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Podcast: Outdoor Gear Purveyor REI Presents on the Company's New User-generated Maps Campaign

Posted: August 22nd, 2008, 12:33am CEST

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: lbs

REI's Rico Simpkins, Online Community Development Manager, speaks about the past, present and future of REI. Up until now, REI's Internet presence has been merchandise-based. REI's new goal is to bring the community they foster in their stores, to the Web, part of which is getting users to share vacation information such as user-generated maps of their travels. In Rico's words, he wants to develop an "online" community that gets people "offline."
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Ed. Note: The Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Group is about sharing, teaching, learning and networking around current and future Web-based geospatial and social networking applications and technology. The group meets regularly on the third Tuesday evening of every month at Google in Silicon Valley, CA. Back Five Productions and Endpoint Environmental LLC are the producers of the Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Meetup Group podcasts, which are sponsored by Directions Media.

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

GPS Impacts to the Portable Device Market: An Update

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 10:10pm CEST

Tags: gps

I attended a webinar today conducted by Park Associates on how GPS is influencing the portable device market and specifically the personal navigation device (PND) market. As we are constantly being asked how big any particular segment of the geospatial and LBS martkets are, I wanted to share some of their insights with you:
Continue reading "GPS Impacts to the Portable Device Market: An Update"

What Level of Detail Do You Want to See from Maps in the Media? Take the poll...

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 9:01pm CEST

CNN lead the way with fairly substantial usage of Google Maps during the U.S. presidential primary elections. With the general election coming up, how can the news media make it better? More geographic detail? More real-time information? Take the poll at our new Map Hawk blog.

Olympic BMX Course in 3D

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 7:20pm CEST

Tags: media & maps

We had a reader ask if any of the AEgis Technologies 3D models of the Olympic venues had actually been shown during the broadcasts because they had not seen any so far. Scott Allman from AEgis provides this response:
Continue reading "Olympic BMX Course in 3D"

Autodesk U.S. "Sale"

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 3:15pm CEST

Tags: Autodesk

Ralph Grawbowski explains the why. The details are here. AutoCAD Map 3D is on the list; MapGuide Enterprise is not.

Multimap Execs Take on Top Roles at Microsoft

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 3:03pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Recall that Microsoft acquired UK mapping company Multimap last December. Back in May, Multimap B2C General Manager Jim Cruickshank was appionted Microsoft EMEA director of mapping, local and shopping. Word today that Multimap CEO Jeff Kelisky hs been tapped to be General Manager of a new Commercial Search unit, which covers Live Search cashback, MSN Shopping, local, consumer mapping, Virtual Earth and mobile. It's beginning to look like Microsoft grabbed Multimap as much for its tech and data as for its people.

- Paid Content via Washington Post

Junk Mail Mashup Reveals Rebuilding in New Orleans

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 2:52pm CEST

Tags: google

AdAge explains how Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (GNOCDC) is using "junk mail" to help map where the current residents of New Orleans reside. The nonprofit GNOCDC has been working with Valassis Communications' owner of the RedPlum direct-mail operation. Red Plum sends out basically nationwide mailings each month. By luck the company had a 2005 data with which to compare the current state of mailing addresses today. The data is being used to use funds for rebuilding and has saved quite a lot in manual surveys of "who is where."

GNOCDC has linked the data to a Google Map (James Fee and Co worked on this, per a tweet yesterday; I didn't follow up then because he noted a publication called "Adage," of which I'd not heard!). Also of note: Valassis provided much of the data at cost and the historic data and consulting gratis.

Bottom line:

Overall, the Valassis data indicates New Orleans had 146,174 households receiving mail in June 2008, still down 28% from the 203,457 receiving mail in June 2005, two months before the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane and resulting flood.

via Wired blog

Want Turn by Turn Directions on iPhone?

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 2:33pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

C|net asks. Thus far: "yes." Mostly, I think they are looking for conspiracy stories about why we don't yet have that feature. The license forbids it, though no one knows quite why.

Geography and Politics Matter

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 2:14pm CEST

Alaska Senator Ted Steven's bid to move his trial on 7 counts of making false statements regarding financial disclosure forms will not be held in his state to make things easier for witnesses. Instead, they'll be traveling to Washington DC for the trial. Stevens hoped to limit their inconvenience and make it easier for himself as he campaigns for yet another term as US Senator. Geography mattered in the sense that jury tainting was possible if the trial was held in Alaska. Stevens lawyers pointed out the 4,200 mile driving distance to DC , but federal judges didn't budge.

- LA Times

Baltimore County Save $4M Annually with GIS

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

That's what Gov Tech reports based on "a strategic business plan focusing on determining the return on investment and use of Baltimore County's GIS" done by Dewberry.

Web Mapping Ok, but Help?

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

After the discussion of the Morris County GIS site that many found slow and complex to use, I was pleased to see the announcement of one for Thomson-McDuffie (that's a city and county in Georgia). I needed no help in using it; it was very GIS geek friendly and I hope regular person friendly. My one concern: there's no help I could find (in Safari).

- McDuffie Mirror

RFID in Hospitals: Not Just for Equipment Tracking

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: rfid

"Trends in RFID 2008" a study by Spyglass Consulting Group, is based on 100 telephone interviews with IT professionals and medical staff at hospitals with 300 or more beds. It shows much increased use of RFID within hospitals since a previous report done in 2005. The takeaway from a PC World article on the study to me is this:

The payback no longer is simply being able to find medical equipment including wheelchairs. Increasingly, wireless identification and location data is being used to streamline and repair a range of healthcare workflows and business processes.

Photosynth Open to All

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 4:12am CEST

Tags: microsoft

Microsoft's Web service for stitching photos together to make 3D scenes is now available to anyone. Just upload the images and "synth" them. Users are granted 20 GB of space (more if your synths are "cool"). The Photosynth site offers the chance to learn about the technology, view synths and create your own.

- C|net

GeoEye Delays SEC Filing to Restate Earnings

Posted: August 20th, 2008, 4:39pm CEST

Tags: Remote Sensing

Last week, GeoEye announced that they had to restate earnings for 2005, 2006, 2007 and the first quarter of 2008 due "a detailed study analyzing its tax accounting methods in which the Company discovered that it had not correctly included cost-share payments received from the U.S. Government under the NextView program in its taxable income," according to a press release issued by the company. Now comes word that the filing will be delayed further because "additional time is required to re-calculate the proper interim period allocations of the penalties and interest related to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's (NGA) milestone cost-sharing payments made to the company under the terms of the Government's NextView contract," again according to information released by GeoEye. The news has tempered that company's stock price which had been on the rise due to the upcoming launch of GeoEye-1 on September 4.

The Michael Phelps of GIS Award Winners

Posted: August 20th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: ESRI UC 08

That'd be Qatar which took home six honors at the ESRI User Conference. Oddly the local paper noted they were for "Satellite Mapping." One was the Enterprise Application Award; several others were from the Map Gallery.

- The Peninsula

Off Topic: for PR folks

Posted: August 20th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

What brands are Twittering? What are they saying? The answer is on quick look is that few GIS brands are (I know NAVTEQ does). Here's a brand index where you can examine those using Twitter. And you can add your organization, as well. It's an informal list; Twitter does not offer an official one

via For Immediate Release

How VARs Pick a Good Vendor: Look for GIS

Posted: August 20th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Location Intelligence

ChannelWeb reviews a presentation by MarketStar at XChange '08 aimed at helping VARs pick vendors with good channel management. #3 was:

3. Investigate whether the vendor uses Geographic information systems (GIS) to assist in analyzing sales data. When that information is plotted, special patterns become apparent. Relationships, patterns and trends are revealed in the form of maps, globes, reports and charts. That way, vendors can keep tabs on sales cannibalization of a region. Further, by eliminating channel partners who do not contribute to a regions growth, vendors can maximize the productive VARs' sales potential and increase their revenue.

Good suggestion. Perhap vendors would acknowledge that they do use GIS; I don't expect they'd share that info with their channel however.

Cass County, Indiana Not Ok with Sharing Parcel Data with State

Posted: August 20th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

The Cass County commissioners said "no" to the Indiana Geological Survey in response to a request for access to its parcel data. The article confuses me since at one point it says it'll cost $7000/year for the county to pay for the Web software: "for setting up and maintaining the Web-based technology." A grant would cover two years.

At another point the article says the state wants a copy. "It is always the citizens of your county who own that information," [State GIO Jim] Sparks said. "We're asking for a copy of it." The former implies (to me) the county serving up its own data (that would have a cost). The latter implies (to me) the state would take a copy (which would have a limited, if small, cost).

From what I read at the IndianaMap site actual copies of the vector data are hosted at the The Indiana Geological Survey, so it is a copy. The "Web-based technology" is elsewhere described as "data transfer technology."

The unfortunate part of this story (and many parallel ones) is that it's still tough to convince the data providers of the benefit of sharing.

- Pharos-Tribune via TMCNet

Tidbit from Sam Altman, Loopt CEO

Posted: August 20th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Social Networking

This from an interview at MocoNews:

- "Location is the defining element in mobile..."

- Advertisers pay an average of 10 times more for ads that have a location-relevant component too, he said.

- The iPhones not where most of our users are coming from

Open Source Text Books

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 6:04pm CEST

Tags: education

Slashdot highlights an LA Times front page story about professors dumping traditional text in favor of open source and non-free online texts.

We are doing that at Penn State Online Masters in GIS. So far, two texts are open source: Open Web Mapping (updated URL per course author comment below) and The Nature of Geographic Information. I'm working to open source my course (Comparative GIS) for Winter quarter.

Garmin to Support uLocate's WHERE

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 2:25pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

No word yet on which of Garmin's devices (the nuvifone?) might support the platform and its apps (GasBuddy, Yelp, etc.)

- C|net

Moose, Court Case and Denali Boundary

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 1:39pm CEST

Fifty-two year old Jeff King is famous because he won the Iditerod in 2006. Now he's famous because he's on trial for killing a moose, allegedly in Denali National Park. That's illegal for those who are not subsistence users.

The big issue at this point in the trial is where the park boundary is and how it's marked.
Continue reading "Moose, Court Case and Denali Boundary"

Non-Geo Person Reviews MapInfo

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: MapInfo

Trudy Walsh reviewed MapInfo 9.5 in GCN. Walsh makes it clear she's not a GIS person:

"As a casual map aficionado, I found MapInfo fun to work with after I had mastered a few simple file opening techniques."

Some of her comments confused me.

"This version of MapInfo has taken great pains to work in an open source way with as many other kinds of files, systems and software as possible. "

"It also gives you access to the Open Geospatial Consortiums Web Feature Service, a service offered by an international standards consortium that lets clients retrieve and update geospatial data encoded in Geography Markup Language. "

She ended up giving MapInfo 9.5 an "A" for performance, an "A" for features and a "C+" for ease of use. I'm guessing the last score is in comparison to Google Earth, the only other product mentioned. My comparative GIS students who have done projects with MapInfo all pointed to its ease of use as one of its strengths.

GIS Person Wins Gold in Discus!

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Stephanie Brown Trafton of Galt, California threw the discus 212-feet, 5-inches to win the gold medal. In real life Tafton "has worked for Sycamore Environmental Consultants Inc. of Sacramento for the past two years in project management and CAD/GIS analysis."

Cool!

- Central Valley Business Times

Spaghetti Map of Hurricane Models

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

That's what AppScout calls this map from Weather Underground. It just goes to show we have lots of models, that don't all agree!

Virtual Alabama Wins 5th Award; Is it being replicated?

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

We had the folks behind Virtual Alabama at our Rocket City Geospatial event last year. The app was impressive as was the path to creating it. The big issue for me was "great, let's repeat this!" I've not heard of any states following suit, but awards are nice.

- WAAYTV

Surrey, Maker of Mini-Satellites, Comes to Denver

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Remote Sensing

The company plans to employ up to 250 people over the next few years, mostly in engineering and satellite manufacturing work.
For now there are four in a small Douglas County office. As it does in the UK, the company plans to build communications and observation satellites for commercial and government customers. Airbus-maker European Aeronautic Defence & Space recently formalized plans to acquire Surrey.

- Rocky Mountain News

Podcast: Why is Autodesk Up in a Down Economy?

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 8:00am CEST

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: google

Our editors ponder Autodesk's quarterly expectation-beating revenues. The company reported solid growth around the world even as gas and food costs remain high. Just what is the company doing right and what can we extrapolate to geospatial companies in particular? Also, a look at Autodesk's recent acquisition of 3D, standards focused company in Germany.

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Read the show notes

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

Watch your words - US Patent office is giving out trademarks!

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 9:23pm CEST

A word update:

cloud computing - Dell wanted a trademark. US Patent Office said no because the term is descriptive and generic.
- Sam Johnston

hyperlocal - HelloMetro got a trademark on that!
- Search Engine Watch

UMass with our without geographic reference?

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 5:05pm CEST

Tags: education

Faculty and alumnae of UMass are hopeful the a new chancellor, Robert Holub will consider removing the Amherst from the main campus' name: University of Massachusetts-Amherst. The school has several other sites: Boston, Worcester (Med Center), Dartmouth and Lowell. The idea is to make the flagship campus more "flaghshippy," raise the profile, make it seem less of a commuter school, and bring more resources. Those on the other side suggest that having the geographic references makes all the campuses equal. They are not, of course, since you can only study medicine in Worcester. The other issue, for me, a long time Baystater, is that Amherst is way far away from the center of the Massachusetts population and action: Boston. That's fine; I think it's great to get students out of the city so they are not distracted (State College, PA anyone?)

I just don't want anyone from out of state thinking they are coming to Boston if they attend the main campus. Alas, Amherst is not as famous at State College. Besides, college names offer a great way to learn geography. As kid I had to look up this odd place called Miami of Ohio. And I love that there's UNC-Chapel Hill; what a nice mental picture. And, I've learned that it's the University of Alabama in (not at, no hyphen) Huntsville. No, keep the Amherst.

- Boston Globe

Advertising on Microsoft's Maps

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 2:59pm CEST

Tags: microsoft

Helen Leggatt at Biz Report summarizes two existing and one "in testing" ad program for Virtual Earth.

NetImperative reports on pan-Asian restaurant Wagaaama's, new ad campaign on Multimap.

Old Poll, New Poll

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Poll

I hoped to prove we've got lots of Apple users reading the blog, but I was proven wrong by our small set of responders (35).

On what type of hardware are you reading this blog?

A Mac or something from Apple 6%
Another type of hardware 95%

Next up: Your take on the cloud... vote on the lower right hand side of our main page.

Off Topic: Teachable Moments at the Olympics

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Yes, I watch the Olympics. I have for many years. When I was young I spent too much time in the North Suburban YMCA's pool which lead to the poster of Mark Spitz in my bedroom back in '72. (True story: My grandmother once stayed over in my room and woke up frightened there was "a naked man" in her room.) In college, it was all about rowing. I even knew the names of women and in the eights and fours. Now, I'm a runner and I'm tuned in to track and field. This spring I arranged my training so I could finish my Sunday run at the Charles River to watch Deena Kastor win the women's marathon Olympic Trials, held the day before the Boston Marathon. But I'm also older, now 44. So, I pay special attention when they note Dara Torres is 41 or that marathon winner Constantina Tomescu Dita of Romania is 38. The point I keep hoping the commentators will make about at least some of the athletes is that in addition to being fit, they are smart.
Continue reading "Off Topic: Teachable Moments at the Olympics"

Adrian Holovaty and EveryBlock Profiled

Posted: August 18th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

It's in the Chicago Tribune. The company is based in the Windy City.

Analyst: Turn by turn directions on iPhone in 3 Months

Posted: August 15th, 2008, 4:21pm CEST

Tags: Apple

MSNBC has a look at the state of turn by turn directions on the iPhone (there are none yet) and highlights that their may soon be some from the usual suspects - Garmin, TomTom, Magellan and perhaps Apple. How soon?

Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies market analysts, said in talking to some of the guys in the software community, they believe well see voice turn-by-turn directions within the next three months for the iPhone, and certainly "before the end of the year.

More Crime Maps for the UK-This time for London

Posted: August 15th, 2008, 4:19pm CEST

Undeterred by some of the feedback from the MyNeighbourhood application for West Midlands, London has launched a

Google-maps based crime map (see graphic at right). According to the Public Servant Daily, the application, developed by the Metropolitan Police, uses data provided by the Home Office. I think the one interesting item about this application is the emphasis on noting the increase or decrease of a particular crime. I wonder if that was done to allay some of the fears of reporting crimes in the first place as per the comments about West Midlands.

Open Source Legal Ruling Means Monetary Damages for Copyright Infringement

Posted: August 15th, 2008, 3:18pm CEST

Tags: Open Source

I saw this yesterday, but needed to find an explanation I understood before writing about. Thankfully, my favorite lawyer on IP issues, Andy Updegrove (I met him when I consulted to OGC and he spoke at Directions Media's Location Intelligence Conference in past years), is interviewed by Computerworld, so now I can explain it!

Here's the case:

Kam Industries used some open source code that allows train folks to program chips in model trains. The code was released un an Artistic License. That's not one I know much about - but it's OSI approved and has a copyright from the PERL Foundation. That license requires users to "give credit to the author, identify the original source of the files and describe how the new code has been changed, among other conditions."

The author of the code, Robert Jacobsen felt Kam Industries violated the terms and violated the software's copyright. A requested injunction to stop Kam from using the software was denied in US District Court. The news this week: the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned the ruling.

The big deal: when infringement happens, the infringee (the holder of the license) can argue copyright copyright infringement not just breach of contract. Why's that significant? Now to Mr. Updegrove:

That distinction is important, says Andy Updegrove, an attorney with Gesmer Updegrove LLP in Boston who studies licensing issues. Under contract law, the remedy is monetary damages, which aren't likely to amount to anything involving open-source software that is given away, Updegrove says.

However, statutory damages - money awarded for a violation of law - can be awarded for copyright infringement without requiring proof of monetary damages, Updegrove says. Also, people can recover attorney fees for copyright infringement cases, he says.

"And, most importantly for licences such as the GPL, it means that your rights to use the copyrighted work at all disappear," Updegrove says, referring to the General Public License, widely used for open source software.

Flash in Local Gov Websites

Posted: August 15th, 2008, 2:51pm CEST

One of the projects I assign my students is a report on a Web mapping format. They details its structure, how its used and demo an app that uses it. The Flash implementations they've found have always been in newspapers or other publicly facing sites and the apps were rather "simple."

So, I was pleased to see the local paper touting an update to the Morris County, NJ mapping site. While the article doesn't mention any technology, the client side is Flash; I can't be sure of the back end. It's a quite complex app, the kind I've not seen implemented in Flash. It must be pretty slick; it was named site of the day by Adobe earlier this year. Do be warned: you may need to read the help to use the site!

Contest Winner for "Help Us Cover ESRI UC" Announced

Posted: August 15th, 2008, 2:34pm CEST

Tags: ESRI UC 08

Thanks to all of you who submitted entries for our contest asking your help in covering the ESRI User Conference. We received a number of interesting submissions on topics including Landsat, the GeoWeb, 3D, crashes, the geodatabase and how to make the conference more appealing, Thanks to Dana, Sik, Greg, Andrew, and many others for their efforts.

The winner penned a well-written piece on a corner of the conference that wasn't covered elsewhere. Here's what Lynn Rosentrater, a research fellow in Geography at the University of Oslo, saw that interested her. We'll be sending her iPod touch and she's accepted an invitation to write for us in the future.

Continue reading "Contest Winner for "Help Us Cover ESRI UC" Announced"

Maps of Georgia (or lack thereof) Cause Google to Scramble; Use Virtual Earth

Posted: August 14th, 2008, 8:34pm CEST

Tags: Politics and Mapping

Where's the street map of the Republic of Georgia? Some media outlets are crying foul as Google scrambles to explain why they did not have any maps of the war-torn region. You can get satellite images for sure but the road detail is vacant. So, don't go searching for detail around Tbilisi or Gori. Miguel Helft, writing in the New York Times, interviews folks at Google who say simply that they never had very good coverage in this region and did not intentionally remove any data.

Not so for Yahoo Maps. Road data on Yahoo does exist but looks no better than the old 1:100,000 Defence Mapping Agency (now NGA) maps so it, too, is somewhat incomplete. Zooming to street level will show that neither Yahoo nor Google has any coverage.

But the winner is Microsoft Virtual Earth. Now, whether this was done recently, only they know for sure, but the road detail is excellent. Perhaps folks from the VE group can chime in here.

I would not put this all on Google, Yahoo or Microsoft. Politically sensitive regions have little detail. Take the disputed region of Kashmir. It has great satellite imagery (almost too good) but no road data. And the imagery is spotty. For an interesting example, use this link to a KMZ file of Skardu, a small town in Pakistan, very close to the border with India. The imagery is extraordinary but don't pan away too far or you will lose the higher resolution image.

MAPPS Reports Meeting Attendees (and their guests) Preferences in U.S. Election: Why?

Posted: August 14th, 2008, 4:46pm CEST

MAPPS reports (press release) the results of two polls taken at its recent meeting.

Senator John McCain topped Senator Barack Obama by an overwhelming 76% to 24% margin in a poll of MAPPS members conducted July 19-23.
...
McCain was also the choice in a poll of spouses, guest and others attending the MAPPS 2008 summer meeting. In a poll open to all conference attendees, McCain led Obama by a 64% to 36% margin.

The interpretation:

"The MAPPS members clearly prefer Senator McCain based on his record on business issues, taxes, foreign policy and national defense," said MAPPS Executive Director John Palatiello. "The margin in the poll demonstrates that MAPPS members view the 2008 Presidential election as a clear choice."

How does this activity, and the choice to publicly not only share but formally release the results fit with its mission and goals?

MAPPS is the most politically active association in the geospatial community. The association features a full time government relations staff in Washington, DC, sponsors the MAPPS Political Action Committee (MAPPS PAC), and hosts a Federal Programs Conference in March of each year in which members of MAPPS visit Capitol Hill for meetings with some 300 members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

As a nonprofit, nonpartisan association organized under section 501(c)(6) of the Interal Revenue Code, MAPPS does not endorse any candidate or party. The poll was taken for informational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement nor an attempt to influence any members, voters or elections.

Per the release, MAPPS took a similar vote in 2004, where members picked Bush. I'm sure this is all on the up and up legally. Is it valuable to members to take and publish results of such polls? Is it valuable to those reading the PR? Is it just a fun way to get MAPPS in the news? (Nothing wrong with that!) Do other professional or industry groups take such polls and publish results?

Locating Where You Come From by Your Genes

Posted: August 14th, 2008, 2:45pm CEST

A paper in Current Biology (fee required) is reviewed in the New York Times. The bottom line: people from the same country tend to clump together in a map of their genetic make up. Thus, in theory: "it should be possible to devise a forensic test to tell which country in Europe an individual probably comes from, said Manfred Kayser, a geneticist at the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands."

The maps are most interesting.

via ScienceBlogs

Map Hawk on the Caucasus Crisis

Posted: August 14th, 2008, 4:01am CEST

Tags: media & maps

Follow the threads on the geopolitics of the Georgian-Russian crisis on the new Map Hawk blog by Joe Francica.

SOA or WOA...Which Do you Prefer?

Posted: August 13th, 2008, 11:49pm CEST

Do you know the difference between SOA and WOA? Services-oriented architecture and Web-oriented architecture. According to InformationWeek, SOA and WOA work at different layers of abstraction meaning that SOA works at a systems level layer that looks to implement business capabilities consumed by many applications; WOA is resource-oriented, has more limited services and focuses on data. The article provides the benefits and risks of each but argues that each are complimentary and not mutually exclusive in an enterprise architecture.

GeoEye-1 Launch Delayed Again...but only briefly

Posted: August 13th, 2008, 11:46pm CEST

Tags: Remote Sensing

The launch of GeoEye-1 from Vandenburg Air Force Base, originally scheduled for August 22, has been delayed to September 4. According to information released by GeoEye, "This added time is needed to allow for the positioning of resources to support receipt of down-range telemetry from the Delta II booster vehicle after launch and initial flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California."

Search Engine Watch: Microsoft Wins on Mapping Georgia Online

Posted: August 13th, 2008, 9:20pm CEST

Nathania Johnson at Search Engine Watch did due diligence and queried Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, Virtual Earth, Ask and AOL and found that Microsoft has the most information and can geocode key cities like Tskhinvali.

ESRI Developer on Google Geoblog

Posted: August 13th, 2008, 3:25pm CEST

Tags: google

Sterling Quinn from ESRI highlights how to use ArcGIS Server services in conjunction with Google Maps at the Google Geo Developers blog. Google was not as prominent at the ESRI User Conference as I expected it to be.

Hopeworks 'N Camden Completes First Print Map

Posted: August 13th, 2008, 2:46pm CEST

Tags: education

Hopeworks 'N Camden has been deservedly featured at many GIS conferences. The program aims to keep Camden youth in school and on track with technology training, including GIS work. This week the program finished its first print work - a free map of the city. Funded by student-sold and sometimes student-created ads, the maps remaining from the original run of 8000 will be available for free. Another use for this newly acquired data? Perhaps it can be contributed to OpenStreetMap?

- Courier Post Online
- Philadelphia Inquirer

Franklin, NC Notifies Those in 100 Year Floodplain

Posted: August 13th, 2008, 2:39pm CEST

This seems like such a simple use of GIS. I wonder how many towns make this investment?

GIS analyst Angela Moore suggested that through a direct mailing the town notify each landowner within the newly mapped 100-year floodplain of the changes to the flood zones. The new flood maps have been issued with an effective date sometime in the next year. The board voted to send out the letters and to establish dates and times to hold education sessions concerning the advantages and disadvantages associated with the town's status with the NFIP, which the town is currently not participating in.

- Franklin Press

Fire Eagle for All

Posted: August 12th, 2008, 11:24pm CEST

Tags: Yahoo

In other words, Yahoo's Fire Eagle, what I like to call a meta-app because it manages many location-enabled apps, is now open to all. BlinkGeo cited a twitter post announcing the news. Otherwise, it's not yet hit the newswires or the blogosphere. Apparently Greg Sterling from Search Engine Land was there at the Brickhouse when Tom Coates gave the word, but his">[searchengineland.com] post is not yet public (I'm guessing he posted it, then pulled it back - I do that now and again...)

I think Fire Eagle is a great thing; though I'm not sure how it'll make money (if that's its goal) and if the required critical mass of players (there are more in the gallery than last time I looked) will sign on to support it.

---
Some updates now that the announcement has made the rounds.

There are the usual "this invades privacy posts/articles":

Yes, Fire Eagle's cool. It also freaks me out - where Charles Cooper at C|NET misrepresents the tool "(Fire Eagle's not an original idea. There's also Loopt, a cell phone-based service that allows people to track and communicate with friends, as well as Whrrl and Brightkite.)" even though a video below with Rafe Needleman indicates there are no other similar tools at this time. Dan Gilmartin of ULocate pipes in the comments.

Privacy worry over location data - The BBC quotes The Centre for Digital Democracy after the announcement: "while these services will be a powerful force in our lives they are a potential privacy nightmare." The article goes on to note the deeper issue, that other sites (not Fire Eagle) may store location data: "Some blogs note however that while users can purge information from Fire Eagle, this will not delete location data collected over time by authorised sites." Fire Eagle makes it policy quite clear.

Privacy Advocates Are Not Pleased With Yahoo Fire Eagle - dbTechno alleges that headline, but cites no one in particular.

I personally think most people don't understand that Fire Eagle alone does nothing. To use it, you need to hook up apps that determine your location (like those on your phone/laptop/etc. - and pay attention to how they use your location data) and then to apps that you want to use your location data (like for finding local restaurants, etc. - and pay attention to how they use your location data). Yahoo sits in between and brokers the information. I think it's a great way to manage location information and privacy as you can turn off or fuzz up data from the collection side before its passed on the use the data side.

With the open release several more applications have been added to the Gallery, which now you need a Fire Eagle login to access. Some of the new ones: SPOT (the messenger for when you need help), Dash (so you can update Fire Eagle from your in car GPS), BrightKite (so you can provide your location from Fire Eagle to use in that social network).

iPod touch contest ends Wed!

Posted: August 12th, 2008, 4:07pm CEST

Tags: ESRI UC 08

Just two more days to send in your contribution to our ESRI User Conference coverage. The best submission receives an iPod touch. What did you see that wasn't covered? What one thing caught you off guard? What new technology/tip/vision will you implement back in the office?

Write it up or give us a call for a chance to win!

Full details here! Must be received by end of the day Wednesday (tomorrow!)

WorldChanging Profiles Stanford's Spatial History Project, Mannahatta Project

Posted: August 12th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

WorldChanging is one of the great blogs (I was told to read it everyday and I do) and this week profiles two projects relevant to geospatial:

Stanford's Spatial History Project "is bringing together approaches from history and geography, employing GIS and other technologies to find new ways of understanding how the past unfolded in different places."

The Mannahatta Project (I ran into this at the New York State Geospatial Summit) uses "spatial history tools to mentally strip back the years and imagine Manhattan before the arrival of Europeans."

Mapping News from the Newspaper Biz

Posted: August 12th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: media & maps

From Editor and Publisher comes two stories related to newspapers and maps.

First, maps.com's Classified Concepts revamped its online mapping tools for papers to allow more than one category to be posted on a map. So, now instead of a map for open houses and another for garage sales, papers can save money with a single map with both layers. (Sort of funny coming from a GIS perspective, no?)

Second, the Chicago Sun Times has partnered with EveryBlock (the hyperlocal news and informations site). Now Sun Times readers can access "Your Block" right from the paper's site to get at hyperlocal data. No details of the business deal were noted.

SiRF Plummets on Patent Suit Ruling

Posted: August 12th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: gps

Shares of Sirf plunged 24% to $2.44 Monday after word spread that the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled its chips infringed on several Broadcom patents. The Street notes this is just one in a number challenges in recent years:

According to iSuppli, an industry research firm, Sirf had more than a 90% share of the market for GPS chips in cell phones in 2006. In the first quarter of 2008, Sirf's share had dwindled to 36%, while Texas Instruments(TXN - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) had grabbed 35% and Infineon(IFX - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) had 21%.

SiRF now has little to offer a buyer and the analysis seems to point straight down for the GPS chip maker.

Podcast: A GIO for DOI: Implications and Questions

Posted: August 12th, 2008, 8:00am CEST

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: USGS

Last week Secretary Kempthorn announced plans to appoint a Geographic Information Officer, a GIO for the Department of Interior. After having a week to ponder the announcement, our editors raise some practical and political questions about the position and who may fill it.

Oak Ridge Mashes Up Electric Grid to Protect, Support Recovery

Posted: August 11th, 2008, 4:26pm CEST

Tags: google

The Visualizing Energy Resources Dynamically on Earth (VERDE) system (fact sheet) is a "tool that enables real-time status of the national electric grid that federal state and local agencies can use to coordinate and respond to major problems such as wide-area power outages, natural disasters and other catastrophic events." Announced last week from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Dept of Energy), the Google Earth mashup includes "images and stats of everything from real-time status of the US electric grid and weather information to power grid behavior modeling and simulation." The goal: predict outages, improve situational awareness and speed recovery from outages.

- Computerworld Australia

Quote of the Week

Posted: August 11th, 2008, 3:40pm CEST

"[Dave Imus is] self-effacing enough to tell you that 'professional cartographers' are map makers whose wives have full-time jobs. (His wife, Paula, teaches at Madison Middle School.)"

Bob Welch in the Register-Guard in profile of Imus, who just finished an updated map of the state of Oregon.

Hawaii to Implement EMS with GIS

Posted: August 11th, 2008, 3:38pm CEST

The state of Hawaii has contracted with 21st Century Systems which announced that they were to implement a statewide emergency management system that integrates real-time information, satellite imagery and other geospatial information into a comprehensive GIS. The system will be managed by Hawaii State Civil Defense (HSCD). From personal experience, I'm happy to hear this. In 2006, I experienced a 6.7 and 6.0 magnitude earthquakes that occurred seven minutes apart while on the Big Island. It knocked out power there and on Oahu for several hours, and according to my sources it also knocked out power at HSCD. There was no loss of life and the threat of tsunami was minimal. However, no one knew that at the time. It was disconcerting to hear that the state agency tasked with responding to disasters did not have the ability to implement their warning systems if it was necessary to do so. Let's hope this project solves this deficiency.

Several Companies Fined for Stealing Navinfo's China Map Data

Posted: August 11th, 2008, 3:28pm CEST

Direct sales company Acorn International, educational product provider OZing and GPS developer Careland Information System were all found guilty of stealing data from digital mapping service provider Navinfo. Navinfo sued the companies last year.

- Pacific Epoch

Geography Matters: More iPhone (geo) Apps from Seattle Companies

Posted: August 11th, 2008, 3:21pm CEST

Tags: Apple

I'm simplifying but that's a quick conclusion based on Xconomy's list of apps a full month after the iPhone 3D launch as it looked for apps from companies around its Seattle and Boston offices. The vast majority are geo related.

Autodesk Geospatial Acquires 3D Geo GmbH

Posted: August 11th, 2008, 2:39pm CEST

Tags: Autodesk

The German company provides "software and services for geo-visualization: solutions for effectively creating, analyzing, managing, and distributing large-scale geo information" and is a "maker of intelligent 3D urban models software." Further, "The products of 3D Geo are made in accordance with international standards such as CityGML." The company is based in Potsdam, Germany and is privately held.

The interesting bit about the company found in the "about" part of the press release: 3D Geo GmbH, is a spin-off company of the Hasso Platter Institute. Hasso Platter? He co-founded SAP and I believe I saw him on stage at ESRI UC back when ESRI was implementing, then partnering with SAP. He funds the institute which focuses on IT; there is no tuition!

The company has two sites: 3D Geo and LandXplorer (a free CityGML viewer for models created with for fee LandXplorer Studio, there's a full suite including a server, developer platform, a product to put data in to Google Earth and another to support geotainment). I am surprised not to find 3D Geo in the list of OGC member companies.

This is a clear step that Autodesk is trying to fill in any gasp it has between BIM and 3D GIS. Autodesk gets a gold star for holding the announcement until after the ESRI User Conference. Autodesk is taking a very different route than Google and Autodesk here, focussing on standards-based tools for professionals for 3D modeling. Google and Microsoft seem to be going after the "amateurs" providing free tools to build up and share home made versions of a 3D world.

- press release

Assemblyman Proposes Making Dash-mounted GPS Legal in California

Posted: August 9th, 2008, 3:56am CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

A current law bans anything from be affixed to the windshield (with few exceptions) or dashboard. Senator Jenny Oropeza has introduced Senate Bill 1567, the GPS Windshield Safety Act, which allow drivers to mount their devices on their windshields without fear of citation and out of reach of any restless back-seat toddler. So far so good: "Editors at several newspapers, including the Torrance Daily Breeze and the Long Beach Press-Telegram, have given it their stamp of approval. And both houses of the Legislature on Aug. 4 overwhelmingly approved the bill with broad bipartisan support." Now, on to the governor.

- California Chronicle

Corrections made 8/12. Source above cites Oropreza as author of the article and the bill and an Assembly member. She is, per comment, a State Senator. Her website confirms that.

A few ESRI UC blog posts you may have missed

Posted: August 9th, 2008, 3:56am CEST

Tags: ESRI UC 08

Here are a few blog posts from blogs you may not read about the ESRI User Conference:

Kevin Mathews: Conspiracy at the ESRI Conference: Eye in the Sky

Matt Penner: ESRI 2008 UC: SQL Server 2008 and ArcGIS

San Chakravorty: ESRI-UC 2008 Blog

VE for Gov: Virtual Earth at the ESRI International User Conference

DigitalGlobe, AEgis Supply NBC with 3D Models of Olympic Venues

Posted: August 8th, 2008, 7:19pm CEST

Tags: Remote Sensing

DigitalGlobe, using their 0.6 meter satellite imagery and AEgis Technologies, using both COTS and propriety software, have supplied 3D models of Olympic venues to NBC TV. The models are being used during broadcasts of the Olympics. According to both companies, the project was originally developed for the NGA to support the security efforts of the U.S. athletes. However, Chuck Herring of DigitalGlobe said it was a fantastic opportunity to display, in a more public forum, the work that sometimes unreported due to the sensitivity of most of their government projects. DigitalGlobe supplied a mosaic of a large area in Beijing to AEgis that then combined the imagery with their simulation software and using recent photos of the venues, were able to produce highly accurate 3D building models. NBC does not have some of the more detailed 3D models that are being used by the NGA. DigitalGlobe and AEgis have set up a separate website with models that will be used by NBC. More later next week when I have an opportunity to visit AEgis for a deeper dive into their technology.

UI Design = Thumbs Down, Academic Collaboration = Thumbs Up

Posted: August 8th, 2008, 3:57pm CEST

Tags: education

I sat in on two "non-technical workshops" during the week. As many people pointed out, session quality varies quite a lot at the ESRI User Conference and the two sessions offered that stark contrast.
Continue reading "UI Design = Thumbs Down, Academic Collaboration = Thumbs Up"

Observations on Major IT & Geospatial Players from ESRI UC

Posted: August 7th, 2008, 11:24pm CEST

Tags: Oracle

It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway), that the ESRI UC gathers just about everyone in the GIS ecosystem but certain observations can be gleaned from talking to some of the major players. I offer these comments:

Continue reading "Observations on Major IT & Geospatial Players from ESRI UC"

Off Topic: ESRI UC 5K

Posted: August 6th, 2008, 8:03pm CEST

I was relegated to giving out water this year, but there was a good crowd at 7 am near the convention center. I saw lots of ESRI folks in the mix. The top man came in at 16:23, Robert Berger. Alexandra Gazewski led the women at 19:03.

A few nods to "friends of Directions" who take home age group medals:

Ben Yetman - Pen Bay Media (3)
Jeff Jackson - ESRI (2)
Mark Newell - USGS (2)
Karen Capria - ESRI (2)
Joe Francica - Directions (2)

And, a sp

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Posted: August 22nd, 2008, 12:33am CEST

Enclosure: [download]

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Tags: media & maps

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Tags: rfid

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Tags: Remote Sensing

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Tags: education

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Tags: Remote Sensing

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 8:00am CEST

Enclosure: [download]

Tags: google

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Tags: education

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Tags: Apple

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Tags: media & maps

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Tags: google