Friday, May 16. 2008

Lockheed Beats Boeing for GPS Contract

In big hardware news...The Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.5 billion contract to build the military's next generation of navigation satellites. The deal is for two satellites and perhaps 10 more, though the ultimate plan is for 32, per the Pentagon. So, that's a fine income stream for Lockheed Martin.

Boeing is not doing so well on the Air Force front. Boeing ran into delays and cost overruns in building 12 earlier GPS satellites and was not expected to take this contract. Further, Boeing lost the $40 billion deal to build refueling tankers to Northrop Grummand and EADS.

- Washington Post

3D Walt Disney Tuesday on Google Earth

The map began with eight photographers who canvassed every inch of Disney World for 10 days. Then their images were rendered in 3-D.

Click on Space Mountain, for instance, and you can view a video of the ride and get information such as height requirements. Put your mouse on the Grand Floridian and a video of the resort pops up. You also can check availability and rates and make a reservation.

It will cover Walt Disney Parks and Resorts will make it easy to take a virtual trip to Walt Disney World's Epcot Center, Animal Kingdom, Disney's Hollywood Studios and 22 Disney hotels and resorts, that's some 1500 rides, restaurants and attractions. It's all outside scenes for now, but indoor and other Disney properties are on the list for the future.

- USA Today

Jane's Puts Global Incident Map Behind Pay Wall

We posted this press release yesterday. The Inquirer isn't too keen on Jane's, the media star for defense and industry news, interactive map.

Using software called ESRI’s ArcIMS Geographical Information System (GIS), which apparently is the thing to use if you want dynamic maps on the Internet, Jane’s says it has built “an integrated intelligence picture by exporting events and geospatially fusing them to third party content".

The resource, however, isn’t a free service and to use it, one has to subscribe.

So if the company you work for is planning to ship you off to Colombia, or Nigeria in the near future and is unwilling to pay for a subscription, you might want to either cough up the cash yourself, or find yourself a free Global Incident map somewhere else.

Jane's is well-respected, but can it parlay that into a specific pay service for this map? It'll be interesting to see the uptake. In the meantime, here's a free global incident map built on Google Maps. The Guardian calls that mashup more of a demo.

Schwarzenegger Calls for Task Force in California for expanded GIS Use

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday called on his CIO, Teri Takai, appointed last December, to create a task force to help agencies and departments use of geographic information systems to improve public safety. What is the technology like?" kind of like Google Earth, but better."

I thought California was going to get a GIO. What's the status on that? From the California GIO webpage: "Please note that California does not currently have a formerly established Geospatial Information Office (GIO). This page was put up at the request of the acting State CIO, Clark Kelso, in anticipation of the day when this might become a reality." Sounds like this is a good time!

- Government Technology
- San Jose Mercury News
- press release

Podcast: Oracle's Spatial Game Plan

In this podcast sponsored by Oracle, the company's Spatial technology game plan will be discussed. Jim Steiner, Senior Director of Oracle's Server Technology and Dr. Xavier Lopez, Director of Oracle's Server Technology will provide an overview of Oracle's product status, its application strategy and future technology directions.

Listen to this podcast for the latest information on Oracle's spatial and location technology. Oracle product management discusses the Oracle Locator, Oracle Spatial and Oracle Fusion Middleware MapViewer, and shares their vision for how these technology tools will continue to play a larger role in enterprise business processes and applications.


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Other resources mentioned in the podcast:

Oracle Spatial

Oracle MapViewer

Oracle Spatial 11g Book

The podcast lasts 20 minutes.

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