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    Yesterday's News

    Industry: Microsoft's 'Street Slide' Takes Aim At StreetView

    posted by lxnyce on Wednesday July 28, @06:44PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the competition-is-good dept.
    Microsoft
    Found on cnet news. Head on over there to check out a video of it in action : "Instead of having users venture from one "bubble" of captured imagery to the next, as is done in Google's StreetView and Microsoft's Streetside, the new technology, called "Street Slide," stitches together multiple panoramas into one, large strip that users are able to scroll through side to side. And in place of putting information overlays on the imagery itself, things like street signs and business information are placed below, and out of sight of what was captured. The end result is something that lets users skim around long stretches of street, as if they were looking out the window of a moving vehicle, then stopping to get out and look around, once they've reached any one particular spot within the series. This obviously works better for long, straight roads, but in large cities and even small towns where a main avenue is prevalent, it can create a browsing experience that is more seamless and that requires less clicking."

    Google Geonews: Google Maps for Mobile 4.4 & Sky Map Released, Political Borders Improved, and more

    posted by Satri on Tuesday July 27, @02:43PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the googling-your-way-to-maps dept.
    Google
    Here's Google-related geonews for the last 10 days or so, during my absence. Google Maps for mobile 4.4 has been released. There's also Google Sky Map for Android that was recently released. Important in some regions, Google improved political borders accuracy in Google Earth and Maps, screenshots included: "[...] today we are happy to announce some significant improvements to our borders for over 60 countries and regions [...]". Ogle Earth offers his own analysis of the improvements. In Spain, Seville is now in 3D in Google Earth. Here's an interactive multi-layered Google Earth map of 4 degree temperature rise. Here's an entry named newly discovered crater is one of Earth's youngest impacts, found in Google Earth.

    Application Domains: Redesigning the New York City Subway Map

    posted by Satri on Tuesday July 27, @01:58PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the lost-underground dept.
    Transportation
    In a long and interesting post, O'Reilly Radar shares an entry named Redesigning the New York City subway map. The introduction: "Maps are one of the most basic data visualizations that we have; we've been making them for millennia. But we still haven't perfected them as a tool for understanding complex systems -- and with 26 lines and 468 stations across five boroughs, the New York City subway system certainly is complex. The KickMap is the result of my quest to design a more effective subway map, and ultimately to encourage increased ridership." See also related stories below, it's not the first time we discuss NY subway maps.

    Industry: FOSS4G 2010 Conference Update

    posted by Satri on Tuesday July 27, @01:31PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the preparing-for-the-show dept.
    FOSS4G
    The FOSS4G 2010 conference team provided an update: " We are getting closer to the conference dates, Sept. 6th - 9th, and we are pleased that the interest is still very high. More than 500 people have already subscribed and we are confident to reach 1000 in time for the event. In the Latin cultures we are famous to be late subscribers. A list of the presentations and their abstract is available online. If you have not thought to subscribe yet, do it now. Some workshops are already sold out so don't loose the chance to choose your favourite workshop. The following companies are already supporting, don't loose your chance to be part of this unique event!

    In our FOSS4G section, you'll find many previous stories about this pertinent conference. We will be on site to provide coverage of the event.

    Industry: OGC and OSGeo to Collaborate on Standards Documentation

    posted by Satri on Tuesday July 27, @08:59AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the don't-we-all-love-writing-doc dept.
    Open Geospatial Consortium
    Cameron Shorter writes "The OGC and OSGeo will develop conforming documentation for key OGC standards and geospatial open source application descriptions. Both sets of documentation will be available online and on the OSGeo-Live DVD, to be released at the international conference for Free and Open Source Software, FOSS4G, in September 2010, in Barcelona, Spain. ... more."

    Industry: MapServer 5.6.5 Released

    posted by Satri on Monday July 26, @03:38PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the serving-maps-to-your-screen dept.
    Web Mapping
    The popular open source MapServer 5.6.5 has been released. From the announcement: "The MapServer team announces the release of MapServer 5.6.5. This release fixes a scale calculation issue that was introduced in the 5.6.4 release from a few days ago. All users are strongly advised to upgrade to this release since it also contains the security fixes that prompted the quick release of 5.6.4." See also selected previous MapServer stories below.

    Reviews: Technical Overview of GeoCommons

    posted by Satri on Monday July 26, @02:56PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the is-it-common-enough? dept.
    Software Reviews
    While we mentioned quite a few times Fortius One's GeoCommons services in the past, here's a technical overview of what GeoCommons is. From the review's introduction: "GeoCommons is provided by FortuisOne and builds on their software products to provide a free and public community service. GeoCommons currently provides two easy-to-use free services based on open source and other freely available datasets. GeoCommons Maker is a simple point-and-click map creator that does not require programming experience; and GeoCommons Finder is a data uploading and sharing service with some basic geocoding abilities."

    Technology: NAVTEQ 3D City Models Overview

    posted by Satri on Monday July 26, @02:31PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the urban-life-in-3D dept.
    3D
    bleifisch writes "NAVTEQ 3D City Models Overview: A Product Guide for Developers. Content of the white paper:
    • NAVTEQ Visual Content Product Portfolio: Provides developers a graphical representation of the real world to improve the user experience with their solutions.
    • NAVTEQ 3D City Models: Height and rooftop data combined with Enhanced 2D footprints to create a 3D City.
    • FAQs
    This document was edited by Jeff Wagner, Resource & Community Service Manager with NAVTEQ. If you want to learn more, click here. The access to this document requires a registration. The registration is free."

    Technology: Tropical Storm and Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Mashup

    posted by Satri on Monday July 26, @01:50PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the spilling-the-spill dept.
    Web Mapping
    Andrew Zolnai writes "The tropical storm threatening the Gulf of Mexico oilspill cleanup shows up very well in Google Earth (GE) by simply using EPA's Deepwater Horizon — Gulf Spill Response KML, and Google Earth's legend that comes complete with ocean data. View this mashup in my blog, or load the KML in GE to watch the storm unfold!"

    Industry: New Opticks 4.4.0 Release Candidate

    posted by Satri on Monday July 26, @01:26PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the adjusting-your-lenses dept.
    Software
    kstreith writes "Opticks release candidate for 4.4.0 has been released along with updates to the existing Python Scripting extension, IDL Scripting extension and Spectral Processing extension. The highlights include:
    • performance improvements for loading data
    • the ability to rotate an image to north up
    • define color composites based upon wavelength ranges
    • developers can now build extensions using the free Microsoft Platform SDK on Windows
    The Python Scripting extension highlights:
    • now supports 64-bit Windows
    The Spectral Processing extension highlights:
    • algorithm to calculate NDVI
    • additional options for plotting signatures
    • additional visualizations for working with many signature match results
    In total, 38 enhancements and 40 bug fixes are in this release candidate."

    We mentioned the open source software Opticks quite a few times in the past, see related stories below.

    Technology: Google's Free Satnav Outperforms TomTom

    posted by lxnyce on Thursday July 22, @09:50AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the the-end-of-an-era dept.
    GPS
    Another nail gets hammered into the TomTom coffin. How do you market a paid app/device versus a free app (so long as you pay your cell carriers data charges), which performs worse? From slashdot : "A real-world road test of several different satnav systems has found that the free Google Maps Navigation outperformed TomTom's premium GPS unit. PC Pro put the satnavs through four different real-world tests, covering country roads, inner-city traffic and motorway driving. The Google satnav finished the four tests more than half an hour ahead of the top of the range TomTom Go 950 Live. "For those in rural areas or people who spend hours in their car every day, we believe the investment in a dedicated satnav device or software will still pay off," PC Pro concludes. "But for the recreational user, it's amazing what you can get for free.""

    Industry: 37 States Join Investigation of Google Street View

    posted by lxnyce on Thursday July 22, @08:15AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the big-brother-also-watches-little-brother dept.
    Google
    As Apple faces the music, Google fight keeps getting worse. From slashdot : "Attorneys General from 37 states have joined the probe into Google's Street View data collection. The investigation seeks more information behind Google's software testing and data archiving practices after it was discovered that their Street View vans scanned private WLANs and recorded users' MAC addresses. Attorney general Richard Blumenthal said, 'Google's responses continue to generate more questions than they answer. Now the question is how it may have used — and secured — all this private information.'"

    Application Domains: NASA Creates First Global Forest Map Using Lasers

    posted by lxnyce on Thursday July 22, @08:12AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the if-a-tree-is-measured-and-nobody-is-around-to-see-it-dept. dept.
    Forestry
    Currently in discussion on slashdot. Here is their summary : "Scientists, using three NASA satellites, have created a first-of-its-kind map that details the height of the world's forests. The data was collected from NASA's ICESat, Terra and Aqua satellites. The latter two satellites are responsible for most of NASA's Gulf spill imagery. The data collected will help scientists understand how the world's forests both store and process carbon. While there are many local and regional canopy maps, this is the very first global map using a uniform method for measure."
    *

    Technology: Apple Lays Out GPS Location Collection Policies

    posted by lxnyce on Tuesday July 20, @09:02AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the big-brother-is-watching dept.
    GPS
    On the heel of the Google wifi collection debacle, it's Apple's time to get scrutinized. From the slasdot article : "In a 13-page reply (PDF) to questions from Congressmen Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Joe Barton of Texas, Apple said iPhones running OS 3.2 or iOS 4 collect GPS data and encrypt it before sending it back to Apple every 12 hours via Wi-Fi. Attached to the GPS data is a random identification number generated by the phone every 24 hours. The information is not associated with a particular customer and Apple uses the data to analyze traffic patterns and density, it said. Apple collects such data from customers who have approved the use of location-based capabilities on the phone and who actually use an application that requires GPS."

    Industry: Issues In Tracking The Current Gulf Oil Spill

    posted by lxnyce on Tuesday July 20, @08:03AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
    from the real-sludgy dept.
    Media
    Andrew Zolnai writes "Two anecdotes on remote sensing and environmental monitoring highlight some issues in measuring and predicting the current Gulf of Mexico oil rupture. Go here to see a video of screenshots from the US EPA / Coast Guard's Deepwater Horizon Gulf Spill Response KMZ in Google Earth from 11 May to 15 July. It shows the oilspill pulsating over the last 85 days."
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