Wednesday, January 21. 2009

Global Warming Map "Looks Like Thermometer-Hot at the Top; Warm at the Bottom"

A worldwide map published by Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama-Huntsville, shows that over the past 30 years, the Earth has warmed 0.4 degrees Celsius. Christy is a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at the school, a nationally recognized scientist on global warming and a member of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. According to a press statement from the school issued this past December, "the map shows the Earth's climate changes since December 1, 1978, (when satellite sensors started tracking the climate) and doesn't show a uniform global warming. It looks more like a thermometer: Hot at the top, cold at the bottom and varying degrees of warm in the middle." A map specifically of North America is also available.

McNealy Asked to Write Paper on Open Source for Obama Administration

The BBC reports on co-founder of Sun Microsystems McNealy's vision that open source could be a great thing for government. While not everyone agrees with McNealy's idea that "It's intuitively obvious open source is more cost effective and productive than proprietary software," Obama sure seems to getting input from all sides in many areas.

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is onboard with McNealy, but its president Michael Tiemann thinks a federal CIO is a waste of a position.

- via Slashdot

Bloomberg Announces NYC Go - Google Maps/Earth Based NYC Exploration Tool

Bloomberg announced the new site called "nycgo" and the new visitor's center (with touch tables using Google Maps/Flash and big screen 3D viewing on Google Earth, including new 3D model of the city) on the Official Google Blog. The whole program comes out of NYC & Company, the city's official marketing, tourism and partnership organization.

There are tools to restaurants and activities, send the information to your phone. You use a "interactive disks" (that look like CDs but lie on the tables) while building the itinerary on the tables and can then view it in 3D on the big screen. You just drop the disk on a platform and it plays. Multilingual staffers help users out.

This is the kind of thing that puts Google's technology out front and center for everyone to use. Besides, who would not want to play with a touch table for free in NYC (810 Seventh Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd Streets)?

Video below.

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Alabama DHS, Google Offer Video on Virtual Alabama Implementation

As a resident of Alabama, I'm proud of the work that the state has done to stand up Virtual Alabama, a Google Earth-based application that supports first responders in the event of a major emergency. We've featured Virtual Alabama on several occasions as well as at our Rocket City Geospatial Conference. The YouTube video gives a brief overview of the work by Chris Johnson of the US Space and Rocket Center, Norven Goddard of Alabama DHS and the vision of Jim Walker, Director of the Alabama DHS. The Google Earth Enterprise team released the following video on the project (thanks to Tim O'Reilly for pointing to this video):

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Hybrid Positioning Market Prediction

In a press release I must have missed from last week but which I think is significant, ABI Research offered predictions on the market potential of hybrid positioning systems. That is, when one form of position determination is not available, others must be available on the same handset. Dominique Bonte, ABI's principal analyst for telematics and navigation (see my podcast interview with him from last August on LBS) states that, "Users expect a seamless and transparent location experience regardless of application or environment...Since no single positioning technology can provide this, the future will be about hybrid positioning systems, combining A-GPS, Cell-ID, Wi-Fi, cellular, motion sensors, and even TV broadcast and proximity technologies such as Bluetooth, NFC and RFID. A-GPS, Wi-Fi and Cell-ID will be the winning combination offering accuracy, availability, interoperability and short fix times at low cost. It will represent 25% of all positioning solutions by 2014. Stand-alone Cell-ID and/or Wi-Fi will remain important in regions with low GPS handset penetration."

So, here are a few questions:

1. What's the size of the handset or chip set that must be equipped with all of these various positioning options?

2. Will there eventually be a nationwide network of just one or two technologies that win out over the long term?

DigitalGlobe Releases WorldView-1 Image of Inauguration

DigitalGlobe has released a WorldView-1 panchromatic image with .5 meter resolution of the Mall area during President Barack Obama's inauguration. The image below (click for larger image) is cropped to show just the Capitol Building. A full resolution scene is available for download at the DigitalGlobe website.

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