I've been an Accuweather person (they are from Penn State, after all) but this WunderMap, a Weather Underground based Google Maps mashups is very nice. Not only did it locate me and provide local weather, but the interface is clear and elegant, with spot temperatures in colored circles. I also like the option to turn on and off five different layers. The site went live yesterday.

- Digital Trends

Jordan Thomas started WineMap.org, an Internet business that matches grape growers with buyers. This week he pitched it to potential investors. Here's his status:

Thomas and his partners already have put $400,000 of their own money into the two-year-old business. They're looking for another $700,000 to take it to the next level, Thomas said.

WineMap.org has the potential to revolutionize the $3 billion annual winegrape market, he said. It allows growers to show their vineyard locations online and offer their grapes for sale.

Growers will pay WineMap $1,200 per year, less than half of what it would cost to sell through a broker, Thomas said.

So far, about 1,500 growers are using the Web service, representing 3,000 vineyards in California and Oregon.

- press democrat

"GIS is really a powerful tool, because unlike a product like Google Maps, which is just a visual image of the overhead, GIS is linking maps with data. And the thing about these maps is they are going to be such an extraordinarily high level of quality compared to any one you can look at on the Web."

Mexico City Manager (Missouri) Todd Thompson during a meeting to vote on sharing the county's GIS system. The implementation will use Pictometry.

- Mexico Ledger

You can play Wii games with others online, but latency means that sometimes there's a bit of delay. The good news is that if you choose players closer by, that latency decreases. So, how to find local players? MapWii. You won't get too local too fast with this Google Maps app. First you pick a country, then a sublevel (state in the U.S.). When I ended up in Massachusetts, many of the folks don't seem to have any Wii games.

The site has been up for some time, but I point it out because it's a situation where geography still matters!

via AppScout

The Inquirer reports that the UAE is planning to launch a remote sensing satellite. Details are sketchy, but the paper reports:

[Senior military official from UAE] Brigadier Khalifa Mohammad Al Rumaithi, told Gulf News of plans to launch a satellite in conjunction with other GCC countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE).

Speaking at the Defence Geospatial Intelligence conference, the UAE’s Chief of Military Works at the Armed Forces, noted that a lot of progress has already been made on the Satellite, dubbed Dubai sat1, which the UAE says is for peaceful and civilian purposes only.

It will purportedly be able to help the country with urban development planning and infrastructure by providing accurate maps and be useful in management of potential natural disasters. It's not for spying, honest.

"The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) signed a contract with Sinclair Knight Merz Pty Ltd (SKM) at Defence House in Wellington today as part of the KiwImage project." The project entails gathering 60 centimeter imagery for the two main islands and others New Zealand controls. Where will the image come from? I think DigitalGlobe, though the article says "Global Image."

- Scoop.nz