Counterfeit GPS Fakes Out Shanghai Drivers

The new scam in Shanghai is to sell dirt cheap GPS receivers. One of the reasons the units are so cheap? They include fake maps with the wrong information! The Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping granted eight companies the right to produce electronic navigation maps this year, but the sham ones are appearing, too. Authorities are not sure how to deal with the problem. I suppose in any language its true: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is!

CAD and GIS Ad Nauseum

Back in the day, late 1980s, when Intergraph launched the first CAD-based GIS, MGE it was big news. Since then, everyone and his brother has tried to do the same thing – just better, faster, and easier to use. GeoWorld even had an annual column on CAD/GIS integration. I wrote a few of those… But now, let’s face it, there’s little new under the sun and there’s no need for yet another article on why the two should come together.

Let’s face it, the great revolution has NOT come. Most of us use either CAD or GIS; few used CAD-based GIS. We do pass data between the systems more easily, but for the most part CAD-based solutions have been complex and yielded little in the way of benefits over simply making the two systems work better side by side. My take is that most people are happy enough to get that ArcGIS stuff into AutoCAD or to get the DGNs into GeoMedia. Frankly, I think ESRI and Intergraph have it right moving away from beating their heads against the wall supporting ArcCAD (my product) and MGE. Leave Autodesk and Bentley to build on their own platforms (you just know they’d work to make it difficult for these “third party” developers anyway) and fear not: they will not get rich doing so anytime soon.

Intermap: Donations and Contracts

It was just a few days after Intermap announced it had "provided" ["The data will be made available to state, local and federal officials at no charge through 2005."] its terrain data and imagery of the Gulf Coast region (part of NEXTMapUSA) to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the other announcements started coming. NGA bought a subscription: "Intermap will provide NGA with NEXTMap USA imagery and elevation map data for regions in Southern California and Alabama… This initial purchase is valued at US$280,000." California is done. And, LADWP (Los Angeles Department of Water & Power) county governments, municipalities and commercial buyers are among the buyers/funders.

It seems clear Intermap is confident that the government sector at all levels will pay its share of the data development costs in time.

Hexagon Will Take Over Leica Geosystems

Forbes reports that stockholder holding more than 70% of Hexagon stock have ok’d the acquisiton of Leica Geosystems. The final numbers will be out Monday, but the saga seems to be over.

GIS, Maps and Rita - Sept 23

Coverge of mapping, GIS and geospatial technologies on Sept 23.

Coverage

“While Columbia County [Georgia] has a map online showing areas that would be inundated with water in the event of dam failure, Augusta’s Web site doesn’t yet.
“Chief Willis said officials in the Augusta Information Technology Department’s Geographic Information Systems Division are working on making that information available through the county’s GIS Web site. He didn’t have an exact date of when that will be completed.

“The Web site is used to show maps of property records and currently can display flood zones in the county - not necessarily caused by a dam failure - as determined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
Augusta Chronicle (free registration required)

“First, I suggest that if you’re in Harris county, go to this website: eFloodMap.com.  You can zoom in on your area and see if your house is near the gray flood zones.  Now, the main threat from this storm is going to be the winds; the storm should blow through quickly enough to not dump tons of rain on everyone like Allison did.  That said, if your house is near the gray areas on this flood map, you need to prepare to have your street and maybe your house flooded.  The one thing that I did not do that I wish I had done was to move my vehicles to higher ground, so I suggest you do that.”
LoneStar Times (Texas)

“Peering from space using the government’s most covert satellites, a little-known spy agency is turning its cameras toward Hurricane Rita and the destruction it is expected to inflict on the Gulf Coast.

“A part of the Defense Department, the agency [NGA] usually toils behind the scenes to provide the images and analysis of what’s happening in other countries, including weapons tests. Among the government’s most closely guarded secrets, the quality of pictures from its satellites is believed to far exceed the 1-meter resolution available commercially.”
AP [Note that the highest resolution commercially available is .62 meters from DigitalGlobe’s QuickBird.]

Data Resources

Maps & Resources Tracking Hurricane Rita
Search Engine Watch

“Most video feeds will open up your video player, likely Windows Media Player. For instance, watch Houston’s KHOU or KPRC. Even cooler are three or more video feeds that open within your browser. The Weatherserver site, for instance, has both a Texas Multiview and Louisiana Multiview.”
PC World