Finally, Videos on Flickr

Woohoo, flickr is now supporting videos... sweet! I just stumbled on the news and am trying to give it a test for myself to prove that its actually true. Unfortunately my Shozu (mobile uploading app) is totally whacked ever since I upgrade to the latest version (nice!) but no worries, I can still upload via my Notebook. Some items of interest about flickr video. Obviously a Pro account is suggested as that removes any upload restrictions on size. Also, videos are restricted to 90 seconds max. so keep that in mind. Some more details from Flickr... Video on Flickr grew out of the idea of “long photos” and as such, we’ve implemented what might seem like an arbitrary limit of playing back the first 90 seconds of a video. 90 seconds? Individual video files must be smaller than 150MB in size. See www.flickr.com and check out the FAQ. I'm now going to trying hitting m.flickr.com and upload a clip from my N95 via WiFi... hang on!


Ok, my test from the N95 is having issues as I need to re-install a couple of things, however, I did manage to upload an old video clip from my notebook. Nothing too exciting, but see below for a video montage I created from some pics I took in Paris in 2003. Can't wait to build out my Flickr Video gallery! Oh, like YouTube, there's also an embed option where you simply grab some code and paste into your blog.

Take a virtual tour of NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC)

Recently announced for NOAA, something of interest for you storm chasers. A tour of the NOAA National Hurricane Center is now as close as your computer with the inauguration of a new virtual online tour of the famous forecast center. The Web site, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/nhctour.shtml, provides panoramic views of different areas of the facility, accompanied by audio and text descriptions. See also http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

The Google Earth Satellite? Please stop

Isn't it amazing, just about every newspaper, magazine, blogger, or ?? writes at some point about Google earth. No surprise given the interest in the web service from joe public. What drives me nuts though is that most of these "writers" refer to the imagery as being "Google's" as if a big bird is circling the Earth capturing high-res imagery almost daily. Hey man, the imagery is licensed from commercial image providers (like DigitalGlobe), government agencies, and others - most of us in the geospatial arena know this but I wish the writers would get it straight, perhaps even do a little research and fact finding! Just one example comes from a recent article from a UK publication (The Telegraph) in reference to a search for Waldo. The article states... "they also have to wait for Google's imaging equipment to pick him up". I'm just waiting for the people that are really powering Google Earth to maybe get some recognition at some point. This is akin to the small city of Nanaimo BC, Canada getting recognized as the leading local government power-user of Google Earth, yet Jason Birch who's been behind the success barely ever gets a mention in any newspaper articles. For more about Google Earth check out this FAQ, and for a good recap of where the imagery actually comes from see this fine post on the Google Earth Blog... you go Frank! Perhaps one day users of Google Earth will be treated to a meta data layer that, at a minimum, describes the date and origin of all the data we're seeing.

Google App Engine Preview Release

This interesting update comes via the Jaiku blog... Today we’re taking off our welding goggles to announce Jaiku will be one of the first apps to run on the new Google App Engine. See also www.jaiku.com App Engine is an interesting concept (I'm not terribly familiar with it) but its free for developers to get started and seems like a real time (and money) saver... from Google " Google App Engine enables developers to build web applications on the same scalable systems that power our own applications." Not familiar with Jaiku? Well, think Twitter, and then some. I can post Jaikus from anywhere anytime via mobile, there's also some provisioning for location in the apps as well. What's really cool too is that you can easily embed any RSS feed into your channels ass well.

Yahoo! and Google sitting in a tree... K I S S I N G...

Interesting to see how Yahoo! is looking to Google for help in serving up ads for their search results. this comes as Yahoo! tries to fend off hostile takeover from Microsoft. Could Google possible own any more of the online ad space?? see more on CNN
Microsoft had this to say in a recent PR... "Any definitive agreement between Yahoo! and Google would consolidate over 90% of the search advertising market in Google's hands. This would make the market far less competitive, in sharp contrast to our own proposal to acquire Yahoo! We will assess closely all of our options. Our proposal remains the only alternative put forward that offers Yahoo! shareholders full and fair value for their shares, gives every shareholder a vote on the future of the company, and enhances choice for content creators, advertisers, and consumers."

Looking for Historic Aerials?

A nice data tip comes our way from LizardTech a really cool historical aerials site hosted by NETR online (A Division of National Environmental Title Research, LLC). With the help of GeoExpress and Express Server NETR was able to publish aerials showing off different locations in the U.S. Some of the locations have data from several different years going back as far as the 1930s, so you can see the difference at any given location over time. Chack out San Diego in 1964, or fly to RFK stadium - See http://www.historicaerials.com

A new web resource for businesses looking at the Colorado front range

Heads-up, if your interested in opening an office on the Colorado front-range (already a hotbed of Geospatial activities) a new web resource was just launched by Larimer County. The site provides information on economic development, workforce, education and training, business incentives, rural enterprise, emerging industries etc... See http://www.lcbe.org/

Geospatial Firms not using H1B Visa

Interesting to see that the latest opening of the H1-B visa lottery has started once again (April 1) and there's not quite as much excitement as there was last year - recall last year some 130,000 apps were received on day 1. However, what is interesting is some of the numbers coming up from last year. I was surprised to find a detailed spreadsheet that lists every company that petitioned successfully for an employee on H1-B status - to my surprise there was very few GIS/geospatial technology forms (particularly the big names) ESRI, Intergraph, Bentley etc... Autodesk tops out the firms in our industry with a relatively small number really (15), given the size of the firms. I think the real surprise comes because there's been so much discussion recently about firms having trouble finding employees to fill all their vacancies, and that problem is supposed to get worse. There's no doubt the large GIS firms are bringing higher-lever people here from abroad, however, they are likely doing that by transferring existing employees from foreign offices, then using the L visa process and shying away from the hassles associated with the H1B - there's also the TN for trade between Canada/US/Mexico which is likely being used quite extensively. For more on the H1B lottery for 2009 see here

Committee on Strategic Directions for the Geographical Sciences seeks input

The U.S. National Research Council's Committee on Strategic Directions for the Geographical Sciences in the Next Decade is now receiving public comment on some very important/high profile questions, in which geographic information science has a role:
- What should geographers be studying over the next ten years?
- What are the greatest challenges facing the geographical sciences
today?
The public comment web site is available here