SatNav, a Sequoia Capital funded GIS company, launched a Store Locator service with maps of 810 Indian cities. The data is on the company website and will appear on all its devices. Businesses can add their own information, raising the number of crowdsourced POI databases for India.
- MediaNama
Many guests find Charingworth Manor Hotel near Chipping Campden using a satnav device. Problem: it guides them to the back entrance, one that’s been closed for 10 years due to a Cotswold District Council restriction. But, after queries to the council and despite opposition by neighbors, the hotel got the ok to open the back gate for 18 months during which the increase in traffic would be monitored. I guess no one thought to update the satnav data?
- Cotsworld Journal
The title of the Chicago Tribune (“A great city deserves a great newspaper, The Chicago Tribune…” meh!) was originally “GPS tracking one less worry for parents.” Now it’s “A beep, a flash and one less worry for parents
ID cards, GPS allow school to know if a child is — or isn’t — on the school bus.”
The content is the same old, same old: Palos Heights School District 128 has given kids RFID tags that are scanned when they board the bus, and the bus itself is GPS tracked.
- Chicago Tribune
- CrunchGear (it talks of kids with GPS tags…)
USA Today reports on travellers favorite use of smartphones. It’s GPS. The data from Ypartnership and research firm Harrison Group, is based on a February survey of 2,524 U.S. households with annual incomes of at least $50,000.
47% have navigated to a destination using the built-in GPS,
29% have compared airfares or hotel rates,
28% have shared photos about their travel experiences using their smart phone,
18% have booked air travel or lodging, and
15% have gone to a site that provides information on things to do and see while visiting a destination
- USA Today
by Adena Schutzberg on 09/01 at 06:24 AM |
Comments |
The article in InformationWeek is a preview of his talk at Gov 2.0 next week, but for those still wondering about Esri role in Data.gov, Dangermond, described as a GIS expert in the opening sentence, offers some insight.
While I’m very excited about what Data.gov has accomplished, I think we need to now evolve our thinking from ‘Data.gov’ to ‘Understanding.gov,’ ” Dangermond said. “This would require more thinking and some additional work on the government side. . . but the results will be enormous.”
...
ESRI plans to help Uncle Sam add more data-integrated maps to the Data.gov site, which provides government data on spending, regulatory activities and more, to make that information easier to understand and be manipulated by the public.
As it exists now, Data.gov provides a geoviewer that lets users view data sets on an interactive map, overlay them and look more closely at the data. However, it’s not a full-fledged GIS, which would give people the ability to do deeper analysis with the data sets, Dangermond said.
“With the exception of programmers or technical people, it is very hard for normal people—i.e., citizens—to take government data sets, manipulate them and turn them into useful information products,” he said.
Other news of note:
ESRI plans to launch a new Web-based tool called Community Analyst that takes data sets from federal, state and local government and integrates the data into a mapping application. Government agencies and others can use the data to do policy planning and community analysis, among other things, Dangermond said. The site is a companion to one ESRI already offers for business users called Business Analyst.
That was noted at Esri UC (APB coverage).
Also along the lines of making GIS more user-friendly, Dangermond will introduce ArcGIS.com, a social-networking site that lets people share maps and data sets, and lets others discover them in a similar way to finding photos on Flickr.
As we know, that’s already up and running.
- InformationWeek
by Adena Schutzberg on 09/01 at 06:11 AM |
Comments |
The article notes only one company, Esri and extensively quotes Esri Canada head, Alex Miller. There’s nothing new here for those in the biz, though a Miller statement on the Canadian census decision to drop the long form prompts some comments. He states:
We are really upset about the long form census being dropped because it is a tremendous source of all kinds of information that fuels geographic analysis of all kinds of things,” he said. “Banking, insurance, retail and manufacturing – they all use this extensively to try to improve productivity. I just can’t imagine a more short-sighted view.
The comment I found most telling:
8/31/2010 8:05:40 PM
I’d like to know if this is new news for any readers. I work in this field and thought that people generally know that this stuff goes on.
- Globe and Mail
by Adena Schutzberg on 09/01 at 05:38 AM |
Comments |
3M Corporation will acquire Attenti, an Israel-based company for $230 Million, that tracks people via GPS. Attenti’s clients include companies in the security and telecommunications industries.
by Joe Francica on 09/01 at 12:31 AM |
Comments |
