Anything Geospatial

GIS, Maps, Geo and Location Technology by @gletham

Archives for January 2013

USDA Releases the 2012 Cropland Data Layer – CropScape

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The 2012 cropland data layer (CDL) product for the Continental United States (CONUS) was released as CropScape (http://nassgeodata.gmu.edu/CropScape) on January 31, 2013. This categorized geospatial product at 30m resolution is produced by U. S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service from satellite observation data and ground truth data. CropScape was developed in cooperation with the Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems at George Mason University, Fairfax, Va. See more details HERE

Video – NASA Continuing Landsat’s 40-Year Legacy With LDCM 8

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Indeed, it isn’t called the continuity mission for nothing!! The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) is a collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey that will continue the Landsat Program’s 40-year data record of monitoring Earth’s landscapes from space. LDCM will expand and improve on that record with observations that advance a wide range of Earth sciences and contribute to the management of agriculture, water and forest resources. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/landsat and http://landsat.usgs.gov



Blackberry Unveils BlackBerry Z10 – UK Gets it First

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Today is the day for Blackberry enthusiasts… the BB10 launch event (I’m still not holding my breath on this actually reviving the ailing smartphone maker!) The company has unveiled the latest platform and some new devices to tease you with… hey, they’ve even announced that Alicia Keys is the official “Creative Director” for Blackberry – whatever that means!  It looks like the UK will get the device first, followed by Canada etc… personally I’d rather see a Global roll out at the same time and in all honesty, teasing markets like this really does p&ss off users but it seems to be a common strategy. RIM has lost loads of marketshare over the years and winning these customers back is going to be a giant task for them. Some details from the BB blog…

Worldwide, we have several key markets that are revealing pricing and availability today, including the UK, Canada and UAE:

  • In the UK, the BlackBerry Z10 will be available beginning tomorrow on pay monthly contracts and pre-pay plans from EE, O2, Vodafone, Phones 4u, BT, 3UK and the Carphone Warehouse. BlackBerry Z10 smartphones will be available fully subsidized on competitive monthly pay contracts. Price points will vary according to carriers and retail partners.
  • In Canada, the BlackBerry Z10 will be available on February 5th. Pricing will vary by carrier partner, but it will retail for around $149.99 on a 3-year contract.
  • In the UAE, the BlackBerry Z10 will be available on February 10th. Pricing will vary by carrier partner, but unsubsidized it will retail for AED 2,599.
  • In the U.S. market, we expect availability with most carriers for the BlackBerry Z10 to be in March. Today, U.S. carriers will start announcing pre-registration and price plans.

Many global partners have already launched or will be launching pre-registration and pre-order sites today.

Find out about innovative tools for Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) including BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, and get all the details on the BlackBerry software and services roadmap. Offered Free by: BlackBerry

Super Bowl Fun – NFL Fan Map (FandomMap) created from Facebook data

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Super Bowl week is here so that means more cool data visualizations.. best BBQ, tail gate hot spots, and those awesome NFL fan maps! Here’s details of a cool fan map – I’m not sure I can agree that its the best fan map “ever”, however, given that its been created by mashing up data scraped from facebook it is pretty cool! So how was this one done? Well, they used data… LOTS of it! Details… Facebook’s Data Science team has combed the more than 35 million users who have “liked” a team’s fan page, and put it into graphic form, down to the county level.

Some interesting spatial patterns emerge once you look at the data.. for example, Patriots fans tend to spread out far and wide, as do fans of the Cowboys and Steelers. Overall the data indicates that geography plays a huge role in defining the fan. Thanks to Deadsping for the map, and to my FB friend Brad Shannon from NOCO for tipping me off!

Source: deadspin.com via Glenn on Pinterest

LiDAR as Art Competition – Round 2 from Geodigital

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Here’s round 2 of this very cool, popular competition that looks at LiDAR as an art form… GeoDigital International is pleased to announce the ILMF 2013 “LiDAR as ART” Contest. To enter, submit your outstanding example(s) of an airborne LiDAR image to this address by January 1, 2013. Each submission will create an entry for you and your employer.
All images will then be posted online for voting that is open to the public through February 5, 2013. Check here for more information about the voting as we get closer to the event. The top three entries will then be showcased in the GeoDigital booth during the ILMF 2013 conference February 11 – 13, 2013 in Denver, Colorado. Donations in the name of the top three employers will be made to the charity of their choice and the top individual will win an iPad. See more details from Geodigital

Source: geodigital.com via Glenn on Pinterest

OpenData Day B.C and other Dev Events of interest

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To start, a couple of developer tips to share. An interesting effort and competition from the USGS as they issue a call to developers in a search for hackers, mashup artists, devs, geogeeks and others to help in App-lifying and Enhancing USGS Earth Science Data. The USGS is seeking help via this platform from many of the Nation’s premier application developers and data visualization specialists in developing new visualizations and applications for datasets. The vehicle to achieve this is Challenge.gov a competition administered via the GSA – see more details here and Good Luck! Here in B.C. developers, industry, and government are invited to a special event focused on OpenData and OpenData policies – The OpenData Summit. The event takes place Feb 19 on the SFU Campus and the agenda will look at solutions for answering questions like What is it being used for? What value is being generated right now? What is next for open data in BC? As part of what’s touted as “OpenData Day“, the Vancouver Open Data Day Hackathon has been announced by the @CityofVancouver for Sat, 23 Feb 9 and word has it that the City of Victoria @CityOfVictoria will also be hosting a similar event. FME users, take note and Save the date and join others at one of 40+ FME User Meetings around the world. In each city, you’ll have the opportunity to learn about the new release, discover best practices and new tips, and meet other FME users in your area. Finally, for Esri developers, take not that Esri has opened up registration for the 2013 Esri DevSummit taking place later in March in beautiful Palm Springs – a great chance to get your GeoGeek on!

Webinar – Introduction to LIDAR Production in TerraScan/TerraModeler

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A webinar of interest this week from GeoCue presents an Introduction to LIDAR Production in TerraScan/TerraModeler – standard software tools for LIDAR data production in the MicroStation CAD environment.

Designed for viewing, classifying, editing, feature extraction and surface modeling from dense LIDAR point clouds, they offer a rich feature set at an affordable cost. These tools have been in day-to-day use at all major LIDAR data production facilities for over 15 years, supporting airborne, mobile and terrestrial laser scanning projects across a variety of applications.

This webinar is not intended for training purposes but rather an overview of features and capabilities. Date: Tuesday, January 29, 2013, Time: 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM CST

Space is limited.Reserve your Webinar seat now

See More: http://www.terrasolid.fi/en/products/terrascan


GeoCue Webinar – Introduction to LIDAR Production

670 million smartphones ship in 2012, 67 million Samsungs in Q4 Alone!

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Some interesting stats coming our of Juniper Research this week from the mobile industry. According to the latest figures more than 670 million smartphones shipped Globally in 2012 and in Q4 of the 200 million devices that sold, over one third of them were Samsung devices whereas about 47.8 million were iPhones… great news for Android users and in particular, Android app developers! Nokia shipped 6.6 million smart devices in the fourth quarter (although Symbian based devices really lagged and many are predicting the demise of Symbian as an OS) , with the new Lumia device line still to make a significant impact with shipments of 4.4 million. See more details on the latest from Juniper HERE

Hey Developers, GeoGeeks and Hackers, help Amplify USGS Data

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An interesting effort and competition from the USGS as they issue a call to developers in a search for hackers, mashup artists, devs, geogeeks and others to help in App-lifying and Enhancing USGS Earth Science Data. USGS scientists are looking for your help in addressing some of today’s most perplexing scientific challenges, such as climate change and biodiversity loss. To do so requires a partnership between the best and the brightest in Government and the public to guide research and identify solutions.

The USGS is seeking help via this platform from many of the Nation’s premier application developers and data visualization specialists in developing new visualizations and applications for datasets. The vehicle to achieve this is Challenge.gov a competition administered via the GSA – see more details here and Good Luck!

Submissions will be accepted from January 9, 2013, to April 1, 2013. Winners will be announced on April 26, 2013

USGS Infographic – The water cycle for kids

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How about another cool infographic for the collection? This one is loads of fun and may be a nice little addition for you to have printed out, laminated, and slapped up on the wall in the kids room… or maybe in your office for you kids at heart! The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have teamed up to create a water-cycle diagram for kids and elementary and middle schools – The water cycle for kids. The USGS has provided a high rez.  PDF and JPG image versions available, for printing, enjoy!

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