Tuesday, May 13. 2008

Podcast: Four Technologies That May Soon Impact Geospatial...Are You Ready?

The editors look outward to find technologies that will impact how geospatial products and practices will change in the next 12 to 24 months. Some of the suggested technologies are already appearing in cutting edge products, others are not yet implemented in geospatial solutions, but we expect to see them soon.

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Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Open Source, RFID, Microsoft, Oracle, Databases, Sensors, Directions on the News Podcast, Local Search, Wi-Fi, GNSS, IBM, Geospatial Business, Social Networking at 01:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Friday, January 18. 2008

SpatialPoint Scores Points by Finding Radio Stations Carrying Super Bowl, Uses SQL Server 2008

SpatialPoint is launching a Microsoft Virtual Earth and SQL Server 2008-based application showing the potential of that application's new spatial datatypes. Using the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) radio station coverage polygons and a routing function, a user can plot an anticipated driving route to find those stations broadcasting the Super Bowl. SpatialPoint has created a website called "Follow the Game" to assist sports fans who have to miss seeing the game.

So what's special about this? All point in polygon and polyline functionality was developed with the CTP-5 release of Katmai. The app uses Virtual Earth for geocoding and routing as well as some of SpatialPoint's Atlas technology. The application is free to the public and while the site is live now, some printing functionality needs to be implemented. Printing the map will show both the station call letters and frequencies. I plotted a route from Glencoe IL to Huntsville AL; the web will have directions such as the following:

You can tune in station WSCR-AM (670) broadcasting out of CHICAGO immediately. Coverage should last for about 131.78 miles.
You can tune in station WTMJ-AM (620) broadcasting out of MILWAUKEE immediately. Coverage should last for about 18.31 miles.
Depart on Dundee Rd (West) (1.01 mi)
1 Road name changes to SR-68 [Dundee Rd] (0.16 mi)
2 Take Ramp (RIGHT) onto I-94 [US-41] (13.17 mi)

Posted by Joe Francica in LBS, Databases, Local Search at 03:29 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, January 16. 2008

Oracle Acquires BEA Systems; Not BAE Systems

Watch your "E's" and "A's" not your "P's" and "Q's" for this one. Yesterday. Oracle acquired middleware solution provider and SOA evangelist BEA Systems for $8.5 billion. The deal has been on again, off again for months. BEA's competitive advantage is in business process improvement software (BPM) the espousal of service oriented architecture (SOA).

But don't confuse BEA Systems with BAE Systems, a defense contractor and geospatial solution provider of image analysis software.

Posted by Joe Francica in Databases, Geospatial Business at 20:26 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |

Thursday, January 3. 2008

Spatial Database for Android

Here's another piece of evidence spatial is mainstream and tied to mobile (as if we needed one):

McObject is offering the Android-ready Perst, a very compact embedded database that includes "R-tree indexes for spatially-oriented applications such as GIS and navigation." Further: "The Perst API is flexible, easy-to-use and very fast compared to alternative commercial Java OODBMSs. "

The database and a demo app, along with the same thing implemented in SQLite (which comes with Android) are avaialble with full source code for download. To be clear, there's an open source license to try, develop and distribute non-commercial apps (free) and a commercial license for commercial apps ($$$).

I can't say I've ever heard of the company or database, the company's other offering, eXtremeDB, is embedded in many mobile and communications devices.

- Press release

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, Open Source, LBS, Databases at 07:31 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, December 18. 2007

Podcast: 2007 Year in Review

It's time to look back on the year with Directions Media's editors Joe Francica, Adena Schutzberg and Nora Parker. The industry watchers pick out a few themes and explore what they mean today and look a bit into the crystal ball. Among the topics: the value ($$$) of geo, the new geodata, "neogeography," convergence, the quick-deciding user and the GPS-enabled ski jacket. The podcast is 27 minutes long and was recorded on Dec 17, 2007.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Yahoo, PBBI [MapInfo], Remote Sensing, Databases, Location Intelligence, Traffic, Directions on the News Podcast, Special Topics Podcast, Satellite Navigation, Geospatial Business, Navigation, Social Networking at 01:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Thursday, November 15. 2007

SQL Server CTP-5 Released Internally

More information is now available on Microsoft's SQL Server CTP-5. Microsoft has released CTP-5 internally and should be available to partners soon. Some details about the support for the two spatial datatypes, GEOGRAPHY and GEOMETRY, that will be included as part of the Katmai release is available in our article at Directions Magazine. We have also learned that support for spatial datatypes will be a "no-cost" item to any licensed user.

Posted by Joe Francica in Microsoft, Databases at 21:50 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |