Update 2: Microsoft to cut up to 5000 Jobs

Update 1/23/09 11:30 am: CrunchGear reports that the team behind Microsoft’s Flight Simulator was hard hit by the layoff. Some suggest the end of the game. I always thought Microsoft with some geo and some gaming could be the vendor to bring them together in a meaningful way.

—- Update 1/23/09 9 am——

Update: Word from Boulder Colorado’s Microsoft’s Virtual Earth that no one from that group was involved in the first wave.

- Daily Camera

—-original post 1/22/09—-

As expected, Microsoft today announced the layoffs of up to 5000 of its 94,000 employees.  The individuals work in research, sales, finance and technology. The process begins today with 1,400 notifications and will be complete in 18 months. These are the first layoffs in company history.

- NYT

NAVTEQ Sales Up; Nokia’s Overall Numbers Down

If you dig into the Nokia’s earning reports (earnings down 69%) you’ll find that NAVTEQ did quite well. “Fourth-quarter Navteq sales increased 31% sequentially to 205 million euros from 156 euros in the previous quarter.”

- InformationWeek

- press release

Editor of Canadian Geographic to Step Down

The editor-in-chief of Canadian Geographic magazine, Rick Boychuk announced his last day there will be Jan. 30. After almost 14 years, he’s ready for something new. Boychuk oversaw the launch of the Canadian Environment Awards and Canadian Geographic Travel magazine as well as the political world map produced in conjunction with the magazine’s 75th anniversary. Subscription revenue remains strong and Boychuk feels the publication will weather the current media and economic storms.

- Masthead Online

Mapping Censorship on the Web via Crowdsourcing

The project, HerdictWeb is from the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society and asks those interested to report when website are inaccessible. Now, there are many reasons sites may be unavailable but the idea is that aggregation will ultimately show where “filtering” occurs. A Google Map mashup shows current reports and you can install a browser plug-in to help add information to the database.

via Public Knowledge blog