Tuesday, December 30. 2008

Podcast: What Can the Geospatial Community Learn from Top Ten Lists?

This week the podcast takes a look at some top ten lists - some from the geospatial world but mostly those form the broader tech Web space. Both sets of lists reveal quite a lot about where geospatial is as we come to the end of 2008.

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Monday, December 29. 2008

Update 2: Moose, Court Case and Denali Boundary

Update: 12/29/08:

Back on Dec 5 Jeff King was ordered to pay a $4,000 fine and another $750 in restitution to the National Park Service. King was found guilty in court this fall of shooting a bull moose 600 feet inside the park boundary in 2007.

- Fairbanks Daily News Miner

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UK's "AAA" Reports Most Members Carry Print Atlas Along with SatNav

A survey of more than 7,000 AA (UK's Automobile Association) reveals:

- 75% of the sat-nav owners still carried a road atlas and 22% agreed their sat-nav sometimes distracts them when driving.

- 61% said their sat-nav had stopped them from getting lost while 44% use it frequently, while 30% said their sat-nav had taken them to the wrong destinations

- men (47%) were more likely to have them than women (30%), with 18-24 year olds the age group most likely (43%).

- Press Association (UK's AP)

Boston Globe: The Year in Maps

The Globe offers an article titled The Year in Maps, with the subhead: "A cartography boom offers new ways to see the world."

The author, Drake Bennett, spoke to me and some other locals for input and its nice to see some of the local work highlighted. I confess I was very pleased to see that this was a topic worthy of exploration in the "Ideas" column in the Sunday paper.

I wonder, though, has there really been a cartography boom, or just more tools to make maps? Or is it the same thing?

Re-Localization

ReadWriteWeb rekindles a post about from earlier this year which highlights the difference between traveller type apps (for a "stranger in a strange land") vs. those meant to bring people together in their shared geography.

Re-localization is about locals. It is about people who like being in one place and interacting with neighbors.

As I've noted, there are more of us who "stay in" our geography than those who happen upon it. LBS needs to cater to the "stay at homes" in a different way.

Rolta to Announce Another Acquisition this Week

Word is Rolta will by a "US-based specialist IT firm, which provides software and related services to the oil and gas industry." Rolta acquired WhittmanHart Consulting, a Chicago-based business intelligence firm, earlier this year. Others looking at the acquisition pulled out when the economy slumped.

- India Times