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Where 2.0

Tuesday May 13th 2008
Filed Under Industry | Leave a Comment

Where 2.0 kicked off today in Burlingame, California which focuses on the geospatial web: At the O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference, we expose the tools pushing the boundaries of the location frontier, track the emergence of new business models and services, and spend time examining new sources of data and the platforms for collecting them.

You can stay on top of some of the announcements from Where 2.0 by visiting their News and Coverage page. Of particular note to the GIS field is the keynote on the “State of the Web” by Jack Dangermond and John Hanke (seen via Spatiallyadjusted.com).

Last Chance to Vote - Geospatial Leadership Awards

Tuesday May 13th 2008
Filed Under Current Events | Leave a Comment

Jo Treadwell from GeoTec Media is asking for your vote by Wednesday, May 14th:

Geospatial Leadership Awards
Sponsored by GeoWorld Magazine

We need your vote! Polls close Wed., May 14

Vote Now

If you have already voted for the 2008 Geospatial Leadership Awards, sponsored by GeoWorld magazine, we appreciate your participation. If you have yet to vote, your vote is very important, and polls close Wed., May 14. It will only take a few minutes of your time to help GeoWorld recognize leadership and innovation in the industry.

GeoWorld magazine and GeoReport e-newsletter subscribers as well as visitors to GeoPlace.com are asked to cast their vote to identify and recognize individuals and organizations for both vision and achievement in our industry.

We have three awards categories: Public Enterprise, Private Enterprise and the Innovator Award. Please take a few minutes of your valuable time to vote for the best candidate in each category. Again, the deadline for submission is Wednesday, May 14. Winners will be announced at the GeoTec Event Opening Keynote, June 3, with follow-up details to be published in GeoWorld magazine and GeoPlace.com.

ArcNews Survey

Thursday May 08th 2008
Filed Under ESRI | Leave a Comment

ESRI is looking for feedback on the newly redesigned ArcNews publication. ArcNews is published quarterly with stories about GIS implementation using ESRI’s suite of software. The survey takes about 8 minutes to complete.

2008 ArcNews Reader Survey

Mapping Sites Being Investigated by China

Wednesday May 07th 2008
Filed Under Features, Issues in GIS, Privacy Issues | Leave a Comment

Min Yiren, vice head of the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, claims that there are 10,000 illegal mapping web sites in China. Google, among others, is being investigated as part of an effort to get rid of mapping sites that don’t depict borders according to the requirements of the Chinese government. Additionally, sites that show sensitive areas are also being investigated.

GIS Interoperability Elusive

Sunday May 04th 2008
Filed Under Features, Issues in GIS | Leave a Comment

Government Computer News reports (Where GIS gets lost) that while almost 70% of United States government agencies are using some form of GIS, most agencies have developed their GIS data independently which often creates compatibility issues when using data from other agencies. Currently, there is no uniform standard for data creation and sharing among the various local, state and federal agencies that create and have a need to use other agency data. The article quotes Dan Ponte from the USGS: “Even within our own organization, being able to get information easily from one data system into another is not a simple task. We haven’t really cracked that nut.” GCN also has a sidebar article: Toronto police struggle with GIS’ success.

Using Google Earth over GIS Software in Archaeology

Monday April 28th 2008
Filed Under Google Earth | Leave a Comment

Anthropology.net has a post about the publication in the Journal of Human Evolution entitled “Google Earth, GIS, and the Great Divide: A new and simple method for sharing paleontological data” that advocates the use of Google Earth over GIS mapping applications for its ease of use in sharing archaeological and paleontological data. The entry makes the preliminary argument:

GIS systems expedite analyzing and managing large amounts of spatial data, and can really improve mapping locations where artifacts or fossils are found. Unfortunately, the price point and learning curve involved in using GIS applications, like ArchGIS make it an unapproachable technology.

An article in advance in the Journal of Human Evolution introduces how the most basic version of Google Earth can be easily used in lieu of other GIS software to display and share paleontological data.

While the post does briefly review some of the negative issues to using Google Earth data over a standalone GIS, the interest seems to be mostly in the area of simple displays of data and doesn’t open up a debate on the abilities of GIS software to perform spatial analysis as compared to Google Earth.

PowerPoint Based Presentations for GIS

Monday April 28th 2008
Filed Under GIS Techniques, Link Library, Reference | Leave a Comment

Find ready-made and available for download PowerPoint presentations online. PowerPoint presentations can be valuable tools in presenting GIS ideas or as educational materials. Read more

Online Mortgage Maps

Sunday April 27th 2008
Filed Under Internet Mapping, United States GIS and Data | Leave a Comment

The Federal Reserve has released dynamic maps showing subprime and alt-A mortgage loan information across the United States. While the concept is very interesting, it seems that the Flash application was developed with little understanding of cartographic principals. The chloropleth maps are available at the ZIP Code level but the pop-up statistics only show information at the state level. The shading on the map is faded and often hard to read; the shading of the foreclosure rates at the national level is almost indecipherable. There is a menu of graded symbology for shading the map for a different variables but the intensity of the shading isn’t quantified on the legend. There are planned monthly updates of the data but currently the map is limited to showing nonprime mortgage loan information for December of 2007. Those interested in the tabular data can access Excel files from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Nonprime Mortgage Conditions in the United States data page.

Privacy in GIS Issues

Tuesday April 22nd 2008
Filed Under Link Library, Privacy Issues | Leave a Comment

The increase of GIS usage has brought with it a rise in public concern over privacy. The proliferation of easily accessible public information via the web is one of the reasons. The availability of not only aerial and satellite imagery but also street level imagery has also raised questions about the balance between the public’s righto access information versus the individual person’s right to privacy. A.F. Westin in Privacy and Freedom (1967) defined privacy as “the claim of individuals … to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others.” Read more