GOP Rep. Alan Nunnelee (Miss.) urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to not block wireless startup LightSquared's planned 4G network in a filing with the agency [in a Feb 28 letter to the FCC].
In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) International Bureau, the American Soybean Association (ASA) and other organizations representing farmers and agribusinesses in all 50 states declared that “high-precision GPS technology is vitally important to American agriculture, and would be gravely harmed by LightSquared’s plans.”
- Delta Farm Press (The folks at the Save Our GPS Coalition distributed the ASA press release.)
LightSquared hired Ted Olsen, Bush's lawyer in Bush v. Gore, for its legal counsel going forward.
The FCC has released data for "potentially eligible areas for the Mobility Fund Phase I of the Connect America Fund" in three ways for better use: shapefiles, WMS and MapBox tiles. It's pretty impressive how fast MapBox tiles have become a valuable, de joure standard for data.
Cornell is leading research into whether the northern lights interfere with GPS. The rocket launched Saturday in a NASA funded study. We're not going to let anything - natural or man-made interfere with our GPS!
With Tuesday's filing, LightSquared asked the FCC to enact new rules to require special design standards for GPS devices. In the filing, the company argued that GPS receivers could be fixed using filters or other technical modifications.
LightSquared acknowledges such a change may not help the company with its current woes, but would be good for both 4G and GPS providers in the future.
Jim Kirkland, general counsel of GPS-maker Trimble, a founding member of the Save Our GPS Coalition said Lightsquared is using the same "false premises and claims that LightSquared has repeated ad nauseam."
The names are not as familiar to GIS folks at Autodesk and Pitney Bowes, but yesterday Bricsnet and MABEC Group also came together in a new relationship.
Bricsnet FM America, Inc. and MABEC Group, Inc. today formalized a strategic alliance to create a bi-directional data exchange between cloud-based BIM databases and Bricsnet, the corporate real estate/facilities management tool.
"Data exchange between Building Information Models and Geospatial Information Systems will greatly increase the ability of Integrated Workplace Management Systems to improve productivity for corporate real estate executives and facility managers," says David Karpook, Chief Executive Officer of Bricsnet, which is based in San Francisco.
