“At the end of May 2009 we had 1,761 registered users of OS OpenSpace.”
- Tim Martin, Geo-technologist from Ordnance Survey, quoted in Public Technology
“Over the weekend we hit another exciting milestone with our Zillow iPhone app: over 1/2 million downloads — 513,213 as of this morning.”
- Rebekah Bastian on the Zillow blog
“Since its formation, USGIF has expanded to some 154 companies and state agencies and has an annual budget that exceeds $1 million.”
- Tom Burghardt writing at Scoop
by Adena Schutzberg on 06/30 at 08:07 AM |
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Sen Charles Schumer of New York, with the support of Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, requested the review from the Government Accountability Office after multiple complaints from constituents regarding the new maps which force homeowners to have flood insurance. I’ve seen many articles from area across the country raising issues about the maps.
FEMA is using new technologies to produce the maps and homeowners who have hired engineers to “check” the work have suggested there are inaccuracies. The GAO agreed to the request and will begin an investigation in about two months.
- press release
by Adena Schutzberg on 06/30 at 07:46 AM |
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The Global Digital Elevation Map was developed from data collected by the Japanese Aster sensor aboard the NASA satellite Terra. Data points are 30M apart and the dataset covers 99% of the earth. For comparison, the Radar Shuttle Topography Mission covered but 80%.
Downloads/Links:
26-megabyte TIF (it will begin drawing on your screen if you click!)
Aster GDEM Page
Search and download (there are warnings heavy demand may mean some restrictions)
- NASA announcement (pdf)
- BBC
- Wired
by Adena Schutzberg on 06/30 at 07:18 AM |
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GovExec covered Monday’s Personal Democracy Forum in New York which addressed government transparency and accountability. The recap notes some work by the Sunlight Foundation:
The nonprofit government transparency group Sunlight Foundation recently began an online series where it critiqued federal Web sites and created mockups of an alternative version. Many of the redesigns included cleaner content, more consolidated links and greater use of mapping.
Among the sites already reviewed are Data.gov (Sunlight Review) and EPA.gov (Sunlight Review).
by Adena Schutzberg on 06/30 at 07:08 AM |
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You may have missed yesterday’s press release from NAVTEQ noting an update to its traffic information app for mobile phones (any with a browser) for free. There are, per C|net some unobtrusive ads, and the navigation is “interesting.” The “east” and “west” links to slide the map one way or the other, are not in their typical orientation.
It’s hard to imagine that users really want one app for finding directions or local services and another for traffic information. I’m hopeful this is simply a way to get the word out that this sort of functionality (and detail) should be embedded in other apps, a la “Intel Inside,” though NAVTEQ uses “NAVTEQ onboard.”
by Adena Schutzberg on 06/30 at 06:47 AM |
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