The BBC offers an article and audio clip from it Digital Planet program featuring Max Baber from the University of Redlands. The audio, but not the text explains the data collection using GPS.

I didn't know that. Per Superior Express the state has mandated GIS for all county assessors. Nuckolls County, about which the article was written, just received two bids. It's not clear to me from the article if the mandate is direct or if it's because the NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service, formerly the Soil Conservation Service) no longer provides paper mapbooks, but only digital data and the Nebraska Property Assessment Division requires county assessors to use new soil codes in that digital data for assessment purposes by Jan. 1, 2009. In either case, its an interesting way to get GIS into those counties that don't yet have it.

UPI reports via Hollywood reporter that CNN has a smaller sized multi-touch wall that will be onsite at the Democratic and Republican conventions later this year. This is covered under UPI's entertainment news. Political correspondent John King who drives the board noted it would show an "electoral map of the United States, along with any other information event planners deem necessary."

I thought this was an interesting headline in the Shenandoah Valley News Leader. The real question in the article by the paper's data editor is essentially, should the paper continue the challenging process of creating a print map, or just offer the interactive one. When you read about the steps required to make the print one (Windows, Mac, replacing lost decimal places, complex mapping software...) you get a sense of the answer.