Tuesday, May 20. 2008

Podcast: ESRI and Google Offer New Solutions for Finding and Using Geospatial Data

At last week's Where 2.0 held in Burlingame, California, Google's John Hanke and ESRI's Jack Dangermond shared the stage to describe their updated vision for making ESRI's user's geodata and services more usable across the Web. Our editors describe the key points in this technological and business handshake and explore its implications.

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Ready for Mobile, Social 3D GPS Environment?

It's nearly here, or so says Planet 9, the well-known creator of 3D city models. RayGun is GPS navigation and social networking application, now in 2D and soon to be in 3D.

With RayGun, you can create an avatar to represent yourself, and move around in the application. You can also share routes, text chat, share photos and video, and even talk to each your friends over VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).

It won't be a product you can buy; the company hopes to license it phone suppliers and carriers for their products.

- Venture Beat

Any "There" in Where?

Leslie Rule covers location issues at MediaShift's Idea Lab (a PBS property) and attended Where 2.0. I thought she offered a valuable take on the event:

One of the few content folks I met during the 3 days asked me if I thought there was any There (a la Gertrude Stein) in Where.

My opinion? Yes, but not yet. And, not because of the tools, or the products and services, but because folks like their devices and these devices are connecting them ever more deeply to their place. It's There when the content comes.

She also point to some of the "in actual use" products shown at the event.

Sprint Pays in Location Information Privacy Patent Infringement Case

A jury has found Sprint Nextel infringed on two patents owned by California intellectual property holding company Enovsys LLC. The decision, made Friday, but announced on Monday awarded Enovsys past damages of $2.78 million.

The patents in question relate not to determining position, but rather to a privacy system that protects the location information between user and carrier. The size of the award may have been impacted by testimony that "Sprint Nextel is the market leader in the growing field of location services and saw a 50% increase in related revenues in 2007 over the prior year."

Inventors Mundi Fomukong and Denzil Chesney hold the patents, the first patent was applied for in 1997. Fomukong owns the IP holding company. I suspect as LBS makes and more money, more suits will be filed.

- press release

Misread Map Means Parking Mess

The parking mess started when residents of Essex County complained to the local council about a dangerous corner. The council determined one way to enhance safety was to limit parking in the area. So, contractors were dispatched to paint the road to show the "no parking" condition. But, they read the map wrong and put the lines on the wrong side of road. They were however clever enough to paint around the cars already parked there.

The explanation?

And when one man confronted the contractors painting the lines, he found them reading the map upside down.

- Guardian

How Green is Pitney Bowes?

Industry Week asks all sorts of green questions of Paul Robbertz, Vice President, Environment Health & Safety. Most of the interview is about how the company behaves (measures carbon footprint, offsets it, etc.) but there is a tidbit about its products being green:

Q. Have you changed/modified your products/developed new products as a result of your initiatives?

A. We have practiced environmental responsibility since the company's founding in 1920. The company's business model is to optimize the transfer of information through the mailstream, minimizing extraneous waste and thus reducing environmental impact. In today's marketplace, it is necessary to reposition products and services to highlight environmental attributes, but not necessary to re-invent core businesses. For example, our location intelligence and geospatial technologies help customers pinpoint the most appropriate population to receive a particular mailpiece, reducing the amount of unwanted mail.