Wednesday, March 11. 2009

Bentley Systems Profiled in Philadelphia Business Today

Philadelphia Business Today profiled Bentley Systems as company likely to benefit from the U.S. economic stimulus package. The TV news program reported that the company made $500 in revenues last year with a substantial portion of that coming from foreign sources. CEO Greg Bentley was asked about some of the work being done by his employees based in foreign countries like Pakistan.

C|net Interview with California Assemblyman Who Wants to Blur Images

Last month Assemblyman Joel Anderson introduced a bill to "blur" the detail on images found on mapping sites. It includes fines of up to $250,000 and has received quite a bit of coverage in the geo and tech communities. Charles Cooper asks the questions. Highlights:

- Bill is draft, needs definitions, etc. but its spirit will remain
- This is what's going on in the rest of world and my bill covers all mapping, not just Google
- Anderson has spoken to reps from Microsoft and Google and welcomes others

My favorite quote:

The level of detail is not on the maps. With a map, you cant count the number of bricks in a building, or see the elevator shafts. With this level of detail (afforded by online maps,) you can. I hear the argument that, "Yeah, I want to also ban cars because cars are used in robberies." Look, cars have other commercial uses. There are no other uses for knowing on a map where there are air shafts.

-C|net.

Quote of the Week

"There are many people who go up to first responders and say 'I have a piece of gear to say exactly where you're at.' We have followed a lot of those claims over the last year and half and some of those claims are perhaps a little bit more forward than they should be."

- Jose Vasquez, director of first responder technologies for the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology directorate discussing claims of GPS manufacturers in Government Technology. The directorate will hold a 3D "bake off" of such devices in Massachusetts later this spring. Also noteworthy, mention of a Gremlin GPS. Ironic name (if it's not a typo for another manufacturer...).

Change Detection on the Moon

NASA's upcoming robotic mission to the Moon, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will join orbiters from China, India and Japan is all about making a good map.

Planners will use data from the 12-month mapping mission to begin picking a site for the human outpost that is the current U.S. human-exploration goal by 2020.

Another use: change detection:

"We want to image some of the area mapped by the Apollo program with our high-resolution camera in order to see how many impacts have occurred there in the past 30 years, and that will help us to improve the understanding of the meteor flux onto the Moon," says Richard Vondrak, LRO project scientist and deputy director of the Solar System Exploration Div. at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

- Aviation Week

New Apple Patent for LBS Ads/Purchases

The patent application was filed in 2007 and made public March 5 and is titled: Graphical User Interface with Location-Specific Interface Elements

In short, per The Register, it proposes to patent a location-based interface that can display ads and facilitate purchases over your iPhone or iPod touch while in stores or malls. I didn't get that level of detail from the abstract, but apparently, again per The Register, "the ones described in most detail in the filing would enable users of Apple's WiFi-equipped handhelds and laptops to identify and purchase tunes, movies, videos, photos, and audiobooks while they are being played or displayed in a bricks-and-mortar store."