Tuesday, February 10. 2009

Vice President of India Offers Sobering Insights of Geospatial Technology

The comments of the Vice President of India, Shri M Hamid Ansari, were sobering. While recognizing the true benefits of geospatial technology, he offered as many cautions as kudos. The full text of his speech to the Map World Forum delegates is recommended reading because it not only points to the advantages but the dangers of more open access to geospatial information.

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SiRF to Merge with CSR; Stock Jumps 73% in Early Trading

News out this morning that SiRF Technologies will merge with CSR, a company engaged with developing Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology products.

USGS Print Map Prices go Up March 2

You might want to plan ahead if you need anything from USGS, map prices are going up for the first time since 2002, some will rise 40%!

Here are the details from the Feb 3 USGS Document in the Federal Register:

(1) 7.5 minute 1:20,000-scale, 1:24,000-scale, 1:25,000-scale,1:63,360-scale, and 7.5 minute x 15 minute 1:25,000-scale, 1:63,360-scale, 1:100,000-scale and 1:250,000-scale primary series quadrangles from $6.00 to $8.00 per quadrangle.

(2) Thematic maps and small scale National Park maps from $7 per sheet to $9 per sheet.

(3) National Earthquake Information Center maps bearing private sector copyright from $10 per sheet to $12 per sheet.

(4) Large format and poster maps from $7 per sheet to $10 per sheet.

The good news: orders postmarked by March 2 will be a the "old" prices.

via National Review Blog

Flickr Announces "Find Images Nearby"

Recently Flickr reported it had 100 million geotagged images in its repository. Now the site offers a way to take advantage of that location information: a tool to find images taken "near" an image of choice (announcement). The result is a map with images found; they can be filter by type of contact, date and sorted as you like. Flickr turns 5 tomorrow.

- via ReadWriteWeb

iPhone App Tells You the Local ZIP Code: Why?

It's a freebie and is as I read it, a simple "point in polygon"/"find nearest" type search of a database based on your current location. I'm just having trouble thinking up how often one needs to know ones' current ZIP Code on the fly. Ideas?

- iPhoneWorld (Canada)

Crowdsourced Patent Exploration Yields Prior Art on Garmin Patent Suit

Crowdsourcing is used for everything now from determining books to read to creating maps. Why not use it to find prior art in patent cases? That's what Article One Partners does - it offers prizes ($50,000 in its first successful effort) to those who find what the company (not the courts) determine is prior confirmation that a patent's idea existed before the patent was granted. It's one way a patent can be invalidated by the courts.

The company's first effort paid off: two individuals found prior art related to a patent for a touch screen keyboard that can't be moved, resized or changed on a device. The patent holder SP Technologies has already made deals with Apple and Magellan and has ongoing litigation against others in GPS including TomTom. When Garmin was sued in 2008, Patent One announced its first contest to find prior art against the patent. And, it determined, such publicly available material was found. The two contributors will split the $50,000.

This sounds like a great model to tap into "experts" as advisors to support or invalidate patents. If you are interested, the company has announced seven new patent studies including one exploring Apple's multi-touch patent.

How does the company make money? It licenses the results of its "contests."

- press release