Monday, October 6. 2008

The Simpsons Tackles Cell Phone Tracking

Last night's new episode of the cartoon series has Bart longing for and eventually receiving a cell phone. Unknown to him initially, Mom Marge turns on the tracking feature. Then Bart cleverly has the family track, well, something else. It's a clever episode and I found it fun to try to identify the technical slips in the presentation (that might be fun for a technology class, too). Also fun: the cartoon implementation of a Google Earth-like "zoom to the location of interest" tool used throughout the story.

Podcast: Autodesk Series #2 -Digital Cities-A Vision for 3D Modeling and Visualization in Local Governments

Autodesk has been a pioneer in 3D visualization for the past 10 years and almost every aspect of government infrastructure can be designed as a 3D model for planning and developing purposes. And, once constructed, these models can be used for operating and maintaining these assets. Autodesk is aggressively moving forward because the benefits of this technology are so exceptional. And now, with the acquisition of 3DGeo, Europe’s leading 3D visualization software solution, Autodesk has been able to accelerate their strategy to help the world’s cities create their next generation base maps as a 3D interactive models. [Podcast sponsored by Autodesk.]
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Beat Credit Crunch: Don't Use Satnav

While many GPS vendors are touting how GPS can save gas and money, the UK's Mirror suggests just the opposite.

And don’t rely on sat navs – look at a map too. They can take you the longest way round or get you lost, making your journey more complicated and expensive.

That from Quentin Willson, the motoring editor.

ESRI Latin America to Grow by 40%

Business News Americas reports that Jack Dangermond predicts a 40% growth rate for ESRI in Latin America. Dangermond was in Santiago, Chile for the Latin American User Conference. While Dangermond acknowledged the challenging economy, he felt encourage there were more people looking to GIS for design and sustainability.

Google Positive About MapMaker India

Within weeks of its launch, tens of thousands of Indians have filled in details of their cities, towns and villages, many of them previously blank spaces in even the most up-to-date atlases. The technology, which is being extended to other “information-deficient” regions, such as Africa, is widely viewed as the future of map-making and is on course to be worth billions for Google in advertising revenues.

- The Times

AGI Has Live Satellite Images of Earth?

That's what an article in a Pennsylvania paper suggests. The article highlights a visit of former New York Governor Rudy Giuliani and his visit to Analytical Graphics, Inc. while supporting a local Republican candidate for Congress.

Giuliani spoke to a large group of employees and later answered questions from the media in a conference room with a live picture of Earth projected on a wall screen from an AGI satellite 64,000 kilometers in space. Unlike Google Earth, which projects pictures that could have been taken years ago, this was in real time.

With the flick of a mouse, a camera zoomed in on New York City until the former mayor recognized his house.

I suspect there was some confusion about what was being shown.

- DailyLocal.com