Tuesday, August 4. 2009

Golf Course GPS Firm Files for Bankruptcy

GPS Industries Inc. which manufacturers GPS units for use in golf, is reorganizing under the Chapter 11 bankruptcy code. The Sarasota, Florida firm moved from Canada within the last few months. It's filing listing assets of between $1 million and $10 million and liabilities between $10 million and $50 million. The downturn in the economy did not treat the firm well.

- Tampa Bay Business Journal

Indian Mapping Parties

The subhead to an article about OpenStreetMap mapping parties in India is this:

"Indian mappers, mostly male and tech-savvy, are also catching up with mapping parties, a concept popular in Germany and the UK"

A few things strike me about that phrase:
(1) mapping parties are spreading
(2) they are providing social opportunities for tech-savvy gentlemen
(3) OSM is getting a lot of press (along with regular statements about the difference between OSM efforts and Google Map Maker efforts)

- Live Mint

"Tech Applications" Expenditures Positive Recovery Slated for Second Half of 2010

Market research firm Cambashi sees that in its crystal ball based on numbers from the first half of 2009. As with any of these statements, you do need to look carefully at how the sector is defined: "Spending on technical applications software includes AEC (architecture, engineering & construction), geospatial (GIS) and manufacturing (CAD/CAM/CAE and PDM/PLM) applications."

- press release

Quote of the Week II

"I've won a lot of hands in governance with two Jacks - [ESRI President] Jack Dangermond and Jack Maple. Jack Dangermond, who advanced, forwarded, fathered modern GIS; and Jack Maple, who [was] really a genius of a guy when it [came] to policing and implementing Commissioner Bratton's vision for CompStat in New York."

- Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, quoted in an article in Government Technology about StateStat.

Preserving Digital Geodata

More than a year ago I sat on a panel with Jack Dangermond and Vincent Virga (Cartographia). One of the questions from the audience at the New York State Geospatial Summit related to archiving geospatial data. If I recall, we tried to think about both the paper and other printed works that would need to be archived, but also the challenges for archiving digital data. None of use were experts, so I fear we raised more questions that we answered.

Now, the experts are weighing in. The Digital Preservation Coalition offers a PDF of a Technology Watch Report: Preserving Geospatial Data. It's a good statement of the state of the art, but the introduction makes clear that the recommendations are somewhat limited: "While these recommendations provide a basic checklist of issues to be considered when preserving geospatial data, it must be
emphasized that the collective experience in preserving such data is still very much in an early stage and that further investigations are needed."

Quote of the Week

"The campaign is full of flaws, as it does not involve Geographic Information System (GIS), a satellite technology launched by the PHA [The Parks and Horticulture Authority] itself in February last, to locate and monitor each and every tree to be planted so that the Authority could analyse exact rate of growth and mortality of trees."

- Yasir Habib Khan, writing in The Nation (Pakistan) about a government effort to plant more trees.