GSA Looking for Geospatial PaaS

And, I thought research was underway on that from FGDC….We got the lowdown on that at LI GeoCloud (DM coverage). Or is that something different?

GSA also is considering a platform-as-a-service offering. Lewin said the agency is working with the U.S. Geological Survey among others to create a geospatial information platform in the cloud.

“It is the natural candidate for cloud computing because you have massive amounts of geospatial data stored all over government,” said Dave McClure, GSA’s associate administrator for Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies. “If we can create a platform that would allow it to be stored securely and for common use, and leverage that across the entire government, I think we could some unbelievable cost savings in the geospatial areas.”

Lewin said a RFP for geospatial could come out later in 2011.

- Federal News Radio

International Tidbits

China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping launched its web-based mapping tool, Map World on Oct 21. It’s in Chinese but navigable do to a familiar interface. (Usability!)

- via Ogle Earth which has a nice quicky review

There were immediate concerns that the data was not, as claimed, developed wholly by China. The State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping confirms that the site licensed DigitalGlobe imagery.

- Global Times

NextGov Asia interviewed Dr Hiroshi Murakami, Vice-President of Permanent Committee on Geospatial Infrastructure Asia Pacific (PCGIAP) at the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) World Conference in Singapore. Of note:

With new web and mobile tools to collect information and data, citizens could provide valuable and more up-to-the-minute geospatial information for government agencies, Murakami said, which could then be harvested through mash-ups, crowd-sourcing and other engagement devices.

But he added that the information “had to be official, authorised and trustworthy”.

- FutureGov Asia

The not-for-profit corporation tasked with determining the market value of Nova Scotia properties, Property Valuation Services Corporation (PVSC), signed a 10-year contract with Pictometry Canada, a leading provider of aerial oblique imagery and metric geospacial solutions. No word on cost of the contract.

- The News (Glasgow)

The government of Pakistan has the Land Surveying and Mapping Bill on the table. If passed it would require Survey of Pakistan as the national mapping agency to “ok” firms involved in surveying and mapping. Could be just like China!

- Business Recorder via Spatial Sustain

A planned website, Harrasmap, will allow women to quickly report instances of harassment via text message or Twitter, to be loaded onto a digital map of Cairo to show hotspots and areas that might be dangerous for women to walk alone. The data will be shared with activists, media, and police.

- UK Press Association

Sources report that Google Maps will not be licensed in China. The whole licensing issue will be reorganized late this year or early in 2011.

- Marbridge Daily

LBS Tidbits

The latest in check-ins? Checking in to advertisements, in particular, those of non-profits looking to raise money. This is akin to websites where you can click to donate a grain of rice (someone else pays, you just click). In the Bay Area it’s Earthjustice saving endangered animals.

The Earthjustice campaign appears to be among the first to let people check in at a physical billboard, a tactic that has proved successful for the firm and could be attractive to other advertisers, according to industry analysts and Foursquare executives.

- NY Times

The NBA now offers check ins via its Turnstyle app. You can check in “virtually” (not sure why its virtual; it’s a real checkin…) from the game or when watching from the couch. To come: competitions for concession discounts.

- MediaWeek

Univ. of Wisconsin Madison is now on Foursquare. “In just over one month on Foursquare, UW-Madison already has more than 300 users, placing it in the top 20 of all universities on the service. ” Hmm. Population of the university? 42K in 2008.

- press release

The Trotter campaign announces the first Facebook Places powered social election game! “It rewards real-world political activity with points and badges.” Does it matter? Will it, as the candidate’s son, who coded it suggests, push him over the top to win? Another issue, can you do that? Is it like “buying votes?” Remember when Starbucks would give you coffee if you brought your “I Voted” sticker? I think that was in ‘08. When I went in they told me that was not legal and they were giving free coffee to everyone.

- Fred Trotter Blog via @shelholtz

Astronaut “Wheels” of the Space Shuttle has checked in on Foursquare.

- NASA YouTube Video

A planned website, Harrasmap, will allow women to quickly report instances of harassment via text message or Twitter, to be loaded onto a digital map of Cairo to show hotspots and areas that might be dangerous for women to walk alone. The data will be shared with activists, media, and police.

- UK Press Association

New apps are appearing to track youngsters out trick or treating.

- KKTV

Remote Sensing Tidbits

Two German radar satellites, TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X, are now getting into close formation (within 350m of each other) orbit the earth.  The intention is to go down to a spatial resolution of 12m by 12m with a relative vertical accuracy of less than two metres, upping the ante from the SRTM mission with its 30m by 30m spatial resolution, and a vertical resolution that varies from 16m to 10m.

- BBC via @Fosslc

Lake County, OH, needs new aerial imagery; its data is from 2007. The plan is to ask local users (public and private) to pony up $2000 so the flights can begin next year. The comments against using any money for new imagery are quite revealing about how the pubic understands GIS and imagery.

- News Herald

I’m not sure at all if you can or can’t access the latest imagery of the US Virgin Islands. I could find a parcel viewer with imagery from Google and Live Local (I guess that’s an old viewer? pre-Bing? URL suggests its from AppGeo here in Boston.) Why am I confused? Check out the first and last paragraphs of the article about the imagery.

First paragraph:

Anyone with an Internet connection can now see the latest precision geospatial information system (GIS) images of U.S. Virgin Islands estates and individual land parcels through the website of the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, according to Government House.

Last paragraph:

The GIS viewer can be accessed via [Lt. Gov] Francis’ office. At this time, the viewer is still in development and is for demonstration purposes only.

- St. Thomas Source via @usvirginislands

Podcast: Exploring the 2010 Crop of Election Maps

Details and download.