Tell a MrSid Story for its 20th Anniversary and other GIS Competitions

LizardTech is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the MrSID imagery format:

We'll be hosting events throughout the year to celebrate MrSID's 20th anniversary. In the meantime, we’re holding a contest, inviting people like you – in fact, you – to say a word or two about how MrSID has come to their rescue. Send us your recollection or tribute at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) by July 10th, 2012. We’ll pick three contributors at random. Grand prize winner will receive an iPad and the two runner-ups will each receive a $50 gift card to amazon.com. We will announce the winners the winners via Twitter at Esri International User Conference in San Diego on July 24th.

- webpage via @gletham

Autodesk is running the Infrastructure Excellence competition with prizes including HP hardware, trips to Autodesk University and cash. Infrastructure projects that use specific Autodesk software are eligible. Last day to submit May 31.

- Infrastructure Excellence website via @engis

Four University of Wisconsin-Whitewater students who mapped all of the buildings, athletic fields and parking lots on their school's campus have tied with three other teams for third place in a Google Map Maker Competition.

University of Waterloo in Canada won the big prize. The folks, one of whom uses a wheel chair and mapped barriers to travel in the mode, got notebooks, stickers, etc. No word on if they are geo students or in some other area of study.

- Chicago Tribune

Free Software for Polling Location Maps and other Government GIS News

This is interesting: the map of polling places in Hammond, Indiana is (1) made by the Hammond Sanitary District GIS Department and (2) built on free software (Google Maps), something worthy of note in the local paper.

- The Times of Northwest Indiana

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Esri’s ArcGIS Online for Organizations Getting Closer to Release

Esri's Director of Education, David DiBiase shared that Esri sales staff have been able to quote pricing for ArcGIS Online for Organizations (the product name is in flux) as of last Friday. The subscription offering allows organizations to skin the service, create and manage accounts and is expectedt to be popular with government, private sector and educational organizations. Pricing has not been made public. The official release is expected before the User Conference in July.

Update: LightSquared Update - Bankruptcy Could be Monday - 5/14/12

LightSquared officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Manhattan US Bankruptcy Court today.

- endgadget

----original post 5/14/12 7 am EDT ---

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) is the source of comments by those in the know that it's unlikely that LightSquared and its funder will reach a deal on the company's non-payment of debts. LightSquared has until 5 p.m. Monday to negotiate a deal. If the deal is not reached, and an extension is unlikely, the company is expected to file for bankruptcy.

- PC World

Pew: 75% of Smartphone Users Get “Real Time” Location-based Information

Here's the overview of the report (html, questions):

A new report finds that 74% of smartphone owners use their phone to get real-time location-based information, and 18% use a geosocial service to “check in” to certain locations or share their location with friends.

Over the past year, smartphone ownership among American adults has risen from 35% of adults in 2011 to 46% in 2012. This means that the overall proportion of U.S. adults who get location-based information has almost doubled over that time period, from 23% in May 2011 to 41% in February 2012. The percentage of adults who use geosocial services like Foursquare has likewise risen from 4% in 2011 to 10% in 2012.

- The Pew Internet & American Life Project