Friday, July 11. 2008

Brightkite API Beta Opens (requests only)

The BrightKite blog has details. Wow it must be really hard to figure out what LBS platform to develop on, let alone use in your day to day life.

via Profy

Reader's Digest Pits Signs + Directions vs. Maps vs. Satnav

The winner in the 989-mile "race" which included finding 12 locations along the way in the UK was the "signs and directions" car. It "won" followed an hour and a half later by the "map" car and three hours later by the "satnav" car. Coverage in The Scotsman highlights the genders of the drivers if you are interested. Local knowledge is certainly best, and a mix of tools will work well for many drivers. The big challenge? People become slaves to their satnavs.

One Agent Settles in REAL Patent Suit

Inman News reports that Thursday Robert Freedman, a Manhattan Beach, Calif., real estate agent settled in the mapping technology patent infringement case. He's one of 34 defendants in a California suit filed in March. Terms were not disclosed, but Freedman sent a letter to the National Association of Realtors, which has supported defendants to the tune of some $1.3 million, stating they were wrong in dismissing the allegations.

REAL's lawyers continue to be busy; in April they filed suit against LoopNet. To date no GIS software providers nor search engine firms have been identified in the suits, but my sense is any early success in these cases with any defendant of any size will increase the scope of the suits even further.

NC County Implements MapGuide Open Source

I've been patiently waiting for a story like this since MapGuide Open Source (and its commercial counterpart MapGuide Enterprise from Autodesk) received positive reviews from tech folks. Now Chatham County, NC has moved onto the platform saving $20,000-$40,000 in software costs and annual fees, per Jeremy Poss, GIS specialist. The article doesn't mention the previous technology used but in an e-mail Poss highlighted past technologies from Understanding Systems Inc. (USI), now a owned by HTE Sungard and an app built on ESRI technology by TerraVerge.

The site looks quite elegant, though I was unable to view the map in Safari. I could do queries, however.

- Chatham Journal