Archives for October 2, 2007

Minneapolis Bridge Routing Application built with ESRI’s Web 2.0 Mapping solution

October 2, 2007 by gisuser

ESRI is boasting about a very cool webmapping application in use in Minneapolis. It helps commuters determine the best route to take to avoid problems and congestion that has resulted from the I-35 W bridge collapse over the Mississippi River. The city posts dynamic data immediately on the website so users are searching real-time information to help plan their route. From ESRI, Using the ArcWeb Services Flex API, an ESRI software architect quickly put together a two-tiered Web application that consists of a public-facing Web page and an administrative Web page. According to eSRI, Within three days of the disaster, the city had a complete two-tier application designed and deployed to help keep the city functioning! The app is simple to use.. simply click on a start and end point and wait for the resulting route to be generated… navigation instructions can then be printed. See
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/traffic/routeplannerintro.asp

Capital Regional District (CRD) Natural Areas Atlas powered by Geocortex scores award

October 2, 2007 by gisuser

Congrats to the Victoria CRD and to the crew at Latitude Geographics as the Capital Regional District (CRD) was presented with an Award of Excellence at ESRI Canada’s Regional User Conference in Victoria today. The CRD provides GIS data and services to the public via a popular application called the CRD Natural Areas Atlas (www.naturalareasatlas.ca) I went and checked out the web application and its pretty darned awesome! Powered by Geocortex, the web service provides users with 2005 color ortho imagery (and some black and white images too) along with loads of natural resource data for the area including transportation layers, soils, vegetation and more. Users can measure, mark up (redline, draw lines, polygons etc…) print, save etc.. using the application. Given the lack of freely available data up north this simple to use web service is a very nice treat and the UI is totally cool too! With much fragmentation in government in Victoria (there’s more than a dozen local governments) and then the CRD which is a non-elected level of government, you can imagine how tough the budget constraints are for the CRD so its quite cool to see such an innovative GIS application come out of there.

The GISP and the press release??

October 2, 2007 by gisuser

When will the fluffy “press” ever stop? I hate to rant but come on… a company issuing a “press release” about a GIS Analyst who obtained a GISP designation??? I get dozens of PR items sent to me on any given day, sometimes though I have to sit back and shake my head. To protect the innocent I’m not going to go into who actually had enough time to go to this kind of effort but needless to say I don’t think I’ll be running around disseminating this announcement to the industry at large. Formal press releases are ideally suitable for announcing official news like contract wins, key hires, an acquisition, new product launch etc… sorry but getting a GISP, hiring a new GIS analyst, yadayada simply isn’t big news. I’ll be really curious to actually see which “publications” actually report on this one as “news”

More imagery (60 cm) available in latest Google Earth update

October 2, 2007 by gisuser

Another data update has been mentioned in the Google Lat/Long blog. Once again we’re provided with clues to try and figure out where we can find new imagery. Apparently there’s updates for some 130 countries! Some of the clues are as follows:

1) I don’t mean to “flatter,” but this remote Northwestern cape is very beautiful.
2) You can now explore the ruins of this ancient Mayan city, first discovered in 1934.
3) This small Peruvian village attracts many tourists each year for the Incan ruins atop nearby hills.
4) This city claims to be the southernmost city in the world, with approximately 64,000 residents.
5) Home of the Russian Pacific Fleet, this city is also Russia’s largest Pacific coast harbor
Via http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/09/where-in-world-is.html

Also on the topic of google earth, GEhacks mentions a new Gogole Earth-based discussion board – see http://www.gearthhacks.com/geboards/ or simply jump right in by loading the following: http://www.gearthhacks.com/geboards/getbrowseonlykml.php – the app is supported by this forum – http://www.gearthhacks.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=31

GeoCommons gets a data update and some developer tools to share

October 2, 2007 by gisuser

The developers of GeoCommons sends us details of many new updates. We heard from the developers that there’s a good number of new features and they are up to 2500 data sets and over 45,000 attributes you can map. Also, for developers there are new docs and APIs… see http://docs.geocommons.com or jump directly to http://www.geocommons.com/

More on Nokia Navteq deal – Analyzing the Impact of Nokia’s Acquisition on mobile 2.0

October 2, 2007 by gisuser

Some more industry analysis and insight to share on this latest deal as Blair Sweden has shared his vision of the deal with us via LBSzone. Of note, Blair spent three years managing NAVTEQ’s pedestrian mobile content product line, Discover Cities. In the report Blair looks at the following topics:

Effect on Installed Vehicle Navigation Market
Strategies for Portable Navigation Device Makers
Impact on Internet Players
How Nokia-NAVTEQ Could Impact ‘ Mobile 2.0’
Nokia’s Opportunity Beyond Navigation

He leaves off reminding us that Nokia will likely have a number of GPS-enabled devices shipping next year, all of which are perfect to leverage this new asset. See the analysis at http://www.lbszone.com/content/view/2352/45/

More on Nokia Navteq deal – Analyzing the Impact of Nokia’s Acquisition on mobile 2.0

October 2, 2007 by gisuser

the Friendly Autodesk webcast reminder

October 2, 2007 by gisuser

I just got my “friendly reminder” from an Autodesk rep. (actually it likely was someone from an agency) regarding a webcast tomorrow. I registered for the webcast online and have received email reminders as well, providing me with time and lgin information etc… the call, however, was somewhat over the top and pretty bizarre. First I get the call on my cell with no caller ID showing up – this is my frist clue that causes me to almost ignore the call. Going against my better judgement though, curiosity gets the best of me and I pick up. On the other end is a monotone, robotic voince from a woman reminding me about the webcast. An interesting strategy on making sure people attend these gigs, but at the same time, man these calls are bothersome! OK, ok already, I’ll be there ;0)

Scrapblog – the multi-media scrapbook

October 2, 2007 by gisuser

Here’s a cool, new flash-based application that was mentioned at the Adobe MAX event yesterday.. scrapblog. Its an interesting application that enables registered users to quickly and easily create a digital scrapbook using photos, videos, and other digital media – check it out at http://www.scrapblog.com/ – the app is cool enough that it got a mention at the Adobe MAX keynote so its definitely worth a looksee!

Leave for a day and Nokia shells out 8+ billion for Navteq

October 2, 2007 by gisuser

oh man, I go away for one day and look what happens… the Rockies finish up an amazing regular season with a crazy win (luckily the game was still on while driving back from the airport!) and then yesterday I’m sitting in on a meeting with some Forum Nokia execs and they ask me if I heard that Nokia bought Navteq… I almost dropped! I heard the big news while getting the low-down on what Nokia will be doing with Flash and more specifically Flash Lite now at release 3. Nokia is committed to cranking out new devices that will support Flash 3 and something new to me, Adobe’s CS3 product lineup offers developers are very impressive application development environment that enables creation, testing and deploying applications to mobile devices that support Flash. This really is quite huge, particularly when you now toss in the fact that Nokia owns Navteq and all their assets… wow. Can you imagine the applications that will be developed to run in the Nokia Maps ecosystem. I’m guessing that as Nokia Maps migrates to the OVI space (Nokia is moving their games and maps platforms to what is known as OVI) and the 3+ million members of Forum Nokia ( the world’s largest mobile developer community) start thinking more about compelling mapping-based applications, we’ll be seeing some pretty amazing stuff! This is just the tip of the iceberg and getting pretty exciting although I guess I’m not totally surprised at what’s gone down. A tip.. want an audience for your mobile apps, demos, trial ware and even docs? Check out MOSH mosh.nokia.com! FYI, Navteq has some 3000 employees around the Globe. Some reports seem to think that this deal may have been a bit too sweet ($78 US per share) although Navteq shares have soared recently due to speculation that Garmin may have been chasing them – of note, Nokia’ shares dipped slightly once the acquisition (Nokia’s largest ever) was reported. Some food for thought… Forum Nokia developers (the World’s largest developer community at 3million strong,, now has access to Navteq data to use in their apps… hmmmm.

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