Wednesday, October 14. 2009

Whose Logos were on WorldView-2 Rocket?

Bing's (Microsoft) and Nokia's. Google (corrected 10/15, originally said Microsoft) has an exclusive on the GeoEye-1 imagery, but will "share" the WorldView-2 data with Google.

- C|net

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Microsoft, Remote Sensing, DigitalGlobe, GeoEye at 08:43 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Microsoft Tests "Videomap" as Journey Prep Tool

Videomap, software under development by Microsoft and researchers from the University of Konstanz in Germany, gives maps and written directions but it also previews a route - complete with landmarks. It creates video using 360-degree panoramic images of the street that are strung together.

It even slows down to encourage viewers to fully grasp key intersections and turns. For now the system requires developers to select the key landmarks users will see. Users of Videomap recalled 80% of turns; those studying the map recalled just 60%. While some suggest the technology will be supplanted by GPS devices, others think it could be of value to pedestrians and cyclists. Frankly, any time I can "preview" a drive, I'll do it.

I regularly, for example, drive to the site of a big race the day before just to be sure I'll get there. There's no reason to panic at 5 am when you can't find the correct turn (and it's dark and foggy....)

- Tech Review

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Microsoft at 07:43 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, September 15. 2009

Podcast: The Gov 2.0 Summit and Geospatial

Last week's Government 2.0 Summit held in Washington DC put GIS front and center as a key tool is a vision of government as a platform for itself and for citizens to use. Why the fuss at this time over GIS, which has been a part of government at all levels for decades? What's new in this vision? What changes can we see in this new embrace of the technology?

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in ESRI, Microsoft, Conferences, Directions on the News Podcast at 01:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Monday, September 14. 2009

NZ's Second Biggest Power Company Removes Oracle, Goes SQL Server

New Zealand’s Powerco pretty much removed its Oracle instances in favor of Microsoft’s SQL Server. There were also changes in hardware, virtualization and a drop in the number of Citrix servers. The GIS moves over this week; hopefully after a user presentation at Tech Ed, we'll learn more about how the company was using Oracle and how it'll be using SQL Server for spatial data (or not). The company uses Televent Miner and Miner apps built on ESRI tech (source). The money saved: $390,000 a year.

Open source was not considered as the goal was to standardize to one system from a mixed Oracle/SQL Server solution.

- Computerworld NZ

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Open Source, Microsoft, Oracle at 06:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, September 8. 2009

TechCrunch Explores Online Maps Response to Bay Bridge Closure

TechCrunch give Google the win - it rerouted and said why. Yahoo rerouted by didn't say why. Bing didn't by default know of the closure.

I live in Boston and the closure - and its extension - has been the on the national news all weekend. It also got lots of play on San Fran based Buzz Out Loud on Friday.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, Microsoft, Yahoo at 06:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, August 25. 2009

Microsoft's Popfly Shuts Down

Like much of the rest of the world I didn't realize the shutdown occurred yesterday. But I noticed today. I was reviewing next week's lesson for my students where I reference the customization power of both Yahoo Pipes and Microsoft's Popfly. That's where I found the notice that it was no longer available. A more complete explanation was made on July 16 on the Popfly blog.

Pipes and Popfly are visual development tools aimed, for the most part, at non-programmers.

I'm pleased Yahoo Pipes is still with us. But, the fact that Popfly never made it out of beta gives me pause. Why did Popfly not make it? More broadly, why are these very powerful visual modeling tools not more popular? I know that Safe's Workbench, the first one of these I ever saw, IS well used within its user base. (I even used it fairly effectively as a complete newbie at the FME User Conference.) I wonder about ESRI's ModelBuilder. I like to think it's used, but don't hear much about it or about people sharing models.

Are these types of metaphors just not that useful? Is there really no audience for programming between casual or heavy duty that would use such interfaces? Are they too complex to use?

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Microsoft, Yahoo at 10:52 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |