Update: ESRI Australia Acquires Map Data Sciences

Map Data Science posted a press release dated 2/26/10.

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Podcast: A Hallway Conversation with Geolenz CTO Brian Knoth

If you think that geocoding and reverse geocoding are mature technologies, ones only likely to have minor tweaks in the coming months and years, then you need to learn about Geolenz, a company that’s putting more context, more information, and more customization into those two processes. Executive Editor Adena Schutzberg spoke with CTO and co-founder Brian Knoth about the company’s newly launched services.

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Update: Mapping the Olympics: From 3D to Super G

*UPDATE

The New York Times - In my opinion, the Times has the best overall usage of maps and 3D graphics of the Olympic venues:

• The video of the Men’s Downhill venue at Whistler captures the essence of the terrain based on data from Intermap and Terrametrics.
• A 3D perspective model of Vancouver allows the viewer to zoom to any of the Olympic venues but is especially good for interactively viewing the alpine event locations.

The Boston Globe - The Globe provides a graduated symbol map of the number of medals won by country from 1924 until the 2010 games. Using a slider bar on a time scale to advance the dates between Winter Olympics a viewer can see the progression of each country’s success.

NBC TV - Perhaps the most disappointing website covering the Olympics as I could find no maps of any sort. And because NBC is broadcasting the games, I expected much more.

Vancouver.com- static 3D buildings and extruded models without the nice facades as you would see in Bing Maps. Too basic.

Vancouver "deToured" - activist website, "critical of official representations of Vancouver," is trying to show the city in a different light. What’s interesting about this website is that the user gets the choice of whether they want to see the background information from Google Maps or OpenStreetMap. Is that akin to "conservative" vs. "liberal," "Nixon Administration" vs. "Woodstock?" Not sure why you would offer two views but a nice feature nonetheless.

*Google - not to be outdone by the media, Google takes StreetView to a new level by letting the viewer take a run down the slopes. Several venues are mapped.

LBS Tibits

Sources report that FaceBook is doing “due diligence” on Loopt. That’s generally done before investing in or acquiring a company, though neither company will comment. Loopt did advertise a potential app to be done with Facebook early last year.

- TechCrunch

Foursquare ran its first TV commercial on Wednesday night.

- via VentureBeat

Local GIS Tidbits

The Indiana Economic Development Corp. launched a new Web site and buildings database, Feb 23 “powered by a geographic information system, to support state economic development efforts.” It’s a Zoom Prospector site.

- Indianapolis Business Journal
- press release

I’m a fan of Herkimer, NY (my car broke down there once - and I had a very nice experience). Herkimer County is looking for a tool to help market itself and early discussions include Manifold GIS.

- Herkimer Telegram

Anne Arundel County decided to drop tracking its plows using GPS, which impacted the snow removal in recent weeks.

With the county having spent more than $10.5 million so far this year on snow removal, giving up the ability to use GPS technology to dispatch the plows in order to save a small sum of money was unwise. Use of the antiquated system resulted in some roads being plowed repeatedly while others in the same neighborhood were never plowed at all, according to the results of an online survey I conducted on Feb. 10.

- The Maryland Gazette

Apex CoVantage won the contract to do broadband mapping, funded by ARRA, in Nebraska. Many states have gone with Connected Nation, which has ESRI as a partner.

- press release