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The first day of the GeoDesign Summit on the Esri campus in Redlands, California produced some pointed remarks about the "process" and "models" that define this evolving discipline. Collaboration seems to be the hallmark of geodesign whereby myriad stakeholders can see and interact with geospatial information and models.
Axis Maps has decided to offer its online mapping tool indiemapper ("indiemapper helps you make static, thematic maps from geographic data by bringing the best of traditional cartographic design to internet map-making") for free, but with a bit less functionality (and no account required):
To allow us to give it away for free, we’re scaling back what indiemapper does. We’ve removed all account-based online functionality including usernames / passwords, cloud storage, and map sharing. Everything else, we’ve left as is. The map-making process is still the same except you don’t have to log in AND you need to export your map before you close your browser. We’re also moving our support operations over toGetSatisfaction to let the community of indiemapper users share their knowledge amongst themselves.
As a comment from Kurt (that you, Kurt M?) suggests - this is a valuable freebie for educators!!
- Axis Maps Blog via @tinacary
Pakistan
The Survey of Pakistan is worried about amatuers not only mapping the country, but also mapping sites harmful to national security. So, it's time for a new law to allow enforcement.
With the objective of regulating and implementing surveying and mapping standards in the country, to obviate potential security risk to sensitive information, to prevent damage to affixed survey makers, to avoid duplication of effort in mapping and to transform SoP into a national mapping agency, a draft land surveying and mapping bill has been prepared by the SoP.
The salient features of the Bill are as follows: (i) to transform SoP into national mapping agency ie an authority regulating surveying and mapping activities in the country; (ii) to make it compulsory for all firms involved in surveying and mapping activities to get themselves registered with SoP; (iii) to make it obligatory to all firms involved in surveying and mapping activities to adopt surveying and mapping standards framed by the national mapping agency ie SoP; (iv) to stop unqualified firms to take part in surveying and mapping activities that can pose a security risk to the State; (v) to protect established and affixed survey makers at various locations throughout the country from damage by assigning their responsibility to local district management; (vii) to avoid duplication of efforts in the field of mapping, especially in the public sector, thereby economising on public exchequer; and (viii) to assess the mapping requirements of public and private sector on a yearly basis, thereby lending technical support to federal and provincial development plan and activities.
Part of the logic for doing so relates to how other countries have addressed the issue.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has suggested to the government to frame a law aimed at stopping unlawful activities related to mapping firms, given that several western countries, including Australia, China, India, Turkey, USA and UK, have enacted supportive laws, official sources told Business Recorder.
- Business Recorder (Pakistan)
India
Dehli Police now has a link off its home page (Know Your Police Stateion) of its police stations. It can help residents navigate to the station and find the one covering a certain issue. The department built it in partnership with Microsoft and it uses Silverlight.
- ZeeNews
Nigeria
The Kwara [state in Nigeria] government has concluded arrangements to launch the state Geographic Information System (GIS) in the first quarter of 2012, Alhaji Usman Hamza, the Senior Special Assistant on Information Technology, said.
The state already has a land information system and plans an emegency response system for the future.
Singapore
The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) yesterday announced a new competition that it hopes will spur application developers to create new uses for electronic maps.
The inaugural OneMap Challenge offers top prizes of 20,000 Singapore dollars (US$15,556) cash each in the two categories of desktop and mobile applications, and a total of more than 70,000 Singapore dollars in cash and prizes.
The 500-page-plus National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 details what LightSquared must do get the OK from the FCC to move forward on its its satellite and terrestrial based Long-Term Evolution (LTE) wholesale data service.
The provision, which appears under the Space Activities section of the defense funding bill, prohibits the FCC from permitting any operations that interfere with the military use of GPS in any way. The NDAA, which was signed into law on Dec. 31, 2011, by President Obama, is best known for the controversy surrounding the detention of suspected terrorists.
eWeek goes on to note the very strict requirments for the ok and the reporting requirements to Congress. The cost related to those for the FCC and DoD may shut down the whole thing.
Note that there's a cost factor in the reporting requirement. What this means is that if interference is found, then the military must determine how much it will cost to either fix all of those GPS units in use or find some other way to eliminate the problem. Considering the limitation on the defense budgets with the end of the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan winding down, it's unlikely that the Defense Department will have the money for a massive repair or swap of GPS receivers.
Said another way, this Act is making it look even worse for LightSquared's network ever getting off the ground.
- eWeek
The iPhone app for agents from Trulia was announced before the holidays.
Trulia, a leading site for home buyers, sellers, renters and real estate professionals, today announced the launch of a brand new iPhone app, Trulia for Agents. The iPhone app integrates mobile, social and location-based technologies to help agents meet new clients, showcase their local expertise and access their business from anywhere. The Trulia for Agents iPhone app is the first national mobile application designed specifically for the residential Real Estate Industry. Agents can download the app for free from Trulia.com or the iTunes store.
It can pit agents against one another, but also lets clients see where their agents are checking in.
FoursCrowd uses foursquare’s API to show you which locations in your area are the most popular, and uses data from previous days to predict whether that spot will be popular at any given time.
Clearly, 2012 is about the metaapp.
MapMuse today announced the release of its Winter Funand Winter Services maps, two series of web-based locators that find winter-themed retailers, services, and places across the USA and Canada.
There's an iPhone app, too.
