Dutch Government to Share Data and other International GIS News

The Netherlands

The Netherlands Ministry for Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation announced the creation of a national database for satellite images that will be available to the public and entrepreneurs. The Ministry is allocating 4 million Euros to create this database. The imagery will be centrally procured to keep costs down. The Ministry for Infrastructure and Environment will be contributing to the satellite database;  the minitry will provide full access for free to the government's 'base registry' of topographic data, maintained by the cadastre, starting January 1st, 2012. At the moment access to the full database costs 50.000 Euro.

The main financial corrections are €76.6 million charged to Sweden for the weaknesses in the Land Parcel Identification System – Geographical Information System (LPIS-GIS), administrative controls and sanctions for area-aids expenditures, including area-based Rural Development measures; €70.9 million charged to Italy with regard to the late controls in the sector of milk; and €22.3 million charged to Denmark for the weaknesses in LPIS-GIS, in the on-the-spot checks and in the calculation of sanctions.

DigitalGlobe Gets Nod from NGA on RDOG

DigitalGlobe's Rapid Delivery of Geospatial Intelligence (RDOG) program to provider faster delivery satellite data and intelligence to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency got an added boost today with the federal agency issuing a contract for $37.9 million in additional funding for the program. Jeff Kerridge, senior vice president and general manager of DigitalGlobe’s defense & intelligence business unit said that the original RDOG concept was just a small area online originally that provided but that the web services platform continued to grow withing the past few years. This new contract represents recognition from NGA as to success of the delivery platform. Kerridge said that the program is in alignment NGA director Tish Long's goal of getting more data online and getting closer to the customer. 

The objective of RDOG was to provide end users, especially warfighters, access to satellite data within hours of data acquisition. The new contract will expand the scope of image delivery to cover in excess of 10 countries, with imagery delivered within three to five hours after data collection. The ability to provide faster access is facilited by the increase in the number of ground stations located within the equatorial region. This year, DigitalGlobe has activated four new ground stations around the world and three more are planned for 2012, which will take the total number of ground stations to eleven. Kerridge indicated that this added ground station capability for more frequent downloads of satellite data is equivalent to adding another satellite to the constellation.

The RDOG interface is a "Google Earth-like" experience that allows for roaming, panning and zooming to the data that is tagged with information about when it was collected. RDOG also represents the intentions of DigitalGlobe to bring this type of functionality to users in both other public agencies as well as commercial businesses.

NY Times Map of Where you Were on 9/11 and other Crowdsourcing GIS News

The New York Times hosts a map that invites readers to locate where they were on 9/11/01 and provide a comment. 

- NY Times via Technorati

Patrick Meier writes about using crowdsourcing in an effort to look at human rights issues in Syria.

We plan do the same with high resolution satellite imagery of three key cities in Syria selected by the AI-USA team. The specific features we will look for and tag include: ”Burnt and/or darkened building features,” “Roofs absent,” “Blocks on access roads,” “Military equipment in residential areas,” “Equipment/persons on top of buildings indicating potential sniper positions,” “Shelters composed of different materials than surrounding structures,” etc. SBTF volunteers will be provided with examples of what these features look like from a bird’s eye view and from ground level.

- iRevolution blog

Since its June launch, Global Amphibian BioBlitz amateur photographers have posted photos of 10 percent of the world's 7,000 amphibian species Among the revelations delighting scientists...

Now it's time for phase two (APB coverage of phase 1): the Global Reptile Blitz to record all 9,500 reptile species worldwide.

Both the Global Reptile and the Global Amphibian BioBlitz are powered by a website called iNaturlist.org, developed by some UC Berkeley students. They teamed with Stanford researchers and conservation organizations to expand it.

- San Jose Mercury News

GeoEye Stock Jumps on Takeover Rumor

GeoEye's (GEOY) stock has jumped 17% at midday. Not much on Twitter or other news sources as there is only speculation about the company being a likely takeover target. According to StreetInsider who cited DealReporter, the company has hired Goldman Sachs. Possible bidders include BAE, Northrop, Raytheon and Harris, the usual cadre of defense contractors. And "The Fool.com" believes you shouldn't "read too much into the rumor."  But they do think that GeoEye may be an inexpensive investment at this point due to the fact that the satellite business has a high barrier to entry and their forward P/E looks inviting. As the defense business slumps due to Pentagon budget cuts, these contractors might be looking for a company with a long-term govenment data contract already locked down.

DigitalGlobe’s Stock Woes

The Motley Fool comments on DigitalGlobe's (DGI) poor earnings, a loss of $.02 per share, and its resulting nose dive in stock price. It's most interesting comment was this: "Good PR doesn't trump bad profits." On Wednesday, May4, the market reacted to the company's quarterly report by sending the stock down from $28.72 to $25.82, a drop of 10% even though the report was within analyst's consensus estimates.