Reminiscent of this post describing Scottish officials warning ambulances not to trust satnavs, come this story from Australia. After several incidents were motorists were lead onto unsuitable roads in rural areas, The Age newspaper reports:

Police are now urging motorists to take maps instead of blindly following instructions from a GPS.

These warnings will no doubt increase, but it doesn't seem to impact GPS purchases or perhaps common sense.

Police and others in Dover, Delaware are now using GIS to better respond to issues related to the large crowds that come to town twice a year for the races. Credit is given to "Gary Nowak, the city's new geographic information system chief," for writing a computer program with the required data. The systems runs on laptops and helps law enforcement respond to situation in the Dover Downs "campgrounds" where tailgaters gather. Apparently near real time data is added, but it's not clear how. Says the local paper: "The program details the status of crowds around the racetrack."

- Delaware Online/The News Journal

To get the rest of the story, read this article from ESRI. It notes the underlying technology and how the data are updated.

Using ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Mobile software from ESRI, staff operating in the command center and in the field can visualize where disturbances, code violations, accidents, and other incidents occur.
This view of the entire race, with real-time event data being posted by field personnel using ArcGIS Mobile, provides the command center with a common operating picture that can be shared with other personnel in different locations. The server-based GIS provides an enterprise platform that can be accessed using browser-based desktop or mobile clients. It makes extensive capabilities available without having to install any special client software and without training.

The project won an ESRI SAG Award in 2007.

It's being developed at Harvard.

The CEGRP website is a gateway to maps, GIS data, and GIS analysis to facilitate and to share research efforts focused on the recent earthquakes in China.

Building upon the Task Force initiative of Bao Shuming (China Data Center) and Lin Hui (Institute for Space Earth and Information Science), the CEGRP will collect, document, and distribute GIS datasets and related information to assist in ongoing research.

The CEGRP has support from the Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis and the Harvard Fairbank Center for East Asian Research.

And, they are looking for content.

> GIS layers and datasets related to the earthquake zone

> Photos and narrative documentation of specific sites

> links to agencies conducting GIS analysis about the earthquake

> historical and demographic information related to the earthquake region

> FTP files to our server for distribution and archiving on CERAP portal

- via Twitter

Clickz reports on this, the paper's 25th widget called Washington Area Apartment Finder:

Apartment hunters in the Washington Metro area can use the widget, which is being sponsored exclusively by residential real estate company The Bozzuto Group, to find apartments based not just on number of bedrooms or price, but by how far they are located from any Metro station. A mash-up of the Metro map and customized Google maps will provide a snapshot of the various listings available.

Here it is, embedded. Is this the future of mashups and part of their business model?