Friday, November 14. 2008

Local Matters Pulls IPO

PaidContent reports that Perry Evans' local search company Local Matters has recalled its plan to go public based on, that's right, the economy. Local Matter filed the paper work to go public in 2006 and it never really went anywhere. I do hope they weather the storm and can give it another go on the other side.

We've written about the company a few times (1, 2).

Virtual Earth Immersive Customer Service Experience

Yes, that's how a media alert from Microsoft covers how the company can help banks using Virtual Earth. Microsoft will exhibit at the BAI Retail Delivery Conference & Expo.

"Microsoft Virtual Earth. An integrated set of services providing quality geospatial data, rich imagery and cutting-edge technology that helps banks provide immersive online customer experiences, and connect customers with branch locations and services."

I don't think I'm yet ready to get immersive with my bank. I'm still getting used to online banking...

Geomagnetic sensor for "underground GPS"

Achi Steel, a steel company in Japan, is testing a new location solution that uses a geomagnetic sensor and an acceleration sensor to determine location underground. The first use? Navigation in underground shopping malls. On the drawing board: very accurate in-car navigation.

- TechRadar

Quote of the Week

"looking for some good GIS data, not your ordinary kind, anyone know where I can get some of the "good stuff"?"

- via Twitter

GIS Day Communications - How are we doing?

While one goal of GIS Day is to educate those can attend events on or around that day, another is to simply to get the term and some sense of its meaning/role into day to day parlance. How are we doing based on online content?

The Plainfield Sun (suburban Chicago) offers an event notification, but with the headline "Event to spotlight new technology." There's no real discussion of what GIS is, in fact the acronym is not written out. Still, the nature of the topics suggests something about what it's role; the event covers "how the village uses the technology to improve services by demonstrating some of the applications including collecting field data utilizing GPS, the village's addressing process, crime mapping and Web GIS." I am surprised by "new" in the headline. It suggests to me that either GIS is "new" (we know it's pretty old...) or new to the area (if it is, that's not clear and based on the above discussion, it's pretty entrenched there).

The Sherwood Voice (Arkansas) notes its event and the keynote speaker from the National Weather Service who will speak on GIS and its use in tracking tornadoes that hit the area in February. Cool speaker! Again, GIS is not written out or defined. The article does note local and national sponsors, which is nice and may help those new to GIS figure something about it.

The University of New Hampshire already held its event, its 10th and the student newspaper not only wrote out what GIS stands for but profiled the types of people (700) who attended. Alas, it too stayed away from defining GIS is. I've attended the UNH event in past years; it's terrific!

Camp Pendleton is only to "it's [sic] 2nd annual" Geographic Information Systems day according the the Pendleton Scout and also doesn't describe GIS in detail. I do appreciate the goal, which does not include younger students: "The program was designed to encourage Marines, sailors and civilians to learn about the importance of geography and GIS technology."

What should we take away from these examples?

Continue reading "GIS Day Communications - How are we doing?"

Connection Between Small Portable Nuclear Plants and Geo

Kirk Kuykendall at The Memory Leak helped make a connection that I missed. This week there was quite a bit of buzz about an "affordable" small time nuclear plant (details)from a company called Hyperion Power Generation. I heard about it on Buzz Out Loud... The connection? The CEO is John R. (Grizz) Deal, the founder and lead at LizardTech back in the day. He has a lot of energy experience as well as startup experience. One to watch...