Tuesday, February 3. 2009

1Spatial Up for Private Company of the Year

I believe it's the only geospatial business on the short list for the 2008 East of England Business Awards. Congrats and best of luck!

- Business Weekly

No Need for Google Earth to Find Pot, Use (inappropriately mounted) GPS

There's been lots of press about the use of Google Earth to track down pot growers in Switzerland. But in California, a deputy used GPS.

A truck with a GPS mounted so it blocked the driver's view (that's illegal now in California) prompted the officer to pull the vehicle over. The police dog on scene "noted" the drugs.

Geospatial technology will get you every time!

- ABC News
- Contra Costa Times

Canadian Carriers Must Upgrade E911

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission set a Feb.1, 2010 deadline for has given Canadian wireless carriers to upgrade their 9-1-1 services. The goal is better location determination. All new carriers will need to meet the requirements, too. Several tragedies have forced the new rules which will bring Candian systems into line with U.S. laws.

- TMCnet

Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) Teams with Virgin for Satellite Launcher

Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) and Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactics are teaming to develop a platform to launch satellites from an aircraft. The plan per Dr Adam Baker from SSTL: to be able to launch a payload of at least 50kg into a 248 mile orbit. The cost would ideally take a $5-10 million launch down to $1 million.

- Press Association

Google Korea and Yahoo Korea Partner on Mapping Against Common "Enemies"

Korea's Daum (www.daum.net) is number 2 in search (left overs from Naver), but #1 in maps while Naver (www.naver.com) is #1 in search (75%). That does not sit well with Google and Yahoo.

So, the two have partnered to face the common enemies:

Under an agreement announced Tuesday, Google adds "video clips from YouTube (kr.youtube.com) on Yahoo's map (map.yahoo.co.kr), while Yahoo interconnects its local search service, Gugi (kr.gugi.yahoo.com), with Google's map (www.maps.google.co.kr)."

The sharing should begin later this month, with plans to extend it to the international version of Yahoo's Gugi services (global.gugi.yahoo.co.kr).

Korea has been one of the few rare markets where Google and Yahoo have struggled to stay relevant, with Naver controlling around 75 percent of the search market and Daum gobbling up the biggest of table scraps.

- Korea Times

Podcast: The Anatomy of a Startup: Deeda.com-Aggregating and Geospatially Enabling Social Nets

This podcast features Atif Khan, Founder and CEO of Deeda.com. Khan speaks extensively on setbacks he has faced and successes he has celebrated in the process of starting his company Deeda.com. Deeda is a social networking aggregation tool. Basically, once your friends approve, Deeda will compile their Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and other profiles onto one convenient portal. You can see when and what they are doing or saying without flipping between sites. The geospatial advantage to Deeda - based on their postings to social network sites, you can track your friends on a map. Pretend “Bob” lives in Detroit but is at a conference in Miami. Deeda will show Bob’s movement across the country and beyond. What’s better than that, pretend Bob has a birthday while he’s in Miami and you want to send him a little something. You can buy him a Starbucks coffee card through Deeda and he can redeem it in Miami, back in Detroit or wherever he chooses – the card travels with him. Khan’s creativity and drive while building his company and during this presentation is infectious and well worth your time. [Produced by: Clay Burton Productions and Endpoint Environmental LLC, Producers of the Web 2.0 Mapping and Social Networks Meetup Group in conjunction with Directions Media.]

The presentation was recorded at Google headquarters on December 16, 2008, and lasts for approximately 37 minutes.
Listen Now (to download, right click on the link at left and choose "save target as"...or click on Atif's photo above to watch the video presentation)

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