Friday, September 12. 2008

Netezza to Announce Spatial Extension to Data Warehouse Appliance

We in the geospatial world have over the past decade or so wrapped our brains around spatial extensions for databases. I’m the first to admit, it took me quite a bit of time to get used to the idea that geometry was just another field like data and number. Now we are sort of blase about yet another database adding a geospatial type. That’s good because I need to blow your mind just a little.

Next week Netezza a data warehouse appliance company will announce its spatial extension to its database. “It has a database?”you ask. “I’ve never heard of it.” You and me both! But I spoke to Jonathan Shepherd, who heads the geospatial initiative at Netezza, who gave me the lowdown. Peter Batty was also on the call. He's been hinting at this for a while.

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Microsoft Confirms New Version of Virtual Earth for Sept 22

A Microsoft spokesperson states: "We can confirm that there will be a release on Sept. 22. However, we have nothing new to announce today – stay tuned for more details.”

I contacted Microsoft when I read these details that appeared on the Web on Thursday. Update 9/15: The document has been removed from the hosting website.

Watch Live Shots/Animation of Galveston Storm Surge

WeatherBug offers current image and animated images.

This is one of WeatherBug's more than 380 cameras across the entire Gulf Coast. Cameras show live images of conditions. Several of WeatherBug's weather stations are also located at sea on oil platforms in the Gulf Coast. You can find more Texas weather stations and camera here.

Changes to Survey of India's Map Publishing Policy

Excerpt from "Across an Unmapped Land" by Ravi Vyas in the Telegraph

There are other ‘geobrowsers’ too [beyond Google Earth] and between them the whole world would be mapped in the minutest detail. It is against this backdrop we have to see the anachronistic requirements for the reproduction of Indian maps in books and periodicals. Under existing copyright laws, any map of India, and this includes historical maps dating back to Vedic times, has to be cleared by the Survey of India, failing which the publication can be confiscated. The Survey of India checks the “authenticity” of external boundaries vis-à-vis Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and the coastal boundaries that includes all the islands on the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. This is an expensive and time consuming process.

However, because of repeated requests from publishers to simplify the checking procedures, the survey has made a small change: you can reproduce maps of India if you use outline maps provided by the survey. But these maps cannot be traced or reproduced photographically because the survey thinks that some distortion of boundaries takes place while doing this. If these rules are not followed, then the publisher or distributor has to add a disclaimer stating that the maps does not represent the authentic boundaries of India.

The question that is often asked is whether these regulations are at all necessary with the technological advance in communications and when information is easily available on the internet.

I suppose the change is a step forward, but clearly larger ones are needed.

US State "Personality Map" Coverage: Where are the maps?

I guess researchers and/or some of the press have not figured out that if you want to report on science that uses a map, you need to have a map!

The news is a report, "The Geography Of Personality; A Theory of the Emergence, Persistence and Expression of Geographic Variation in Basic Traits" currently running in Perspectives On Psychological Science. You can read the abstract free but the article requires a fee. Thus, I don't know if the article provides a map or not. In any case, the UK's Telegraph (the lead author is a US-born Cambridge professor) sums up the research: "The results revealed clear patterns of personalities - neuroticism is highest in the east along a line stretching from Maine to Louisiana - the "stress belt"" but provides no map. Most of the U.S. papers that covered the story that I read focused on the "local" personality traits (good!) but had no maps either.

But wait, McCLatchy Newspapers did the work. That organization provides an interactive Flash-based map built on the findings.

For tips about getting mapping stories to the media, listen to the podcast I did with conversational media consultant and content strategist Amy Gahran on the topic.

Battlestar Gallactica or Google Maps? Court Currently Not in Session

A truck driver in the UK was driving erratically. When pulled over, officials found a laptop with episodes of the TV sci-fi program. While the trucker at first pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, there was an attempt to get him to plead not guilty, which failed.

His solicitor Nigel Beeson said: "My client's case is 'Yes, I was driving along, yes, I did have my laptop on the dashboard but it had a Google map or whatever on it.' In other words, he was using a large version of a sat nav and "Looking at a map would not be dangerous driving."

- Chester Evening Leader