Thursday, November 19. 2009

Seen During Geography Awareness Week III

"Unlike flat paper maps, GIS, short for geographic information systems, allows people to analyze relationships between many layers of information at once."

- From an article on Helena 5th graders who attended a GIS Day event at the Montana State Library on KFBB TV.

Crossing the Border Safely, With LBS

b.a.n.g lab's Transborder Immigrant Tool is an LBS app built to run on an inexpensive cell phone designed to help Mexican immigrants safely cross the border.

From an interview with the team's Ricardo Dominguez:

We looked at the Motorola i455 cell phone, which is under $30, available even cheaper on eBay, and includes a free GPS applet. We were able to crack it and create a simple compasslike navigation system. We were also able to add other information, like where to find water left by the Border Angels, where to find Quaker help centers that will wrap your feet, how far you are from the highway--things to make the application really benefit individuals who are crossing the border.

- Vice Magazine via BoingBoing via reader Larry

Why I got an e-mail from Wolfram Research

Colin DeCair at Wolfram e-mailed to let me know about an interesting geosci modeling tool built on Mathematica. I had to do some research but now recall that Wolfram Research (the folks behind the in the news Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine) is also the company behind Mathematica. In fact Mathematica made the new engine possible per the company.

What is Mathematica? "the ultimate technical application and environment" That means its good for modeling, among other things. Yu-Feng Lin, a hydrogeologist at the Illinois State Water Survey (I know of them because they make cool solid models) is using it to understand groundwater recharge and discharge patterns. The app he and his team are building "provides a generic pattern-recognition approach that supports virtually any spatial decision support system (SDSS) used to assist in management applications such as water resources, land use, and agricultural development."

- Wolfram Blog

Wisconsin Bill: Stop the Presses on State Maps

Rep. Brett Davis, R-Oregon, a cosponsor of the bill states: "This specific bill saves the state taxpayers $250,000 by not allowing the Department of Transportation to print state highway maps,"

A surplus of more than 400,000 maps will only last 6 months.

- Channel 3000

Wednesday, November 18. 2009

Update: First American Data to Power Microsoft "Dallas"

The rest of the rest of the story, via eChannelLine:

[Ray] Ozzie [speaking at Microsoft PDC] also unveiled the next evolution of Microsoft Pinpoint, an online marketplace for Microsoft partners to market and sell their applications. Also available through PinPoint, the company introduced a new information and brokerage service, codenamed "Dallas", built completely on the Windows Azure platform that enables developers and users to access premium commercial and reference data sets and content on any platform. Datasets current available through "Dallas" include those from the Associated Press, Citysearch, ESRI, NAVTEQ, DATA.gov, First American, infoUSA, NASA, National Geographic Topo!, RiskMetrics Group, the United Nations, WaveMarket, Weather Central, and more. Starting today, "Dallas" is currently available as a limited Community Technology Preview.

I hope Data.gov is free.

----- original post 11/18/09 7:24 -----

First American's ParcelPoint data will be offered as part of the new Microsoft Windows Azure and SQL Azure Database-powered information brokerage service codenamed "Dallas" (coverage at The Register.

The brokerage service support "high-value, premium data and third-party applications to provide developers and information workers with visibility and access to multiple data sets and applications." The ParcelPoint national database contains information on more than 122 million U.S. land parcels. The first offering will include selected California counties.

- press release

Autodesk Q3 2010 Down 31% Over Q3 2009

Revenue was $417 million for Q3 2010, basically flat from last quarter but showed a decrease of 31 percent compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2009. I think it's telling that its core products, AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT showed similar traits: "Combined revenue from our AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT products increased 2 percent sequentially and decreased 39 percent compared to the third quarter last year."

There's no comments on geospatial and I don't expect any in today's conference call scheduled for 5 pm eastern. The group seems to in a bit of a holding pattern of late.

[Title, first sentence updated 11/19 to reflect that Autodesk is now in fiscal 2010. It reported for Q3 2010 in the PR. Thanks to @geokaren, @dmgeo for letting me know of the confusion.]

- press release