Friday, July 24. 2009

Update: Congressional Hearing on Geospatial: Live on Web Thurs AM Eastern

Update: The video is now available here. A note for Mac users - I got audio and no video in Safari, but got both in Firefox. The file is a wvx, Windows Media Video Redirector, not a format I run into much.

Also, GCN offers coverage, noting that no one from the Office of Management and Budget attended.

---original post 7/22/09 -----

The hearing will be online at 10 am EST Thursday (link).

Also of note: The Geospatial Revolution trailer will be shown!

Quote of the Week

"We probably missed a generation of technology which we are working on right now."

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong on MapQuest speaking at a Fortune event, covered by C|net.

Ubisense Tracking Cow Health

The company, which uses active tags to determine their locations, now has them on cows in partnership with Danish Smarterfarming. The tags help farmers track behavior which can help identify illness. For example, one disease is preceded by shorter eating times a few days before the animal becomes ill. The tags could help find "soon to be ill" cows and speed treatment, which means, fewer sick days and more milk.

Business Weekly

Google Latitude on iPhone = Fail

Eric Zeman at InformationWeek echoes sentiment heard round the Web about the new addition to the iPhone's browser, Safari, that enables Google's location sharing app, Google Latitude. The issues he points out include poor location determination (it does not use GPS) and more importantly, it runs into the chronic "apps can't work in the background on the iPhone" problem.

To Google's credit, it notes this limitation publicly, which is just another poke at Apple to solve the problem.

House Appropriations Committee Cuts $97 million from GPS Budget

The House Appropriations Committee cut $97.4 million from the Department of Defense 2010 budget for the GPS III program citing contract delays in the modernization program (OCX) for the Operational Control Segment (OCS). Exactly how much money will end up in the program is unclear since there's a new structure for appropriation categories.

- inside GNSS

Spatial Innovision Limited Named one of Jamaica's Pioneers of Prosperity

Spatial Innovision Limited, a GIS/GPS consultancy, along with Totally Male Limited (a men's spa business), are the first Jamaican winners of the Pioneers of Prosperity Caribbean Awards. The awards are for small companies with revenues over $50,000. The two Jamaican winners each won $40,000 and will now compete with winners from Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago for the top prize of $60,000.

The competition is organised by the international competitiveness consulting firm OTF Group, and funded by the IDB and the John Templeton Foundation. This is the first year for the Carribean version, but an African event has been held since 2007.

- Jamaica Observer