Just about a month ago Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice rejected the proposed $1.3 billion sale of MDA's space and information systems divisions (maker of the Radarsat-2 satellite) to Alliant Techsystems Inc. The reason: there was no "net benefit" for the country.

Alliant had 30 days to respond and convince official otherwise. Today's the end of that period and it looks like the decision will stand. Alliant announces year end earnings today. It's expected charges related to the failed purchase will be applied to Q4 earnings.

- CBC

Rounding out the top five scoring units were the Garmin Nuvi 760 ($600), Garmin Nuvi 660 ($500), TomTom Go 920T, ($650), Garmin Nuvi 350 ($350), and Magellan Maestro 4250 ($400).

- Kansas City InfoZine

Wow, it's getting deep as everyone wants to brand location-based services. This article (in GovTech) on a AAA/Motorola app drove it home to me.

The Motorola MOTORAZR 2 V9m phone equipped with AAA Mobile, gives users turn-by-turn audio navigation and visual route maps. Powered by Networks in Motion, the AAA Mobile application is available on several GPS-enabled cell phones and smartphones via Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Alltel.

So, Motorola wants its name on a cool phone with a cool app. AAA wants its name on the app. NIM wants to be the technology provider. Oh, and NIM white labels deCarta's services. This is going way beyond the days of Intel inside!

PCWorld carries the story.

In short:

Microsoft's TerraServer-USA satellite imagery project has been slapped with a trademark lawsuit from a small North Carolina company with a confusingly similar name.

Terraserver.com filed the suit on Friday in North Carolina federal court, seeking monetary damages and asking that Microsoft be stopped from using the TerraServer name.

Like the MapQuest/NavQuest suit (big guy sues little guy), I hope this one (little guy sues big guy) goes nowhere. The sad part, as Robert McMillan, who wrote the story suggested to me while we discussed the matter, Microsoft could just shut down Terraserver-usa.com, which would be a shame.

Actually, The Economist describes him as a cartographer, but I think geographer is more correct.

SOUNDING more like a cartographer than a central banker, Ben Bernanke this week showed off the Federal Reserve’s latest gizmo for tracking America’s property bust: maps that colour-code price declines, foreclosures and other gauges of housing distress for every county. His goal was to show that falling prices meant more foreclosures, and to urge lenders to write down the principal on troubled loans where the house is worth less than the value of the mortgage. His maps—where hotter colours imply more trouble—also make a starker point. The pain of America’s housing bust varies enormously by region. Hardest hit have been the “bubble states”—California, Nevada and Florida, and parts of the industrial Midwest. The biggest uncertainty hanging over the economy is how red will things get.