Thursday Geonews: Bing Maps Map Style Updated, London Transit in Google Maps, Timezones Shapefile, Backseat Driver, and much more

Thu, 2011/07/28 - 14:41 — Alex

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode covering the last two weeks. It's a bit longer than usual.

On the open source front:

Almost two weeks ago, the OSGeo released their 2 minutes video promoting the FOSS4G 2011 conference, Slashgeo is proud to be a media partner
The FGT blog offers a long entry on the portable version of gvSIG, an open source GIS - portable meaning running from a USB key with a host computer with no intallation required
Several sources mentioned that Canada's British Columbia opened their province-wide open data portal, with plenty of geospatial data in it
While we mentioned the its preview in May, here's more documentation on the upcoming GeoRepository, an advanced authorization manager for GeoServer
ImageI/O-Ext 1.1.1 has been released
uDig 1.2.2 has been released too
There's a PostGIS Drupal module in the works

On the Google front (well, new since yesterday):

Public transport directions of London is now available in Google Maps
Google details the new Google Maps version 5.8 for Android, adding photo uploads and My Places
Mapperz tells us how to load OpenStreetMap data in Google Earth via FME with BBOX.ME

On the Microsoft front:

Most visible changes for users are updates to the Bing Maps road map style, they even offer a 9-pages guide to detail what 's new
APB reports that Microsoft will use Gigwalk to enhance Bing Maps search results
Microsoft announced Bing Maps updates to Account Center, REST Services, and Documentation
Another entry enumerate what's new in the Bing AJAX Map Control

In the miscellaneous category:

O'Reilly links to a free shapefile of the TZ timezones of the world
SS mentions the GeoTime software that "displays movement over time in an intuitive manner"
Here's an article on the technical, scientific, historic and political background to the GPS system
On the topic of the future of GPS, V1 shares an entry named the Significance of LightSquared Debate to Europeans and APB shares ESA's reaction to LightSquared potential interference with Galileo
MacRumors have an entry named Apple Pays $946 in Korean Lawsuit Over Location Data Collection, New Class Action Suit Coming
In the funny category, APB mentions (video included) ToyToyota's Backseat Driver GPS iOS game for kids that uses the real-time itinerary of the car

Discussed over Slashdot:

In the maps category:

SS shares an entry named eLEAF Maps the World’s Water for Food Security
Ready for the hurricane season, the UK Met Office launched their Storm Tracker (beta), with free and paid versions, and on the same topic, the GEB offers an entry on tracking hurricanes in Google Earth
V1 mentions Africover WebMap from the UN, offering geodata for Africa
O'Reilly have an entry on cellphone connections in the U.S.

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Fri, 2011/07/29 - 01:44 — Ben

Re: Thursday Geonews: Bing Maps Map Style Updated, London ...

> "British Columbia opened their province-wide open data portal, with plenty of geospatial data in it"

I went to the site and looked for data. Some descriptive data like elevation, imagery, shorelines, road centerlines, building footprints? Didn't find any. Perhaps some abstract data like parcel boundaries, neighborhoods, zoning? None either.

Perhaps i am missing something, but i didn't find any general-purpose geodata there, let alone 'plenty'?

Fri, 2011/07/29 - 08:25 — Alex

Re: BC Open Data

Hi Ben! (happy to see you here again :-)

I don't know what you're looking for, but the BC Data Catalogue lists 2,445 datasets, most of them seem geospatial (I only quickly looked at the list at random). In addition, Spatial Sustain enumerates (see my initial link) several BC geodata applications related to this BC open data initiative.

Taken at random from your list, when I searched 'Parcel', I got 4 results. For 'Shoreline', I got another 4 results, but in that specific case, I would use 1:50,000 CanVec data for shorelines, from the Canadian federal government, not the provincial one. Same for "road centerline", look at the Canadian "National Road Network" (integrated in Canvec too), that's Federal again, not provincial. For building footprints, only the province of Saskatchewan (IIRC) provides it for free, unless that changed since the last time I checked.

Since it has just been launched, I'd say it's an excellent initial offer from the BC Open Data. In all cases, good luck finding the geodata you're looking for Ben!

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