Monday, January 26. 2009

NAVTEQ Scores with NFL to Supply Super Bowl Maps

The interesting thing about the Super Bowl Maps that are being supplied by NAVTEQ is that it's NOT using Google or Microsoft as its base. In fact, NAVTEQ seems to have finally used technology from their purchase of The Map Network to show off the great graphics that had been the hallmark of that company. The Map Network had supplied events with both paper and digital mapping technology for several years until the NAVTEQ purchase but I had not heard or seen much of them since.

Additional Tube Maps - Should there be only One?

The BBC reports on the availability of two new Tube Maps - one updates an existing "stair free" map, the other notes accessible restrooms. I'm all for more information about access, but wonder if a single useable map with all that information is possible?

I used to help build a haunted house as fund raiser. The head of the project always insisted we build to ADA regulations, even though we didn't have to do so. (My Mom would visit in her wheelchair to test it before we went live. She got a real kick out of that!) The project lead argued, and I know understand quite well, that meeting ADA requirements often means better design for all. That should be true for maps, too.

Understanding Tech's Place in Stimulus

The New York Times has a very readable article about where tech may or many not fit into the goals of the stimulus package. It focuses on the three areas selected for investment: " $20 billion to computerize medical records, $11 billion to create smarter electrical grids and $6 billion to expand high-speed Internet access in rural and underserved communities."

The comment that struck me, as the geospatial community now has three publicly available proposals to ponder about how its technology might fit into the stimulus package:

All three fields, said Robert E. Hall, an economist at Stanford, involve "a bunch of specialists, where if we raised spending quickly, the limited number of competent suppliers would be in short supply and get increased incomes," benefiting some companies more than the economy as a whole.

John King, David Plouffe and the Magic Map

Frank James at the Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau blog offers a transcript of John King (CNN political correspondent) interviewing David Plouffe, President Obama's campaign manager on Sunday.

He introduces the discussion this way: "The interview demonstrates two things. Plouffe remains in campaign mode and King will take any excuse to use his electronic wonder map."

Also of note, King's description and use of CNN's photosynth.

KING: I want to bring you in, David Plouffe, before we say good-bye, this is the magical moment. We put this together from thousands of submissions of individual photographs. This is our photosynth, as we call it, of the inauguration, and it's a collage, essentially. It's multi-dimensional. You can go around, you can come closer, you can go farther away from the inauguration. I want you to show me where David Plouffe was on inauguration day. If I can get this to come back out a little bit. Sometimes it's a little fussy. There we go.

Show me where David Plouffe, the perch you had. You managed the campaign. You're the architect of the successful victory. Where do you get to sit on inauguration day?

PLOUFFE: Well, we were fortunate enough, my wife and I, to sit just a couple of rows behind the Gores and the Clintons, right in this area.

KING: Right up here.

PLOUFFE: Right in this area. And it was a remarkable sight, not to just be on the podium, obviously, but to be able to also have that vantage point of the wonderful mall and the millions of Americans who were gathering in a real spirit of unity and a belief that they have a stake in the future of their country. So it was -- it was a magical moment.

Census Needs Workers in North Dakota

I thought the census jobs, at $11/hour would get lots of applicants countrywide. But in North Dakota, specifically, western North Dakota, there's been little interest. Bismarck office manager Johi Leidholm points to low unemployment and oil jobs.

The Census Bureau is seeking about 3,600 applicants in the state by the first week in April.

I see lots of ads for Census jobs in my city outside Boston - on the door of the library and in stores in the square.

- KXMB-TV