Everywhere I’ve Been: Data Portraits Powered by 3.5 years of data and 2.5 million GPS Points

Everywhere I’ve Been: Data Portraits Powered by 3.5 years of data and 2.5 million GPS Points is the title of a post by Aaron Parecki Geoloqi co-founder. It's written in part to keep up the buzz from SXSW, but it's pretty interesting and includes both the why and the how of the data collection. The maps remind me of an exercise I did in college where we mapped our routes and where we were for two full weeks on 4' x 6' paper maps. The results are pretty much the same: we all follow some regular patterns that define what I like to call an "orbit." (Credit for that term goes to reader Larry.)

OpenStreetMap in the News - 3/14/12

Once Apple starts using a mapping product, the media takes notice. And so, the online media have found OpenStreetMap!

Talking Point Memo (TPM) argues OpenStreetMap Aims To Become Most Popular Map On The Web.

Mashable profiles Steve Coast and How One Man’s Big Idea Changed Digital Map Making. (I think they left out the part about he works for Microsoft.)

Open source focused website The H goes legal and explains how OpenStreetMap [is] completing move to Open Database Licence

And, here's an article in the local paper about a small town in Massachusetts, Milford, putting its GIS online. It's GIS provider is no Johnny Come Lately to OSM. The app that users can tap into OSM tiles from two sources - one I'm not sure of (maybe hosted by the vendor) and the other from MapQuest. Yes, some organizations have known of OpenStreetMap for some time.

- More OSM News

2012 GISCI Map the GISPs Contest and other GIS Competitions

It's time to map the GISPs again. The contest is open to all (except the judges) and winners get money, GISP submittal or renewal fees waived, and everyone gets a "contribution to the field" point. I hope voting and viewing are not in Facebook this year. I found that very frustrating.

- details (pdf) 

March 15 is the last day for students to take the GeoTech Center's online exam, the first part of the 2012 National Geospatial Technology Skills Competition.

- contest page (which has no deadline information at all, you need to click through several pages to find it, on a PDF)

MyCOE (My Community Our Earth) invites sustainabilty projects involving (lead by or participated in by) youth that involve geospatial perspective. Submissions due June 1.

All submissions will be reviewed and displayed, and later posted online for public viewing.  The most popular projects and others selected by our international committee of experts will be showcased during the Rio+20 United Nations Conference for Sustainable Development in June and will receive special recognition and prizes.

- website via @theAAG

MyCOE is also proposing a GIS course for Rio+20 om June and wants your vote for the "people's choice" course. The details of the courses proposed and selection are on the SD-Learning page.

via @michael_d_gould

AOL Patch Uses Esri/Google Maps Based SeeClickFix

I wonder if the folks at Patch remember they work for the same organization that owns MapQuest? I continue to look for synergy there but didn't find any today.

- Lake Saint Louis Patch

GIS = Geospatial information services

I found the phrase "geospatial information services" in a press release from the American Water Resources Association. I asked the organization how that was different from geographic information sytems.

John C. “Jack” Hampson, CMS, CFM and VP, Sr. Group Manager, Water Resources Applied Technologies replied.

Geospatial information services ... refers to a service-based approach to linking a wide range of data and analyses with “location/geographic feature awareness”.  It covers a broader footprint than traditional GIS.  ...

Note that a poll to rename the AWRA GIS conference to somehow incorporate this broader field of geospatial information services is expected to be widely approved this year.

Are you ready for this broader expansion of GIS?