The interview is a follow up on another Inquirer article on the project (I blogged it here).

Some interesting points:

- The project charges just enough for its data to cover expenses, not make a profit
- A change in government in the city may threaten the project
- Bandwidth and cost limitation limit possible extended use of the service in blogs, etc.
- MapServer powers the site.

A team from CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, a French agricultural research centre working for international development) and partners have developed a method for mapping soil carbon reserves based on land use and environmental factors.

It was developed in India, at the centre of one of the 25 hot spots defined by biodiversity protection specialists. The new method comprises two stages. In the first, existing data are used to establish a model that subsequently serves to estimate carbon reserves depending on environmental parameters: location, geological substrate, physiographic information, plant cover and soil composition (gravel, clay, loam, sand, and obviously carbon).

In the case of India, these parameters were established for 361 soil profiles representing 1643 soil horizons selected based on numerous surveys and studies in the zone. The parameters were used to compile a database for the model. The model was then coupled with a geographic information system (GIS) containing maps of the same environmental parameters, so as to calculate carbon reserves at any point in the zone. The results obtained from these data for the different ecosystems encountered confirmed the mean values quoted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The method can also be used for other geographical zones, provided the relevant database is available for the zone in question.

- Innovations Report

The marketing folks at Skyhook passed this along:

Today Skyhook Wireless is rolling out a private beta for MyLoki, a new service for Loki. Using your current location, MyLoki can show friends where you are - check out my email signature for an example. [It said the person was in Boston.] We've also added a Facebook application, and integration with Jaiku or anything that supports GeoRSS.

MyLoki keeps your friends up to date on your location, helps keep track of where you've been, arrange get togethers with friends in your current area, and much more.

You can request a invite code here. Loki uses wireless hotspots locations to determine location.

Among the topics covered in the article from the print publication: Zillow use in a down market, the new alogorithms, the challenges of user provided data, going into mortgages.

A snippet:

Wired: So how does your users' data fit into the formula?

Barton: The Zestimate is only going to be as good as the information we have going in, and there are lots of holes and inaccuracies. We opened up Zillow so owners could correct facts about their homes, publish their own estimate of their house's value, and upload pictures. We can feed some of that information back into the algorithm. If you say, "No, there are four bathrooms, not three," we take that as reality. It makes the Zestimate significantly better.

A press release from SurftheTurf.com, a new real estate mashup (Google Map-based), explains that the site offers something other sites do not: the geocoding of bare land parcels, that is parcels without addresses.

Designed by Margaret Hokkanen, the Team's lead real estate agent, these maps solve the problem of determining where a parcel of land for sale is located. "Some real estate web sites allow you to display land for sale in a list, but they often they cannot show you where the parcels are located on a map," explains Hokkanen. "The difficulties arise because bare land parcels have no house and often no corresponding US Postal Service address. Without a valid address, the real estate mapping tools found on other sites typically fail to display the property or put it in the wrong location."

Ms. Hokkanen states that they solved the location problem for the vast majority of the San Diego listings.

The release does not say how they do it, but for now the properties are marked with a point symbol; in time they hope to include boundary information.

Ok, follow me on this, because it's pretty interesting. The state of NJ Library Network offers a service, QandANJ.org, where instate residents can ask real live librarians questions via the Web. One trick to keeping its costs down is only serving those in the state... That's where Quova comes in; its technology is used to locate those hitting the service to verify they are indeed instate. If they are not, they must be validated using their library card. With advertising and the focus on its citenry, site use is up 25%.

- Press Release