Tuesday, October 28. 2008

ERDAS' Sweet Spot: Handling Large Data Sets

Rare is the opportunity that I get to hash out a vision for geospatial technology with a vendor.  Usually it's all about product enhancements, features, and functionality, especially at a trade show. My conversation with Mladen Stojic, SVP of Product Mgmt. and Marketing for ERDAS was different and its important to know that there are some vendors that can offer clients forethought and direction. Stojic believes that, in a connected world, that spatial models and content can be married in a more coherent manner.

Continue reading "ERDAS' Sweet Spot: Handling Large Data Sets"

Podcast: Clapper Elaborates on Collapse of BASIC

During the Q&A session at the GEOINT Symposium, Under Secretary of Defense, Lt. General (ret.) Jim Clapper, elaborated on the recently canceled BASIC (Broad Area Space-Based Imagery Collection) program, an effort by the National Reconnaisance Office (NRO) to obtain two earth observing remote sensing satellites. "Depending on your point of view, what happened to BASIC is either a strength or weakness of our form of government. There are many constituencies from which you must derive consensus. When we finally got consensus, we finally got signed for the purchase of two 1.1 meter satellites. But Congress decided that the sense of urgency no longer exists. It’s now over to the DNI (Director of National Intelligence) to decide the way ahead. The DNI has referred back to the NGA andi it will be up to Admiral Murrett, Director of the NGA to study. Clapper said in closing that "but this has been studied to death."

Listen to more of his remarks during his press briefing. (to download, right click on the link at left and choose "save target as")

Missed any podcasts? Want to subscribe via iTunes, Yahoo, etc? Here's the index with all the info.

Budget Reductions Focus at GEOINT

Most of the plenary speakers at the opening session of the 2008 GEOINT conference in Nashville, Tennessee focused on the anticipated budget reductions that will ensue as the next administration takes office after next week’s U.S. presidential election. "I am quite concerned that this conference won’t be as big, because this community will go on a diet," said Rich Haver of Northrop Grumman, the master of ceremonies of the day’s activities. "I think the next three or four years will be a tough fight. We need to redouble our efforts to make sure that the next administration doesn’t, rebalance the budget on the back of the intelligence community."

Lt. General (ret.) Jim Clapper, the current Under Secretary of Defense (Intelligence) said that, "We are going to have to figure out a way to constrict. This will be a tremendous challenge for the next administration…we have gotten use to supplementary funding which has been as a result of the war. But if I were going to be around, I would try to champion a preservation of the capabilities even if they are shrunken a bit but to keep the expertise." He hoped the next administration will not entirely emasculate the capabilities that have been established during the years of the Iraq war.

Clapper also mentioned that in looking to the future, certain priorities must be considered. He said that integration and collaboration are very important, plus the melding and synthesis of the disciplines is the strength of geospatial intelligence. Clapper emphasized the need to adhere to standards and complimented Vice Admiral Murrett, the current NGA director on pushing this effort forward.

USGIF Launches a Blog

I have mixed feelings about this announcement. I do agree that having a "place" for GEOINT discussions is a good thing and to date to my knowledge, there is no such place. For a time there was a GEOINT focussed publication (not from USGIF, but from the folks behind Geospatial Solutions; I think it still exists in e-mail form) but on the whole that side of the industry tends to be rather close-lipped. Perhaps that's why the publication didn't last too long?

Will a blog do better? Will the blog called "got geoint?" meet the high minded goals noted in the press release?

Hosted and managed by USGIF, got geoint? provides unfiltered access to the views and opinions of intelligence and defense community leaders from government, industry, and academia. In addition, commentary on the latest developments in defense and intelligence will be mixed in with fun, hip and breaking news the about the broad range of topics related to geospatial intelligence.

Unfiltered? Fun? Hip? Breaking news?

Continue reading "USGIF Launches a Blog"