Bartz Likes Google Maps More than Yahoo Maps

The upshot is that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz notes the company has not put a lot of effort into its mapping solution. The “already found a new job” CFO Blake Jorgensen notes that such programs are expensive and he doesn’t expect any more money there in the near futrue. As Jonathan Crowe points out in his blog post, this discussion could mean more or less attention for Yahoo Maps at the company. Sorry to say I fear “less.”

Or it could be Bartz is positioning herself for a position in the Google Maps team!

- MacWorld, via The Map Room

Impact of Stimulus on GPS

Stephen Colwell at GPSWorld runs the numbers in an article titled: The Impact of the Economic Stimulus Plan on the GPS Industry. It provides another perspective on where GIS money may pop up, too.

Education Tidbits

GIS was part of the annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day at Argonne National Lab. While many of the engineers presenting and offering hands on opportunities to middle school girls were women, a guy did the GIS session.

Joe Adduci, an Argonne GIS analyst who teaches GIS on the side explained that its untrue, that rumor about women not knowing how to read a map. He wowed them with Google Earth and some of the imagery from the inaugural in January.

- South Town Star

Mr. John Moore, who started the Geospatial Technologies at the Burlington County Institute of Technology twenty-seven years ago was honored with an Excellence in Environmental Education award presented by the New Jersey Environmental Education Alliance. That’s a lot of GIS students!

- South Jersey Local News

Marshall University (West Virginia) students can enter the Nick J. Rahall II Appalachian Transportation Institute (RTI) Student GIS Project Competition to win one of to cash prizes. The competition challenges undergraduate and graduate students to demonstrate the development and effective use of Geographic Information Science (GIS) and technology in their field of study and the community. Submissions are due in May.

- Huntington News

First Geo PR Focussed on Stimulus Spending

Active Imaging Systems LLC was the first (and probably not the last) company I’ve seen use a press release to highlight that its geospatial offerings (new and used) were available for purchase for use in stimulus funded projects.

The company highlights that its products are in stock and ready to go. “Other vendors require order entry-to-delivery cycle times of 8-12 weeks. Because the stimulus money must be spent quickly, these long cycle times do not support quick use and delivery of the survey work-products that will get infrastructure projects running immediately. “

The company offers Urban Reality TM(URY) systems, “a turn-key, end-to-end imaging and mapping system.”

- press release

Looking at Maryland’s Recovery Mapping

I love the idea that the federal and state governments are gearing up to map the stimulus money. It’s a bit early as monies are not yet flowing, but it’s not too early to have a look at the Maryland site with its included map app launched last week. (press release)

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