All Points Blog: Our Opinion, Your Views of All Things Location

Tuesday, January 22. 2008

OS/2 in Open Source

Update: IBM says "no" to the request; OS/2 will remain closed. Why? "Business, technical, and legal reasons."

via Slashdot
---- original post 12/14/07--------

OS/2? I didn't even know it was still around and yet InformationWeek reports that there is a movement to get IBM to put OS/2 into open source. Apparantly the operating system lives, though not in desktop platforms. as IW reports, it is being used behind the scenes in systems like ATMs.

In the GIS world, there was a point of divergence in the late 80's and early 90's for desktop mapping systems. Tydac had a great quadtree-based system that was ported to OS/2. Meanwhile, MapInfo was developing on Windows. The rest is history.

Has anyone come across OS/2 for geospatial software developement since?

Posted by Joe Francica in Open Source at 13:11 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

SatNav on Prarie Home Companion

More than one e-mail about the appearance of GPS in a Guy Noir skit leads me to post this. (I'm not a "Prarie" fan.)

Guy Noir audio is at the start of Segment Two or for those who lik to read, here's the script.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in GPS at 13:04 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Google Map on Your Site for Beginner

Mickey from Google Earth Hacks share this new tool.

We've just created a new tool to make it easier for beginners to embed maps on their site, and I thought it might be worth blogging about.

The tool is called "YourMap."

Users fill out the form on that page (all fields optional except for "name") and a map will be created for them. They can choose the size, starting zoom level, starting map type, etc. Based on their address, the location will be geocoded for them. Optionally, they can submit alternate lat/lon if they wish to be more accurate.

Once the form is filled out, HTML code for the map is given to them. They put it on their site and it's done! In addition to showing the map, it also builds a Google Earth KML with their location inside.

The HTML calls an iframe on our server, so they don't have to worry about an API key or anything. I've tried to make it very, very simple to use, and I hope I've succeeded.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google at 13:01 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Google Patent App: Geo Related

Another patent via Gary Price, this time from Google:

Markup Language for Interactive Geographic Information System (filed June 12, 2007)

"Data-driven guarded evaluation of conditional-data associated with data objects is used to control activation and processing of the data objects in an interactive geographic information system. Methods of evaluating conditional-data to control activation of the data objects are disclosed herein. Data-structures to specify conditional data are also disclosed herein."

I don't really get this - but I think it's about giving the user more control of the display of large data sets. Perhaps readers can help me out?

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, Patents at 09:02 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Yahoo Geo Patent - Location via Search Query Words

Gary Price at Ask/Resource Shelf sent on this one:

Geographical Location Extraction (filed July 3, 2007)

"A geographical location extraction method and tool to infer a likely geographical location from one or more search terms entered as a query by a user on a search engine or the like."

From a quick look it seems to be a process of examining words to determine how likely it is they are geographic and intended as part of a geographic search. I supposed it's yet another way to try to determine location or location of interest, this time without GPS or Wi-FI or TV but using just words.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Yahoo, LBS, Patents at 08:54 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Maps for Schools Texas Style

The Corpus Christi Geological Society program started it. The Society worked with local residents and businesses to fund framed US geologic maps for elementary schools. Now the West Texas Geological Society is doing the same thing aimed to put maps in each elementary school in Midland and Odessa; the underlying goal is to spark student interest in science and geology in particular.

A donation of $150 puts a map, with a plaque about the donor into a school. Another way to donate is to learn about the map and make presentations about it; the society provides training.

- MyWestTexas.com

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Education at 06:49 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Comments

Jen about Off Topic: Why We Need Libraries
January 8
thanks for reminding us to remember our [...]

Dave about Off Topic: Why We Need Libraries
January 8
I'm a long-time patron of public [...]

doubting about Patent Watch: Has Apple Patented Touchscreen Mapping?
January 8
I doubt they will succeed. There are a [...]

Frank Warmerdam about Podcast: Four New Year's Geotechnology Challenges
January 7
Adena,

I thought your statements on [...]

Adena Schutzberg about Update: Google Earth Enterprise Hits the Road
January 7
Links are at the very end of the [...]

Ron about Off Topic: Why We Need Libraries
January 7
Someone has to say it first: as Anne [...]

Brian about Update: Google Earth Enterprise Hits the Road
January 7
Can you please provide links?

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