Google’s U.S. Fed Sales Down

Total Telecom (UK) looked up some Google numbers on USASpending.gov and learned that Google contract dollars were down in 2008 from 2006.

Google’s contracts with U.S. federal agencies have declined from $413,960 in 2006 to $81,046 in 2008.

In addition, customers listed for Google in 2006 including the Agriculture and Treasury departments do not appear in the 2008 numbers.

The government’s accounting year begins Oct. 1 and ends the following Sep. 30. For the first months of the 2009 accounting year since September, Google has won $4,030 in federal contracts, according to the data.

It’s not clear how much of the contracts was for geospatial technology.

Quote of the Week

“A digital map of a country that is revised constantly will be more useful than any printed atlas, even one updated every year.”

- Richard Woodward in a New York Times review of the Oxford Atlas of the World (15th edition).

Delta State University Builds National Grid DC Atlas for Inauguration Support

Now that President Obama is safely at work running the country, all the details of what went into protecting him and the attendees are pouring out. One group involved was the Delta State University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Geospatial Information Technologies. Talbot Brooks runs the Mississippi center and explained that the task for the Center this time was to solve the “locations with no addresses problem.” They did that by building an 754-page atlas of DC using the U.S. National Grid. That way responders and safety officials could locate individuals of concern in the crowds of open space.

Among the other partners in the effort done under Dept of Defense oversight:  United States Marine Corps, U.S. Geological Survey, Tele Atlas and TerraGo Technologies.

- Clarion Ledger

Nokia Eats its Own LBS Dogfood with its Ovi Store

The big news out of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today is the official announcement of the rumored Nokia app store, officially called the Ovi Store. The difference between it and others (like Apple’s or Google’s Android store) is that it’s a smart store per Niklas Savander, executive vice president of services and software for Noki:

This is not just a place to find applications. It’s a smart store. That is not just for smartphones. It actually suggests things you might like and adds social location dynamics to show you relevant applications. And it shows you what your friends have bought. And it changes the inventory based on where you are.

Nokia is using the same mobile social tools in its salesmanship that it hopes developers and users will appreciate in all Nokia mobile apps.

- C|net

Rural Public Safety Officers Using GPS to Navigate

NewsOK offers a short article about the use of GPS devices for public safety in rural Oklahoma. The bottom line:

Most calls into a sheriff’s office rely on rural routes, dirt roads, barns, bridges or even mail boxes as landmarks for directions, [executive director of the Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association Ken] McNair said. Deputies often have a grid map of the county, but with a GPS device a deputy can take the guesswork out of the equation.

I’m impressed the core data delivered with the devices or local data posted in them is good enough to support officers. The article notes the fee to update devices, so my thought was data is not from local sources.