Thursday, August 13. 2009

The New Model for Geo Grants

The Google.org Blog shares the 14 recipients of its Geo Challenge Grants. The grants run from $5000 to $50,000 and support local regional and nationwide efforts in education, health, energy and the environment. Some like the Green Belt Movement will be familiar to those in the geospatial community.

The apps created from the grants along with the data used will be open sourced for all to use.

Is this the new model for grants in this time of "Free"? Is giving software passe now that so much is free? Is the best use of resources to support the programming efforts and to make their impacts wider by turning it open source?

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google at 07:49 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, August 11. 2009

Podcast: Cloud Computing in Geospatial

Cloud computing is on everyone's list of buzz words this summer. What does the phrase mean? And what does it mean in the geospatial arena? We offer some definitions and ways to think about the new computing platform and look at what's happening now and may be ahead for geospatial technology practitioners.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, ESRI, Microsoft, PBBI [MapInfo], Directions on the News Podcast, Geospatial Business, Cloud Computing at 01:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Monday, August 10. 2009

Google Transit's Roots in Boston

To celebrate the recent addition of Boston's MBTA (Mass Bay Transportation Authority, aka public transit org) to Google Transit, Boston.com (that's the Boston Globe website) offers and article about how a local was involved in Google Transit's creation.

I've always been a fan of the MBTA's own Google Maps mashup, so I'll have to remember to use Google Transit.

And if you want more transit mapping news: the Philadelphia Inquirer profiles how HopStop (can't get that right without much effort!) is now in Philly offer its brand of public transportation routing.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google at 06:33 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, August 5. 2009

Google Maps Adds Landmarks/POIs

It was announced on the Google Lat Lon Blog.

TechCrunch has a write up with some insight from Eric Shonfeld about how this might play out:

And as you zoom in more places become visible. At some point the map could become pretty crowded, Google hopefully is looking at search history and click behavior to surface the most important places. Each place on the map becomes a visual search result. I like the direction this is going.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google at 06:18 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, August 4. 2009

Podcast: In the News - State Stimulus Sites and User Generated Corrections

This week two news items peaked our interest: Good Jobs First, a Washington research center, released a report giving mediocre grades to state websites that aim to be transparent about the distribution of federal stimulus dollars. One of the criteria considered? Maps. Second, is there a trend in local news related to sat nav? Is there a move away from "two techs capturing data" stories to how users can get involved with collection and update?

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, Open Source, Yahoo, GPS, Directions on the News Podcast, Satellite Navigation, Apple, Tele Atlas, NAVTEQ, Media & Maps, ESRI UC 09 at 01:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |