Directions Magazine Launches “Channels”

Today, we at Directions Magazine offer you a new way of getting news with the launch of "Channels," websites dedicated to specific industries or technologies. Please take a moment to visit the following and give us your feedback by writing to us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address):

• State and Local Government
  • Our channel for municipal and state government applications with a focus on standards, data compilation, and the interaction with federal initiatives, NSGIC and the FDGC.

• Location-based Services and Mobile Computing

  • Our channel for mobile computing and location-enabled applications, from navigation to mobile resource management as well as social networking.

• Location Intelligence and Business Geographics

  • Our channel for enterprise geospatial technology and business analytics with particular emphasis on the retail, real estate, banking, insurance, and transportation sectors.

• Remote Sensing and Geospatial Intelligence/GEOINT

  • Our channel for earth observation and geospatial intelligence, from satellite and airborne platforms to sensor networks, 3D and LiDAR
    
    Our objective is to segment the news so that you’re getting the most up-to-date information on a daily basis that directly pertains to your interest. We hope to build upon these initial four Channels and bring you news on Health, Education, Computing, Energy and more. Stay tuned.

MySQL White Paper on LBS

MySQL is offering a white paper (registration required) called "MySQL Cluster for Presence & Location-Based Services." The abstract notes, "This whitepaper explores the different types of services that can take advantage of location and presence awareness, and considers their unique requirements for data management."

Podcast: Spatially-enabled Data Warehouse Appliances

This week two different vendors, Netezza and Teradata announced spatial extensions for their data warehouse appliances. Our editors explain the new offerings and explore what questions they prompt for geospatial practitioners and well as traditional database administrators. Is one of these solutions in your future?

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

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)

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