On Monday the Gillette News-Record published an AP article about local home prices dipping. In particular, “Teton County experienced the largest decline in median home values, with a drop of 9.1 percent.” The report cited ESRI figures.
Today, The Jackson Hole News and Guide offered a rebuttal from local agent saying essentially, “That can’t be right!” Unfortunately, calls to ESRI to get details of how the value was calculated were not returned.
I guess this can be filed under “lies, d*&) lies and statistics.” Also, it’s interesting to see ESRI’s name in the news for data rather than software.
by Adena Schutzberg on 09/11 at 08:43 AM |
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The Broad Area Space-based Imagery Collector (BASIC) which we discussed in a podcast is a new vision for government ownership of remote sensing satellites. Talked about for some time, the plan is actually moving ahead. On Monday Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell approved the purchase of two commercial grade satellites (and related launch and monitoring facilities) for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The deal uses military intelligence funds.
The contract details are still up in the air but it appears the NRO will launch birds with 1.1 meter aperture in about four years at a cost of $1.7 billion. There are no details on resolution. Commercial players are not happy about this move, nor is Pentagon acquisition chief John Young, who says it goes against a presidential directive to use commercial sources whenever possible.
- Reuters
by Adena Schutzberg on 09/11 at 08:22 AM |
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“Even though there seems to be a Starbucks on every corner, we have served up 1.7 million Starbucks searches.”
- Dan Gilmarting VP of Marketing for uLocate on the success of the company’s iPhone apps in an article in Tech News World
by Adena Schutzberg on 09/11 at 07:25 AM |
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I’ll let you read the details of allegations of the memorial being designed points to Mecca along with alleged threats. I want to draw out just one paragraph from the story in the Daily American News (Somerset County Pennsylvania’s paper) because of how it covers the tools used by one professor to explore the directionality issue:
“My assessment has gone from unconvinced to definitely stating that Mr. Rawls does not have a mathematical proof — he has only a calculation,” Griffith said. “I have produced counterexample graphics (employing Mr. Rawls’ own memorial orientation graphic) with both ArcGIS (a state-of-the-art GIS software package) and Google Earth.”
I think it’s telling that ArcGIS requires an explanation as an unknown scientific tool and Google Earth requires none. Equally interesting: GIS is not written out, nor defined. The author, who I believe included the parenthetical remarks, clearly feels readers know of GIS if not ArcGIS.
by Adena Schutzberg on 09/11 at 06:51 AM |
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This was announced yesterday (press release) but I note it here because there were so many press releases yesterday it seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. NG released no information on the cost, but it seems the well known government contractor is getting more involved in data capture/analysis. This continues the consolidation we’ve been predicting in the industry in recent months.
3001 Inc. is based in Virginia with offices around the country.
by Adena Schutzberg on 09/11 at 06:00 AM |
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