Skyline Lawsuit seeks shutdown of Google Earth

From AZcentral the story reads... Google Earth, should be shut down until a lawsuit over its underlying technology is resolved, Skyline Software Systems Inc., owner of the patent at issue in the case, said in court papers... In court papers filed Jan. 4 in Boston, Skyline said user access to Google Earth should be suspended while the suit is pending. Google slashed the price of Keyhole's services, added a free version and as a result "has eclipsed its competitors in this market," Skyline said. Skyline's products include Terra Gate, Terra Builder and Terra Explorer Pro. For more details see Skyline Software Systems Inc. v. Keyhole Corp., 04cv11129, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts or AZcentral article at http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0106google-earth06-ON.html

National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) Awards clear view contract to DigitalGlobe

DigitalGlobe of Longmont, CO is being awarded a $24,000,000 firm fixed price contract modification. This award is within the previously established $500,000,000 contract ceiling. The supplies to be procured are high resolution commercial satellite imagery. The performance period is Feb. 1, 2006 through Jan. 31, 2007. At this time, $2,000,000 FY06 O&M funding has been obligated. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, is the contracting activity (NMA30103C0001/P00053). More on this can be found in the PR announcement at GISuser.com or see the nga.mil

 

ILMF 2006 Conference Update includes Colorado Ski Train Trip

On Sunday February 12, prior to the start of the ILMF 2006 conference, ILMF has reserved an entire train car on the Ski Train, “a Denver Tradition for Generations.”  Begun in 1940, the Ski Train has a history of over 60 years of regular, scheduled trips to Winter Park Resort.
Leica Geosystems will provide sponsorship for the Ski Train event. See more at http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/7793/ or www.lidarmap.org

 

Mapping the Super Bowl with Interactive mapping app

The map network has developed a very cool interactive webmap that lets foorball fans wander around the venue in Detroit, MI... way cool! From the accouncement... The National Football League (NFL) and The Map Network (TMN) unveiled today the preferred online and print maps of Super Bowl XL at www.SuperBowl.com and at www.VisitDetroit.com, the official site of the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau. Media and fans can learn how to feature the interactive Super Bowl XL map on their sites at http://www.mapnetwork.com/superbowl or link directly to http://map.mapnetwork.com/superbowl

 

Google to Launch the $199 PC via Wall-Mart Retailers... hold on.. let me check those facts!

I guess April fools day came early, particularly for the "writers" at the LA Times... check this one out! In some amazing fictional writing, the reporters laid out some clever predictions, even citing a "source" to apparently back up their predictions. I guess we need to keep in mind that these are predictions, however, the fact that the tips were provided by analysts leads one to believe that there may be some substance... not likely though. So what's the prediction? Reports were flying around this week that Google would make some huge announcements this week at CES, most notably, the target was who else?? Microsoft of course. In the crystal ball the "Times" predicted that Google would announce the coming of low-priced PCs that would retail at Wall-Mart (some reported prices that would be sub $200.. imaging the $199 PC?). Add to that, how about a PC powered by the Google OS.... forget it.. its bogus! Since the report only cites "sources" one can only assume that it was a clever scheme to garner some web traffic... I'm sure it worked! Next time I hope they report on facts. Check out the article at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-predict1jan01,0,3503327.story

 

Surface Modeling and Automated Feature Extraction event

MAPPS and ASPRS today announced they will cosponsor a specialty conference on automated feature extraction technologies and applications, November 6-10, 2006 at the Crown Plaza Riverwalk Hotel in San Antonio, Texas.  More details will be available soon on both the MAPPS (www.mapps.org) and ASPRS (www.asprs.org) websites. The Conference will also include vendor exhibits, education workshops hosted by ASPRS

 

Today's GIS and mapping news and updates at GISuser - Jan 4, 2006

Today at GISuser - see http://www.gisuser.com/newsletter/jan042006.html
A reminder, if you missed my tip over the holidays about the NY City [Google] mashup be sure to pay it a visit. Developed by a Java developer with a passion for digital photography and his Garmin e-trex, I had to laugh when the creator of the site told me about how he stands in the street intersections to capture the images and often receives glaring looks from people and police officers when filming, "particularly in front of the Stock Exchange"... LOL. Finally, some interesting updates from the STI Popstats database revealing relocation patterns and stats of New Orleans residents, post-Katrina. PS: I just noticed I still have the 2005 calendar on the wall.. if you've created/published one for 06 I'd love to hear from you ;0)

 

Latest GIS news at GISuser:
Contex Unveils NEW Family of 3D Printers and New Flatbed Scanner
 Feature Analyst 4.0 for ERDAS IMAGINE Available Now
 Unleash Your Applications and Data with the Power of Location O'Reilly Releases Programming MapPoint
 Tarrant Appraisal District Implements Orion Technology OnPoint Software for Intranet web-GIS
 eSpatial and GeoDecisions Team to Deliver Geospatial Application Deployment Capabilities
 Avatech’s Free Plug-in Places 2D & 3D Designs Anywhere on Google Earth
 SANBORN PROVIDES RAPID RESPONSE DELIVERING HIGH ACCURACY LIDAR DATA FOR TAUM SAUK RESERVOIR DISASTER
 2006 CAG Awards - Call for Nominations - Nominations must be received by January 31, 2006
 Trimble Acquires Advanced Public Safety, Inc. to Expand Mobile, Handheld Presence in Public Safety
 MWH Soft Releases InfoSWMM Designer

 

GIS Careers:

Sr. Applications Analyst - City of Nanaimo, BC
GIS Programmer - microDATA GIS
GIS TECHNICIAN, (Full-time) - City of Rowlett

 

Rose Bowl kicks off shortly... go Texas!

STI: PopStats Answers reveals where post Hurricane Katrina New Orleans population have gone

According to the recent anouncement, this new method uses a mix of local, state, and federal data from organizations such as FEMA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Examples of the population insights provided in STI: PopStats' January 2006 release include the following:
Pre-Hurricane Post-Hurricane
Orleans Parish 484,674 103,326
Jefferson Parish 455,466 452,615
East Baton Rouge Parish 412,852 447,841
St. Tammany Parish 191,268 221,521
St. Bernard Parish 67,229 2,679

The next quarterly release of STI: PopStats will be in April 2006.

Podcast Discusses the Geospatial web

WBUR Boston Radio has posted an interesting podcast which discusses the topic of the geospatial web... The convergence of the physical world and geospatial world... the geospatial Web combining the web and geospatial elements. Titled "The New Sense of Place" the discussion delves into the possibilities and probability of geospatially tagging pretty much everything and making the information available via any web-enabled device.

Hear the podcast at http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2006/01/20060103_b_main.asp

 

From the website... Just a decade after it became ubiquitous, the World Wide Web has made us blase about information. We assume we can learn almost everything about almost anything at the touch of a PC keyboard. But the digital revolution is hardly over.  Now, the digital realm is exploding into the physical world. They call it the "geo-spatial web." Already it means online maps loaded with information about the physical world, and someday soon, that physical world itself will be tagged and teeming with data for the asking: What is that building? Where is my dog? Who is that man? The implications are huge, exciting, and scary and the result will be a world alive with information.

 

Peter Morville, author of "Ambient Findability" takes part in the discussion and interestingly, he'll be a keynote presenter at this year's Geotec event in Ottawa, Canada. See www.geoplace.com/gt

 

About Morville... Peter Morville is widely recognized as a founding father of information architecture. He co-authored the best-selling book, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, and has consulted with such organizations as Harvard IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo! and the National Cancer Institute. Morville is president of Semantic Studios, co-founder of the Information Architecture Institute, and a faculty member at the University of Michigan. His work has been featured in many publications including Business Week, The Economist, Fortune, and The Wall Street Journal. Morville’s latest book, Ambient Findability, was published in 2005 by O’Reilly Media. He blogs at findability.org.

Google Mashup Training - A New Google Maps Course

The crew at Keck & Wood have informed us about some new GIS training they are providing.. the latest is training in developing Google maps (mashups)... This course is designed to enable you to take advantage of Google Maps for your website. You will learn how to create maps, add map controls for user interactions (zooming, and panning), programmatically alter the map extent, add points of interest to the map, add custom icons, geocode addresses on the fly, read addresses from a database or XML file, and display aerial photography. See http://www.keckwood.com/ The cost for this Duluth, GA-based training is $100 and the class starts January 16, 2006