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.
Open Nuclear Iran is a crowdsourced effort developed anonymously by concerned Iranians and experts from the arms control community to document, assess, and share information on Iran's nuclear program in an open forum.
Pulse, a UK publication "for health professionals only" (so it says at the top of the page) is building a senitment map.
We plan to build an interactive map detailing what GPs feel about their local hospital services. But we need your help -fill in this quick, 20-question survey, and you will be entered into a prize draw for an iPad 2 worth £399.
The Geo-Wiki Project is a global network of volunteers who wish to help improve the quality of global land cover maps. Since large differences occur between existing global land cover maps, current ecosystem and land-use science lacks crucial accurate data (e.g. to determine the potential of additional agricultural land available to grow crops in Africa). Volunteers are asked to review hotspot maps of global land cover disagreement and determine, based on what they actually see in Google Earth and their local knowledge, if the land cover maps are correct or incorrect. Their input is recorded in a database, along with uploaded photos, to be used in the future for the creation of a new and improved global land cover map.
Nathan reviewed two books that I even find interesting, especially the second one:
The first book I started reading was About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design. In my opinion this is a must read for anyone building software, or at least those who work with the UI and users. ...
The second (free) book was brought to my attention by Brian on my Google+ feed, entitled Open Advice. Open Adivice is a collection of stories from people with differencing experience working on open source projects telling their stories on what they learnt and what they wish they had known when they started. The book aims to cover the answers to “”What would you have liked to know when you started contributing?”, which it does quite well.
...the latest news appears to be the Trimble Yuma, a rugged tablet from SDG Systems that now runs Ubuntu Linux.
Targeting military and industrial applications requiring data collection, inspection, and reporting from the field, the Linux-powered Yuma can be used with geospatial software including GRASS GIS and Quantum GIS as well as other standard or custom Linux-based applications. The device is available starting at $3695 on SDG's website.
The Trimble Juno series provides a complete, integrated package of positioning, imaging and communications for flexibility. Two versions are available. The Juno 3B has an integrated GPS, a 5 MP autofocus camera and Windows Mobile software. The Juno 3D includes all of the features of the Juno 3B plus 3G wireless technology, which allows users to transfer data faster and stay connected to the office with an integrated mobile phone.
TomTom has made a landmark move into the insurance market by providing the technology behind a new insurance product, which bases premiums on driving behaviour.
TomTom has teamed up with insurance broker Motaquote for the launch of Fair Pay Insurance – a product that rewards 'good' drivers with lower premiums.
Lee Mitchell owner of G.A.I.A. Professionals spoke about starting a new GIS business on the Jan 31 American Sentinel University Webinar. I learned during a detailed discussion of her work history that she worked in some capacity for American Sentinel University in curriculum development. That was not disclosed in the webinar marketing material and might have been made more clear in the presentation itself.
The webinar was very generic and covered the issues all business must deal with: office space, hardware, software, staff, insurance (errors and omissions insurance in particular, which she was not aware she needed, it costs $4000/year), lawyers, accountants, funding, etc. She spoke of getting clients via existing networks, social media, and government contracting. She did not mention blogging or writing for industry or professional journals or speaking at conferences, which have served me quite well in building my client base. She did suggest going to conferences.
I was most disappointed in the discussion of open source GIS software. That was highlighted in the title of the press release announcing the event “Learn How Open Source Software Benefits a Successful GIS Business.” The press release listed a half-dozen free and open source GIS packages, but these and other business related packages were simply mentioned in passing. These can save a new business money, Mitchell noted.
I was also disappointed, as a small business owner of 11 years, to learn that “sometimes you are working on a project for three months before you get paid anything.” That is not how my advisors suggested I structure my contracts and thankfully, I never had that happen.
by Adena Schutzberg on 01/31 at 01:12 PM |
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