Friday, June 12. 2009

GPS (not address) Gets Demolition Location Wrong

Bottom line: a demolition team which used GPS coordinates to locate the target house in Carroll, Georgia, erred and knocked down the wrong building.

UPI

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Oops at 06:00 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0) |

Thursday, June 11. 2009

GIS in Lagos

GIS is coming to Lagos, Nigeria. Governor Babatunde Fashola opened the second stakeholders’ forum on digital mapping, Geographic Information System (GIS) in the state this week. I suspect something went wrong with a translation regarding GIS capabilities.

Fashola, who led other members of the State Executive Council at the forum held at the state Secretariat Auditorium, Alausa, Ikeja, described GIS as a total life change that is capable of confronting the challenges of emerging planets.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Oops at 06:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Thursday, May 21. 2009

Google Docs, ESRI Technology for Colorado Middle Schoolers

Deb Hooker who works for the Poudre School District in Colorado writes in the Coloradoan about the new computer curriculum the be launched next year.

Beginning with the 2009-10 school year, most sixth-graders will take a new nine-week Web 2.0 technology course that includes units on researching on the Web; Internet safety (appropriate use and ethics); data analysis; introduction to programming; Web site design; geographic information systems, or GIS; and Google Docs (collaborative Web-based office tools).

Seventh-graders may also choose to take an additional 18-week computer gaming and digital technology class that expands on the sixth-grade class, including units such as digital video production and video game programming.

The new courses involve using free, open-sourced software available on the Internet. Recently, representatives from Google and the Environmental Systems Research Institute, or ESRI, trained PSD middle school teachers and school technology coordinators on how to use tools such as Google Docs and GIS software.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, ESRI, Open Source, Oops, Education at 07:50 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Sunday, April 5. 2009

LA Times finds LAPD Geocoding Error

The LA Times details how a geocoding error in an LAPD online crime mapping app puts a high crime rate just around the corner from City Hall and the Police station. In fact, the spike is the result of failed geocoding.

While the article highlights some key points about the process of geocoding and why the error was not found sooner (the app only shows data back a week, making such spikes less obvious) it missed out on some other points including:

- different apps use different geocoding algorithms
- different apps use different data against which to geocode
- sharing raw data (vs. maps) can help identify such errors

There also this great quote from Paul Zandbergen, a professor of geography at the University of New Mexico who studies the quality of online maps: "Most spatial data are inaccurate."

My main question is this: Everyblock took the same data feed for its LA maps, and it seems, ended up with same inaccuracies. Is that because they use the same geocoding and data against which to geocode? That's not clear from the article.

Hat tip to reader Duane for a pointer to the story.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Oops at 13:27 | Comments (15) | Trackbacks (0) |

Monday, March 23. 2009

DigitalGlobe,Geoeye Imagery Used for Search of Plane Wreck in Venezuela

Huntsville's AEgis Technologies is working with DigitalGlobe to try to find wreckage of a plane thought to be lost in Venezuela in February. An unfortunate miscommunication turned GeoEye into "Goi" in the coverage in the Huntsville Times.

[Bob] Edwards [who has been coordinating the search] said that in addition to Aegis, DigitalGlobe and Goi, another satellite imagery company, there are 50 volunteers nationwide who are analyzing the satellite images on their computers.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Oops, Remote Sensing, DigitalGlobe at 06:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Friday, December 19. 2008

NY Pothole Map Not Good Enough for Judge

Back in the day, getting money out of NYC for slips and trips on uneven pavement or potholes was pretty easy. Too easy. So the city passed a law stating payment would not be made unless the hazard was communicated to the city 15 days prior to the accident. Enter the lawyers, specifically the New York State Trial Lawyers Association. They started the "Pothole Map" and paid for people to document the hazards. When the city would not accept the map as communication, the lawyers sued and won. But now, a judge isn't convinced; when the mark on map doesn't accurately match the situation on the street, he's ready to deny claims.

- NYTimes CityRoom Blog

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Oops at 06:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |