Yahoo has a "quickie" technology incubator (from which Pipes! evolved) called Brickhouse. Today it launches "a development platform, code-named FireEagle, that will eventually enable people to provide their location in one place and have that information distributed across multiple applications, such as social networks, microblogs and instant-messaging services. The data dissemination also can be automated with a GPS-enabled phone." The idea is to "get more use" out of that location information - and I suspect - use it to make more money via LBS ads and services.

- CNET

The platform is in closed alpha testing now and should open for beta later this month. It's built on Ruby on Rails and came out of Zonetag research. The location information, which can be explicitly given when the user wants to note it or generated automatically at regular intervals with a GPS-enabled device, is totally user managed. It can be shared with some services and not others, be deleted, etc. There are open APIs for taking and storing information and some 50 partners have been testing them out in secret for the past few months.

- TechCrunch

Now, in English: The Open Geospatial Consortium has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Open Grid Forum, "a community of users, developers, and vendors leading the global standardization effort for grid computing."

The initial goals, per Grid Today:

- Integrate OGC's OpenGIS Web Processing Service (WPS) Specification with a range of "back-end" processing environments to enable large-scale processing. The WPS could also be used as a front-end to interface to multiple grid infrastructures, such as TeraGrid, NAREGI, EGEE and the United Kingdom's National Grid Service. This would be an application driver for both grid and data interoperability issues.
- Integration of WPS with workflow management tools. OGF’s SAGA draft standard is where multiple WPS calls could be managed.
- Integration of OGC federated catalogs/data repositories with grid data movement tools. OGF’s GridFTP is one possibility that supports secure, third-party transfers that are useful when moving data from a repository to a remote service.

Update: Word was out Friday:

The move will create 50 new jobs and relocate 120 from its offices in Colonie to the Pitney Bowes MapInfo headquarters at 1 Global View, near the Hudson Valley Community College campus.
The 50 new jobs are in finance and shared services while the 120 relocated positions cover administrative jobs such as corporate finance, sales, service, billing, accounting and lease administration.

- Troy Record

--- original post 11/2 -----

It's been rather quiet up in Greenbush of late while MapInfo settles into its new corporate parent Pitney Bowes. I'm still figuring out what to call the product line.... But, the local paper (Albany Times Union) quotes Reid Hislop, vice president of marketing for the company as saying "We're bringing some new jobs to the region." An announcement Monday will provide details. The only tidbit, from the Albany Business Review: "He [Hislop] declined to say whether the jobs were being relocated from Pitney Bowes headquarters in Connecticut or how many jobs were coming here, noting that number was somewhere between 5 and 100."

Pitney Bowes closed it facility in Colonie and has moved the 120 staffers to Greenbush per the Albany Business Review.

Yes, the vision many have suggested of individuals and communities creating their own 3D models for inclusion in Google Earth is playing out again. McMinnville Tennessee, population 13,000, is the latest entrant. With a $10,000 state grant, two Google trainers, and some free copies of SketchUp and Google Earth Pro, 25 volunteers are at work.

- Knoxville News Sentinel