Nokia Sells Off Media Advertising Business

In another sign Nokia is reshaping itself comes its decision to get out of the advertising business.

Finnish group Nokia has sold its media advertising business to a U.S. startup Matchbin as it focuses on core businesses, a company spokesman said on Friday without disclosing detail of the deal.

That group employed 180.

- Reuters

Pretty Imagery in Google Earth and other Google Maps/Earth News

Google Earth 6.2 had a "prettier" version of its imagery. No, it's not new data just a new smoothing algorithm.

Today, we’re introducing a new way of rendering imagery that smooths out this quilt of images. The end result is a beautiful new Earth-viewing experience that preserves the unique textures of the world’s most defining geographic landscapes—without the quilt effect. This change is being made on both mobile and desktop versions of Google Earth. While this change will appear on all versions of Google Earth, the 6.2 release provides the best viewing experience for this new data.

- i Programmer

- Google Blog

The update of Google Maps on the Web now offers better bike route information via detailed rendering.

Since no bike path is the same, many users have requested an easier way to differentiate the different types of bike routes that are available. Starting today, a new legend feature can help you understand what the different colors on the bike maps symbolize.

- Google Lat Long Blog

The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Research Centre of Feng Chia University in Taiwan, has successfully completed Taiwan’s first municipal works cloud-based map platform, which will allow city government officials and policy makers to have a clear picture of the city’s major construction projects.

It's built on Google Earth Enterprise and is expected to be made public (no date yet).

- FutureGov Asia

LightSquared Update - Javad Letter: GPS Companies Can’t Handle the Truth - 1/27/12

In a letter to the FCC, Javad CEO Javad Ashjaee reitarates that the testing procedure used to explore the impact of LightSquared on GPS was political, not scientific. He concludes with a familiar quote as to why his filter-enhanced soutions were not tested:

There can be only reason why Trimble and other GPS companies don’t want my high precision devices to be tested: they can’t handle the truth and don’t want to pay for it.
 

- Letter (PDF) via American Surveyor

NGA to Procure Less Imagery but More Capacity, FBI RFI for LBS Intelligence

The U.S. Defense Department intends to reduce planned purchases of commercial satellite imagery in 2013 as part of a broader initiative aimed at reducing U.S. military expenditures by $259 billion over the next five years, according to a Pentagon planning document released Jan. 26.

However, the document says the Pentagon will continue to increase its commercial satellite imaging capacity, an indication that planned government-backed investments in new spacecraft will go forward. Commercial imagery was listed among several programs targeted for substantial reductions, the document said, specifying that purchases for imaging capacity that exceeds requirements will be affected.

I read that as NGA will buy less imagery, but will continue to fund EnhancedView. The info comes from a document previewing the 2013 defence budget requests shared in a press release on Jan 26.

- Space News

The FBI is looking for a "geospatial alert and analysis mapping application" that will allow its Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC) to "quickly vet, identify and geo-locate breaking events, incidents and emerging threats," according to the RFI.

- Information Technology

Google Public Alerts and other LBS News

Google announced a Public Alerts page on Jan 25. The idea is to keep you informed of emergency alerts for floods, tornadoes, winter storms, and other dangers that may be headed your way. But, it's completely query driven, not location-based in this first attempt. Google is seeking feedback. Mano Marks noted on Twitter he'd worked on this project in the past.

- Google Blog

MapQuest launched an HTML5 client.

- press release

Adam Sadilek of the University of Rochester has developed a tool to predict one's location based on friend's locations known through Twitter. How well? It can locate you to within 100 meters with up to 85% accuracy.

"You can actually infer a lot of things about people, even though they are pretty careful about how they manage their online behaviour," he reports. 

- New Scientist