Outdated Maps Mean New GIS for East Hampton and other Government GIS News

The East Hampton Village (NY) Police Chief Jerry Larson lobbied village trustees on Thursday morning for $55,000 over three years to improve the system.points to outdated maps as a threat to public safety, Updates to the 911 system must go through the county and updates from 2006 have still not been made. So, the Village will buy a new GIS.

His [Larson's] department wants to purchase a new Geographic Information Systems mapping system from ESRI, a firm that is the largest designer of public safety mapping systems.

- East Hampton Patch

The Athens City Council (Alabama) is working out its redistricting. Nothing new there. What it? The title of the GIS person: "GIS Engineer Micah Cochran,..."

- News-Courier

South Australia now has statewide online fire planning maps. They are used by fire staff for planning and to let the public know about prescribed burns. They are far better than old paper maps says Department of Environment acting senior fire management officer Tina Besednjak.

The old paper map wasn't interactive, you couldn't zoom in and it wasn't really put on the website. Now we can put it out there and people can jump online anytime.

Pakistan Mapping Bill Proposed and other International GIS News

Pakistan

The Survey of Pakistan is worried about amatuers not only mapping the country, but also mapping sites harmful to national security. So, it's time for a new law to allow enforcement.

With the objective of regulating and implementing surveying and mapping standards in the country, to obviate potential security risk to sensitive information, to prevent damage to affixed survey makers, to avoid duplication of effort in mapping and to transform SoP into a national mapping agency, a draft land surveying and mapping bill has been prepared by the SoP.

The salient features of the Bill are as follows: (i) to transform SoP into national mapping agency ie an authority regulating surveying and mapping activities in the country; (ii) to make it compulsory for all firms involved in surveying and mapping activities to get themselves registered with SoP; (iii) to make it obligatory to all firms involved in surveying and mapping activities to adopt surveying and mapping standards framed by the national mapping agency ie SoP; (iv) to stop unqualified firms to take part in surveying and mapping activities that can pose a security risk to the State; (v) to protect established and affixed survey makers at various locations throughout the country from damage by assigning their responsibility to local district management; (vii) to avoid duplication of efforts in the field of mapping, especially in the public sector, thereby economising on public exchequer; and (viii) to assess the mapping requirements of public and private sector on a yearly basis, thereby lending technical support to federal and provincial development plan and activities.

Part of the logic for doing so relates to how other countries have addressed the issue.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has suggested to the government to frame a law aimed at stopping unlawful activities related to mapping firms, given that several western countries, including Australia, China, India, Turkey, USA and UK, have enacted supportive laws, official sources told Business Recorder.

- Business Recorder (Pakistan)

India

Dehli Police now has a link off its home page (Know Your Police Stateion) of its police stations. It can help residents navigate to the station and find the one covering a certain issue. The department built it in partnership with Microsoft and it uses Silverlight.

- ZeeNews

Nigeria

The Kwara [state in Nigeria] government has concluded arrangements to launch the state Geographic Information System (GIS) in the first quarter of 2012, Alhaji Usman Hamza, the Senior Special Assistant on Information Technology, said.

The state already has a land information system and plans an emegency response system for the future.

- All Africa

Singapore

The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) yesterday announced a new competition that it hopes will spur application developers to create new uses for electronic maps.

The inaugural OneMap Challenge offers top prizes of 20,000 Singapore dollars (US$15,556) cash each in the two categories of desktop and mobile applications, and a total of more than 70,000 Singapore dollars in cash and prizes.

- Jakarta Globe

NYC’s Belt-mounted GPS-enabled Radiation Detectors and other Government GIS News

The New York Police Department is launching a mobile radiation detection system equipped with location-tracking GPS technology that it says could help avert a so-called "dirty" bomb attack.

Two hundred ten officers stationed around the World Trade Center will wear the belt-mounted detectors said to be the first to use GPS (hard to believe, isn't it?). Permanently mounted sensors will also be used to help identify and locate dirty bombs.

- Reuters

The WHYY News and Civic Dialogue Director has partnered with GIS shop Azavea, the Daily News and others on Fix Philly Districts, an awareness campaign featuring a mock redistricting plan competition and civic engagement forums.

...Later this month, Azavea will host webinars on their sleek DistrictBuildersoftware, which will drive the contest, during which you, John Q. Public, will envision what the city’s legislative boundaries should look like and compete for $1,000, official presentation of your district plan and, you know, civic pride. TheDistrictBuilder software has been used nationwide for federal redistricting campaigns, an interest of Azavea founder Robert Cheetham.

It seems every state is having such a contest just using different software packages. What does that say about interest in redestricitng and the state of GIS?

- TechPhilly

It's a mess in the areas of the Civic Center in NY with lots of construction, but soon a city block sized map will be there to help locals and visitors find key buildings included court houses.

To help the wandering masses help themselves, Williams has been working for more than a year on a solution — the first comprehensive street map of the entire Civic Center to be posted in the area.

The map, slated to arrive later this month, will take up the length of a city block, and will hang as a series of banners ringing the construction site outside 26 Federal Plaza. It was designed by Poulin + Morris Inc.

It will be more thorough than some other posted street maps in the area, most of which only show a portion of the area around the Civic Center — for example, only showing the area south of Reade Street and not including the northern area near the courts.

- DNA Info