizona's faculty in July as the school's first Gilbert F. White chair in environment and society. Arizona State's School of Geographic Sciences launched in 2006 focuses on interdisciplinary study.

The university has hired four additional faculty members with expertise in urbanism, landscape ecology, spatial analysis, and geocomputation. "It's very unusual that a university makes a major investment in geographic sciences the way ASU has done," says Mr. Anselin [Luc Anselin, founding director of the geography school and director of its GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis and Computation]. "I've never seen a geography department hire five full professors in one year."

About 20 years ago Mr. Turner sat next to me on a plane to an AAG meeting. Before he told me who he was, he extracted that I was a geographer and proceeded to test me on my ability to explain our discipline. I recall thinking that this was a very mean thing to do. I've gotten over it and might perhaps do the same to a newly minted graduate.

- Chronicle of Higher Education

Where are YouTube Video Watchers? Creators now know; can host LBS ads

Posted: March 27th, 2008, 12:18pm CET

Tags: google

The New York Times describes the new feature which allows video creators to learn when and where their creations are being watched. The program called YouTube Insight provides daily updates down to the state level in the U.S. and by country in the rest of the world. Geographic data is provided in thematic maps. No word yet that I've found on which is being used to determine location of the viewer, but there are many options.

The Times writer suggests the tool can be used as a pilot - to see where a band might be popular or if a political speech resonates in one area. Next up for YouTube, tools for creators to see from where on the Web watchers come.

IBM Invests in PostGreSQL

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 5:24pm CET

Tags: Open Source

For those who've not been following, Sun [corrected, originally said Oracle, oops] acquired MySQL, the folks behind the open source database, that among other things, supports spatial. Today word that IBM is part of a funding round for EnterpriseDB, one the big companies involved with PostgreSQL, another open source database. PostGIS adds spatial functionality to PostgreSQL.

via SlashdotI

Pitney Bowes Head Plans Growth for MapInfo

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 1:52pm CET

Tags: MapInfo

Martin Murray, PB's CEO said the acquisition went without a hitch and pointed out the company was surprised by the talent it acquired, pointing to Mike Hickey and Mark Cattini. More important the region, Murray sees MapInfo growing to $1 billion in revenue in the next four years. (In fiscal 2006, MapInfo had revenues of $165 million, per the Times-Union.)

- Business Journal Albany

High Court in Singapore Rejects Map Infringement Appeal

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 1:20pm CET

The High Court dismissed the appeal made by Virtual Map (VM) against a recent District Court judgment that said its maps were basically copies of those from the Singapore Land Authority (SLA).

VM hopes to appeal again, but the court stated the appeal did not sufficiently explain why VM's maps contained SLA fingerprints including "fake" buildings.

- The Business Times Asia

In an amusing twist both organizations are early users of SQL Server 2008, I guess for its spatial capabilities, thought that's not specifically mentioned in an article at HardwareZone.

Not the usual players competing for NZ DOJ/Te Puni Kokiri GIS

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 12:45pm CET

Tags: Open Source

"Oracle, Microsoft and open source look likely to fight it out for a GIS project to serve users in both the Justice Department and Te Puni Kokiri [New Zealand Government's principal adviser on the Crown's relationship with iwi, hapu and Maori]." The two groups are looking to work together on one set of requirements.

- Computerworld New Zealand

Chinese Government Cracks Down on Online Mapping Sites

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

China's Xinhua news agency reports that government feels that illegal mapping and GIS sites threaten state security and thus eight departments will keep a closer eye on them. Presumably, some will be shut down.

The State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping said there are some 10,000 such sites which show maps "without approval."

CBS/Loopt LBS Ads Get Positive Privacy Review

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: lbs

Eric Larkin at PC World agrees with Ari Schwartz, deputy director for the Center for Democracy and Technology: "--though they could do better--the companies are, for the most part, approaching this correctly."

What did they say the companies were doing right?

Here's how it will work, says Cyriac Roeding, executive vice president at CBS Mobile: First, you must opt in (sort of) by enabling the use of location-based services for purposes other than just emergency 911 on your phone. What such services will be called and the steps for allowing them will vary by handset and provider, but the setting will be general and won't mention ads.

If your carrier and you agree to use Loopt, the service will obtain location data from the phone, using cell tower triangulation instead of GPS. At first, only Sprint and Boost Mobile customers will get the service, via CBS Sports Mobile and CBS Mobile sites viewed in their phone's browser. Loopt substitutes a location-based advertisement (for a nearby eatery, say) in place of the potentially less-relevant ad that would otherwise appear on those pages.

Now for the privacy measures: Roeding says that the Loopt/CBS Mobile process won't associate phone location data with the user (by sending a phone number or account name with the location, for instance) and that the service won't save anyone's location data.

- Washington Post

SiRF Cuts, Stock Falls

Posted: March 25th, 2008, 10:57pm CET

Tags: gps

Expect upturns after the holidays in GPS sales never came and thus Tuesday GPS chip maker SiRF announced that it would lay off 7 percent of its 753 member workforce and close offices in South San Francisco and Stockholm, Sweden .

The company expects to report revenues of between $60 million to $62 million, compared to the prior expected range of $71 million to $77 million. A planned move into mobile TV will dropped. The market responded to the bad news: stock fell by about 27 percent to $5.00 by noon

- PC Magazine

DigitalGlobe Spinoff EarthMap Acquired by Monsanto

Posted: March 25th, 2008, 1:22pm CET

Tags: Remote Sensing

I just caught wind of this acquisition which occurred in January but was announced March 14. EarthMap owns the IP from Resource21 and serves the ag market with remote sensing technology. Several ex-DigitalGlobe employees launched EarthMap as a spinoff in 2004. Monsanto's been a customer of the 7 person shop and now owns the people and tech. Recall that another ag-focussed geo-biz, GeoVantage, went to John Deere in recent years.

- Boulder County Business

Quote of the Week

Posted: March 25th, 2008, 12:58pm CET

Tags: MapInfo

"Who's your customer? Who else is out there that you're competing with? What kind of budget do you have for marketing? What does your business plan say? You've got to do the homework and do the math."

- Devon Wolfe, managing director at MapInfo on questions to ask to use geotools to locate a businesses (I can attest that Devon did his homework in college; he was easily the top student in our geography department.)

- BusinessWeek

Study: Cell Phones can be used to Study Teen's Locations

Posted: March 25th, 2008, 12:48pm CET

Tags: Routing, Tracking, Logistics

The study was really about the feasibility of using cell phones to track teen girls to look at the impact of environment on health behaviors. I feel sure the researchers knew that cell phones could do tracking, with known limitations.

The results of a study by researchers from Indiana University School of Medicine, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, show that indeed girls 14- to 16-year-old girls will carry the phones. The pilot also showed one interested and unexpected thing: they were spending more time away from home, school and surrounding areas than anticipated.

- Science Daily

Getting Kids of the Couch with LBS

Posted: March 25th, 2008, 12:42pm CET

Tags: lbs

Interesting marketing for LocoMatrix: sell phone-based games to Mom and Dad that get junior off the couch and running around. Will it do for outdoor exercise what the Wii did for indoor activity?

- Springwise

Garmin Rumors

Posted: March 25th, 2008, 12:05pm CET

Tags: Navigation

Rumors are floating that Garmin may be entertaining a deal with Nokia for a nav device. The stock folks wonder if this is a sort of back up plan should the Nokia/NAVTEQ deal fail. Chin strokers suggest that if that and the TomTom/Tele Atlas deal fail, Garmin would be in a safe place.

- Seeking Alpha

Podcast: Google Map Edits, ESRI Dev Summit, RFID in the News

Posted: March 25th, 2008, 7:00am CET

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: google

Google's opened up "Point of Interest" editing to all. ESRI gives its third party developers new application development environments. China and Wal-Mart push the envelope on RFID. Our editors look at these developments and what they may mean to the geospatial community and beyond.

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.

What Happened to Head to Head Reviews?

Posted: March 24th, 2008, 7:46pm CET

The guy who I pretty much credit with getting me into this whole writing thing, Roopinder Tara, poses this question on his CAD Insider blog: "What Happened to Head to Head Reviews?"

I'm trying to remember the last effective GIS review, let alone comparative GIS review, I read. I do recall GovTech I believe doing one or more comparisons of desktop GIS (ArcView, MapInfo...) a while back. But since, there's very little reviewing at all.

Do we, as one commenter to the post suggests, not really need such reviews? Are they not really valuable? Can we blame the same issues the other commenters offer for the dearth of reviews of geospatial (especially high end desktop and server solutions)?

The Ultimate News Search Map

Posted: March 24th, 2008, 1:09pm CET

Tags: Local Search

It took a while to get here and many news sites and hackers have put together lesser implementations along the way, but Geosearch News is finally here.

MetaCarta's "demo" provides what may be the best geographic search tool for the largest changing digital data database of unstructured content on the planet. The site offers search by content and geography. And while at the smallest scales just AP and Reuters stories are offered, as you "zoom in" (either via map or keying in geography) more and more sources' stories appear on the map (some 1400 at last count). And, remember this is MetaCarta's "smart" geospatial searching, so it relies on extracting location information outside the first sentence and distinguishing Paris, France from Paris, Texas. It also know about "points of interest." That means each story can be "located" in more than one place. It also means that stories seemingly in unrelated geographies may pop up in a search.

I searched on my city, outside Boston and "run" hoping to find stories on running races in the last 24 hours. (You can set time parameters for up to month into the past.) I found a story from the Asbury Park Press (AP) about "State Police chief goes to Harvard." Why? The keyword "place" is noted as Kennedy School of Government as noted in this sentence: "The head of the New Jersey State Police, Col. Rick Fuentes, was among a select group of law enforcement professionals chosen for the Kennedy School of Government's Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety, a three-year working group that started this year." And, this sentence has the word "run": "Any time you run a major institution like the State Police, there is no question you have problems and concerns," Milgram said. "I hope Col. Fuentes and I will be measured against how we respond to those problems and concerns." In short, you need to be a good searcher to get what you want. But, that's true of any sort of search.

The source of each story is noted in the list of articles returned from a search. But sometimes those sources are quite cryptic such as "feeds.feedburner.com." I had to click through to the story to learn the source. Another challenge, be careful about searching too far back in time; some articles are "no longer available."One more challenge: there's limited help available - just an FAQ.

Still, there are some goodies hidden within! If you stay at the small scale and click on AP and Reuters articles, the full text appears in a new tab, in the app. And, there's a bonus with the AP/Reuters stories: every location in the article is put on a summary map called "Places in this Article" below which other stories from those wire services for those geographies appear. MetaCarta has a formal relationship with these wire services. Article from other sources, with which MetaCarta does not have such relationships, such as the New Jersey paper above, open in a new browser window without those goodies.

The app uses Google Maps as a front end, but any renderer could be used. Last time I saw it, it used Virtual Earth.

MetaCarta offers GeoSearch News to show off its technology and perhaps, to become the center of news searches. This is a quite powerful app, with lots of sources. Still, it takes some time to master.

ArcWeb Services: Renew Only at this Time

Posted: March 24th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: ESRI

Update 4/3/08: This is the official word from ESRI:

ESRI is restructuring its Web services program to reflect our new technology and the relationships we are creating with a number of new technology partners. We are basically shifting our focus from geo-services for developers (the ArcWeb vision based on ArcIMS) to geo-services focused on helping ArcGIS end users and developers (based on ArcGIS Server). We will continue supporting ArcWeb users and the platform into the future, but we are shifting our emphasis to ArcGIS Server. Most people will see this as a kind of technology upgrade to a more modern platform for the Web 2.0 environment.

The new services are called ArcGIS Online and are already being used externally by ArcGIS Desktop users and as a foundation for ArcGIS Explorer. These services are divided into core services that are free to our desktop, explorer and server users, and premium services that will be priced similar to ArcWeb.

Regarding existing application operations built on ArcWeb, we will continue supporting the existing ArcWeb platform and customers for several years, while at the same time introducing new opportunities with the ArcGIS Server platform at 9.3. Existing customers can renew their ArcWeb Services subscription and buy more credits. New users can contact ESRI Professional Services to explore whether they wish to use ArcWeb or ArcGIS to develop their solutions. Our Professional Services division was involved in the ArcWeb Services implementations and will continue to build solutions on that platform.

The ArcGIS 9.3 platform will introduce many new and exciting opportunities. Further details will be provided as we complete this transition.

Update 4/1/08: ESRI replied to my query of 3/24/08 today saying essentially, "we'll get back to you."

Continue reading "Update 2: ArcWeb Services: Renew Only at this Time"

What if you held a SQL Server Spatial webinar and no one knew about it?

Posted: March 24th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: microsoft

Jithen Singh's mention of TODAY's live "Map Your Data With Microsoft SQL Sever 2008 Spatial Features" webinar put on by Microsoft gave me pause. I'd not seen anything about it until this post. It bothered me since I'm supposed to know what's going on! I read the geo blogs daily and I would think I'd have seen it. Maybe I don't read the right blogs?

A quick search of Google (Web and blogs) shows ONLY Singh's post noting it. A search using MSN live (Web and feeds) turns up just the event listing in an MSN feed.

Perhaps it's an oddity of the Web? Perhaps Microsoft didn't want the world to know about the live event? (Anyone, it seems can register, so long as they have a LiveID.) Maybe they want most folks to watch the replay? Perhaps Microsoft is still shoring up communications for SQL Server Spatial?

Wikinear: Service to Find POIs Near You

Posted: March 24th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: lbs

Wikinear is a service, not a content site. It uses FireEagle to pass along your location (via whatever tech is used), along with other Goodies (Wikipedia, Oath, GeoNames, Google Maps) to return 5 POIs from Wikipedia to you. Since FireEagle is still in beta many won't be able to use it yet.

Still the functionality is not so different from one of the winners in Mobile Rules (Nokia's dev contest):

Best Application - Infotainment:
Earthcomber. These guys are working on ways to exploit GPS technology in mobile phones. Their winning entry involved a partnership with the Travel Channel where a visitor to Chicago could choose to be informed of attractions and sites around his or her current location.

Local Matters Betas GuideSpot

Posted: March 24th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Just about a year ago I noted in my review of our Location Intelligence Conference 2007 that LocalMatter's LocalGuides.com would launch "soon." Well it did. It was renamed Guidespot, and entered beta about three weeks ago. (I know timeframes are slippy!)

What is it? "a user-friendly multi-media publishing platform for producing user-generated local guides." Yes it has maps, but they are not the main focus. The main focus is someone in the know guiding you in a topic or location. Warms my heart - sounds a lot like when I was an editor (guide?) at TenLinks.

Update: Original headline, "Local Matter Betas Guidespot" was laughed at, quite appropriately. Hence I cleaned it up.

Podcast: Maps in the News and News in Maps - A Conversation with Amy Gahran

Posted: March 22nd, 2008, 11:04pm CET

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: google

Adena Schutzberg speaks with Amy Gahran, a conversational media consultant and content strategist based in Boulder, CO about maps and the media. The conversation ranges from how to pitch map-focused stories to the press to how to best serve journalists in this technology age. Schutzberg and Gahran also point out some "boo-boos" they've found and highlight great uses of maps in the media. This podcast runs nearly 30 minutes and was recorded March 13, 2008.

Buy A Tree; Get KML

Posted: March 21st, 2008, 1:20pm CET

Tags: google

Remember the Star Registry? You pay a fee and get a star named after you. The deliverable is a certificate with the star's location. It's been offered as a gift for major occasions. Well, now there's a better, more earthly option. The World Wildlife Fund offers the chance to buy a sapling to be planted in the Sebangau National Forest in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia and in return, get a KML file of its location. It's called mybabytree.org.

Says Leslie Rule:

While the idea is great, the execution brilliant (JWT did the creative), the social good unassailable, what makes this unlike any online donation site is the process that connects the donor with the tree. Once the tree is planted, it is a given a number, geo-tagged with lat/long coordinates, and located in a Google Earth kmz file, which is then sent to the donor.

via MediaShift

Quote of the Week

Posted: March 21st, 2008, 12:33pm CET

"I guess it would mean the difference between listening to a story on the radio and seeing it on television."

Emergency Operations Center director Richard Smith on the old way of tracking storm related issues as a list of addresses on a whiteboard vs to seeing them, geocoded on a GIS created map. The center typically serves Leon County and Tallahassee but was put to work recently when a tornado hit Capitola, FL earlier this month. The system was joint effort of the city, county and contributions of ESRI.

- Tallahassee.com

Brookings Models All of Us

Posted: March 21st, 2008, 12:00pm CET

What if you wanted to model the spread of say a disease across the current world population of 6.7 billion people? Think it can be done? It can, by the Large-Scale Agent Model, which resides at the Brookings Institution's Center on Social and Economic Dynamics. It was developed with guidance of the Homeland Security Department's National Center for the Study of Preparedness and Catastrophic Event Response at Johns Hopkins University.

The cool part: the model includes factors like age and gender and how individuals are dispersed geographically. It even models the daily commute! Check out video of it in action in a GovExec article. They show the spread of a disease and a toxic release. (Those seem to be favorites these days).

ESRI History Talk

Posted: March 21st, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: ESRI

From the Redlands Daily Facts, this talk is set for next Monday:

"Jack P. Dangermond and the History of ESRI" is the program when the Redlands Area Historical Society meets, 7 p.m. in the Assembly Room at the A.K. Smiley Public Library, 125 W. Vine St.

Google Storm Surge Warning Tool Ahead

Posted: March 21st, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: google

The director of the National Hurricane Center described a soon to be released tool where those fearing flooding from a surge caused by hurricane need only visit Google and key in an address for a prediction of the impact of the event.

Bill Read, the new head of the U.S. forecasting center describes the tool as a mix of data and Google apps (I'm guess maps?).

The plan is to have the app up and running by the coming Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.

- Reuters (via WebProNews)

Live Video + GPS = Seero

Posted: March 20th, 2008, 2:28pm CET

Tags: lbs

The offering was announced at the New Tech Meetup last night. Seero per Rafe Needleman, "lets you broadcast live from a Webcam or record shows for later playback. But it also records location and syncs it to video. That opens up some new capabilities for video producers and for advertisers." It's not really aimed at consumers, but productions shops for things like sports. The business model is not yet available, but clearly this is another set of content for the local advertiser to explore.

- Webware

Insiders: TomTom/TA likely a go; Nokia/NAVTEQ will be scrutinezed

Posted: March 20th, 2008, 2:02pm CET

Forbes offers the details in a Thompson Financial report:

A legal source told Thompson the deal is a go and will likely clear before the May 5 deadline.

Analysts tell Thompson TomTom is still committed to the acquisition and is open to adjustments to make it happen.

Possible remedies to EU concerns, say an anonymous source, are likely to be proposed this week. One is setting up a third mapping company, perhaps from a Tele Atlas independent distributor to compete against TA and NAVTEQ.

The commission said that Nokia has not offered "remedies" about concerns over its acquisition of NAVTEQ. That means that the EU must either approve the deal "as is" or further investigate. Legal sources say an inquiry is expected.

Quote of the Week

Posted: March 20th, 2008, 1:31pm CET

Tags: google

"I have tabled a motion asking that Derry City Council write to Google asking that they upgrade the coverage available in the North West of the island [Ireland]. Images are available in far greater detail for other parts of Ireland and the United Kingdom and I hope the council will support my call for Google to take steps to upgrade the images available in the North West as soon as they can."

- SDLP councillor, Martin Reilly, of Derry

(sorry lost original source, but it's mentioned in this BBC article, and it's noted in council agenda [doc])

Update: Found the original post at the Derry Journal.

Microsoft Opens Up Flight Simultor Dev Platform; VE Inetergration to Come?

Posted: March 19th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: microsoft

GCN reports that moving to such a kit, called Flight Simulator ESP, aimed at real simulation, not just games, took quite some time as the source data used needed to be relicensed. Licensing is relatively "cheap" with the dev kit running at $99, and client licenses at $799. Full simulators run $15 -20 million.

The potential futures are most interesting for geospatial and BIM:

Microsoft is already planning to expand ESPs simulation capabilities, so we might see a host of other affordable simulation products reach market soon. In 2009, the company plans to release ESP 2.0, which will include ground capabilities for missions by trucks, tanks and other vehicles. In 2011, ESP 3.0 is projected to introduce support for maritime scenarios and building interiors.

Another promising avenue being explored is integration with Microsoft Virtual Earth. Virtual Earth has real data, but they dont have the experiential side of it, said McCahill, whose team has already done some work with Virtual Earth and developed demonstrations he described as impressive.

We have done the work to prove it can be done, he said. We are taking the real data and making it very interactive.

McCahill said he hopes integration with Virtual Earth might be possible in the next version, though I dont want to commit to that because it takes two teams.

MapQuest Offers Inrix Traffic

Posted: March 19th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: Traffic

Mapquest is slowly adding on the missing pieces to its online mapping service.

- MapQuest Blog

Google: Anyone Can Edit Google Maps Biz Data

Posted: March 18th, 2008, 2:24pm CET

Tags: google

Update (via Bill): Official word from Google Lat/Lon Blog.

From Search Engine Land:

Yesterday Google told us that users will now be able to edit any of the details about a business or location or add new businesses even if they're not the business owner. The capability doesn't appear to be live yet however.

Greg Sterling asked about malicious intent (you have to register, so Google will know if you did something bad, ideally) and changes to search results. He also notes, with no supporting figures: "Google has had enormous success, for example, with its My Maps product on a global basis since it was introduced in April, 2007." I'm curious about that since I've not heard anything from anyone on its usage.

CNN: Wall Street Wary of TA/NAVTEQ Acquisitions

Posted: March 18th, 2008, 1:59pm CET

Tags: Geospatial business

CNN Money reports that both pending acquisitions of Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ have "lost their bearings." NAVTEQ's stock is trading almost $10 below the $78 per share offer from Nokia.

Yesterday was the deadline for TomTom to respond to EU questions about the acquisition. What did the EU ask?

Whether:

(1) TomTom and Tele Atlas would keep sensitive information from rival GPS customers confidential,
(2) Tele Atlas would provide TomTom competitors inferior maps,
(3) the combination created efficiencies otherwise unattainable.

The article goes on to note that what happens with TomTom/TA will likely impact Nokia/NAVTEQ and that the drop in stock prices suggests Wall Street is wary.

LightPole - another Web app to Mobile App Solution

Posted: March 18th, 2008, 12:41pm CET

Tags: lbs

LightPole is another company offering a solution to do the work of taking your Web app and making it available with geo-context, on a cell phone. It's akin on first look to uLocate's WHERE platform in my mind, but the Industry Standard says it competes with: "Where, ULocate, Google Maps and Yahoo Local, which is also one of the partners. In the future, services such as Yahoos Fire Eagle and Googles Android phones are to compete in the same space." I don't think Fire Eagle or Android are competitors, as far as I understand them.

How does it work? From the Industry Standard:

The software is a kind of translation service. LightPoles customers put a Java-based widget on a web site. Users click on the widget, which looks like a mobile phone, so that they can load a mobile version of that sites services onto a cell phone. Users type in their phone numbers, enter confirmation codes, download the application.

LightPole is announcing a bunch of partners today, including Yelp, Hotspotr, Mappy Hour, Yahoo Local, Zvents, The Bathroom Diaries, Gables and Fables, and Platial Mobile Map.

More good news for LightPole: $1.7 million first round of capital from Alloy Ventures and Stanford University was announced today.

Old Poll, New Poll

Posted: March 18th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Samborski on GITA 2008

Posted: March 18th, 2008, 7:40am CET

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: gita 2008

Just after the final session was held at GITA's Annual Conference, Executive Director Bob Samborski sat down with Editor-in-chief Joe Francica to review the association's new emphasis on infrastructure and its special track dedicated to emergency response. Samborski shared his thoughts on how the change affected this year's event planning and the conscious effort to highlight the importance that GITA members bring to solving the challenges brought on by the world's aging gas, water, electric and telecommunication utilities.

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Why is Imperial News Reviewing Maptitude?

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 7:25pm CET

I really don't know why Imperial Valley News reviewed the new version of Maptitude. The review, titled "Maptitude Software - Exceeds Expectations - Product Review," gives me pause. It's quite vague and it does not sound like the reviewers did much more than open the box (to find out how many pages were in the tutorial) and read the website. Maptitude is just the third software product to be reviewed since mid-2007 and it sure doesn't sound like the "Test Bench" team knows much about GIS.

The publication has no "about" page, but does seem to be related to several local news sites. Those sites seem to re-purpose video from other sites and host Google ads.

Outside.in Uses FireEagle for "Facebook feed applied to geo"

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 3:11pm CET

Tags: Yahoo

Some interesting tidbits came out of the discussion between Stephen Johnson CEO of outside.in, a hyperlocal news site, and Henry Jenkins at SXSW (South by Southwest, the tech/music/arts event held in Austin last week) Jenkins is Co-Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT.

"[outside.in CEO] Johnson took the opportunity to describe his recent project: Our project, Outside.in, is trying to build out the infrastructure for the geographic web. The fear in the 1990s is that no one would want to live in a city again because of the digital revolution, but the opposite has been true. The Internet is actually an urban location enhancing device. At the level of neighborhood and community, people care passionately about what is happening. People have a lot of expertise, a great deal of interest, and that zone is completely uncovered by traditional media."

"We built Outside.in as a service to help people see those conversations and use geotagging tools to tag different aspects of neighborhoods, Johnson expanded. Were about to launch on my radar, which is basically the Facebook newsfeed applied to geography. Weve been working with Yahoo and their new location technology Fire Eagle. It lets you enter your location and get back all the conversations happening within a certain radius. You can zoom out to see the whole neighborhood, the city, etc. So new tools can amplify what local experts on the ground have been doing traditionally by word of mouth."

- Gamasutra

CBS Offers Local News to Local Bloggers

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 2:01pm CET

The goal is to get more eyeballs on the U.S. television network's local news content. CBS will allow bloggers and hyperlocal news websites to offer up video on their sites, along with ads. The hosting sites get a cut of the ad revenue. Three sites have signed up thus far - all all Boston focused. Their links open a new window to show video or articles from WBZ TV's website. It's unclear if the ads will necessarily be local, but you'd think they would. On the three sites banner ads accompanied the "box" of local news links. Then when you click through, you see more ads.

I wonder if the content is tagged further than "WBZ offers Boston news," so hyperlocal sites can say put it on the map? I'm thinking specifically of EveryBlock as I pose that question.

Here are the local stations CBS owns that provide content.

-Silicon Insider

Infotech Enterprises Signs on for another Multiyear Contract with Tele Atlas

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 1:57pm CET

Tags: Geospatial business

That's about all that's known about the latest contract with the Indian company.

- Thompson Financial

Quote of the Week

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 1:18pm CET

"As we observe Sunshine Week, it is appropriate to explore new and different ways to lift more publicly funded data from file drawers and individual agency computers and into the light of cyberspace."

- Editorial in The Shreveport Times(Louisiana) stumping for GIS for that region

It is indeed Sunshine Week.

Sunshine Week is a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know.

Neighborhood Issues Challenge Boston 911 Response

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: lbs

A recent 911 call in Boston had responders head to the right address, but in the wrong neighborhood of the city. [Corrected to reflect that the error did not result in a fatality, as I originally suggested. 3/18] Boston has neighborhoods - they are formal, with real known boundaries - but still such things happen. So, until the whole thing is straightened out, when a "serious emergency" (crime in progress or act of violence) call comes in, responders will be dispatched to every such address in every neighborhood.

The event that triggered the change:

The caller told a 911 operator Sunday morning that the homicide occurred at 689 Washington St. Instead of sending police to Dorchester, the operator gave them the same address in Downtown Crossing. Officers ended up at a Malaysian restaurant two blocks from Boston Common and about 7 miles from the scene of the homicide.

The article in the Boston Globe suggests that the phone company did not code the wired line phone to the neighborhood and perhaps should. It further notes that ZIP Codes and exchanges (the second three numbers in the full phone number) can identify neighborhoods.

Leica Geosystems is Agile

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

I was listening to a Very

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