In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

That's the name of a recent DM article, Everything You Need to Know about Landsat 8. From the article: "It is anticipated that over 400 images per day will be collected, the most ever by any previous Landsat satellite."

From the NASA press release: ""LDCM will be the best Landsat satellite yet launched in terms of the quality and quantity of the data collected by the LDCM sensors," said Jim Irons, LDCM project scientist at Goddard. "OLI and TIRS both employ technological advances that will make the observations more sensitive to the variation across the landscape and to changes in the land surface over time."  OLI will continue observations currently made by Landsat 7 in the visible, near infrared, and shortwave infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It also will take measurements in two new bands, one to observe high altitude cirrus clouds and one to observe water quality in lakes and shallow coastal oceans as well as aerosols. [...] TIRS will collect data on heat emitted from Earth's surface in two thermal bands, as opposed to the single thermal band on previous Landsat satellites. Observations in the thermal bands are vital to monitoring water consumption, especially in the arid western United States."

Here's the NASA Landsat Data Continuity Mission website.

Here's the recent open source geonews.

• Geoff anticipates the next step in the evolution of open source geospatial software will be corporate engagement
• MapBox offers you to learn CartoCSS and compositing by customizing Geography Class and the open source TileMill
• We more about why the need for OpenLayers 3.0 to be developed
• Many of you will probably be interested by the State of GeoServer 2012 and State of GeoTools 2012 presentations, related, GeoTools 8.3 has been released
• Here's some partial results on the ArcGIS vs QGIS etc Clipping Contest Rematch revisited
• Via this upcoming introductory course for accessing it using open source software, I learned about WELD, USGS's Web-Enabled Landsat Data products
• You can open MODIS tiles directly in QGIS
• Here's how to add layers to GeoServer using the REST API
• If you have anything to do with New Zealand, head to this mapping New Zealand summary, which extensively uses open source
• This year, the Sol Katz Award has been attributed to Prof. Venkatesh Raghavan

This is my tentative to catch up the geonews since my mid-August holidays. Here they are!

On the open source / open data front:

• UDig 1.3.2 has been released with several new features and supports Axios spatial editing tools again
• Since 2008 the USGS provides the Landsat archive, but this entry mentions that a substantial part of the Landsat archive is available on the fast and reliable public Google Earth Engine cloud storage

On the Esri front:

• The free plugin ArcGIS for AutoCAD version 300 is now available
• There's now an ArcGIS Runtime for iOS for ArcGIS.com WebMaps

On the Google front:

• Google made a few Google Maps announcements, including voice guided directions in India, Map Maker in New Zealand and new Street View in 150 university campuses
• In another entry, Google offers a roundup of their August Google Maps related news, most news we already shared with our users
• Nothing surprising, new imagery released on September 1

On the Microsoft front:

• Microsoft shares an entry on overlaying Esri shapefiles in BIng Maps
• Microsoft's Global Ortho Project is complete for the United States, meaning there's high resolution 30cm imagery everywhere in the country
• There's a new Bing Get Me There App for iOS for London, UK
• An entry on Bing Maps V7 AJAX Highlights

In the everything else category:

• James shares a must-read short entry named '80% of Data Is Not Spatial So Stop Claiming It Is', read the comments for insights
• Here's a pertinent entry related to a UN paper, Criticism - Future Trends in Geospatial Information Management: The Five to Ten Year Vision
• Here's an update on the OGC standards and the semantic web (aka Linked Data)
• APB informs us that 22 companies formed the In-Location Alliance to Enhance Indoor Positioning
• O'Reilly links to an article on Yelp Checkins to Measure Geopositioning Accuracy Across Phones
• Slashdot discuss the Location Privacy Act Approved By California Legislature
• Other stories at Slashdot, The Rapid Rise of License Plate Readers and UK License Plate Cameras Have "Gaps In Coverage"
• Big numbers, APB indicates that the GIS market will soon reach between 3.7 - 10.6 Billions, depending on who you ask

In the maps category:

• On APoD, there's a pretty interesting map of hurricane and tropical storms paths (screenshot below)
• An interesting map of the Global Decline in Religiosity
• Some London Olympics 2012 maps: The politics of London 2012 Olympic medal counts

Here's the recent Google-related geonews.

From official sources:

• My iPad 2 invited me to update iOS's Google Earth to version 7: "With today’s release of Google Earth for iOS you can literally fly through breathtaking 3D city landscapes and images and follow virtual tours of places you’ve never been [...] The growing list of 3D cities include Boulder, Boston, Charlotte, Lawrence (Kan.), Long Beach (Ca.), Los Angeles, Portland (Ore.), San Diego, Santa Cruz, Tampa, Tucson, and the San Francisco Bay Area (including the Peninsula and East Bay) as well as Rome, Italy. [...] Also new in this release is a “tour guide” to show you interesting places to explore." This topic is discussed at Slashdot in a story named Google Outs 3D Maps For iOS Ahead of Apple.
• Google also announced more detailed maps in parts of Europe, Africa and Asia: "And today, we’re launching updated maps of Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lesotho, Macau, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore and Vatican City to do just that."

• As part of the 40th anniversary  of the Landsat satellite program, Google now includes more Landsat imagery: "We’re working with the USGS and Carnegie Mellon University, to make parts of this enormous collection of imagery available to the public in timelapse videos of the Earth's surface. With them you can travel through time, from 1999-2011, to see the transformation of our planet."
• There's new additional panoramic imagery of historic Antarctic locations
• Google also shared an entry named Maps for good: Google Earth Outreach Developer Grants 2012

From other sources:

• The GEB shares an entry on exploring the 2012 London Olympics in Google Earth
• The same source mentions 'Google Earth Studio', a tool for the media, in an entry on Google Earth's relevance for news
• The GEB also shares an entry on exploring fake deserts of the world in Google Earth

• Slashdot ran a discussion named Ox Bow Lake Formation, As Seen By the Google Earth Time Machine
• Tens of sources mentioned that Marissa Mayer, Google's former vice president of Local, Maps & Location Services was appointed CEO of Yahoo

SS informed us that the USGS reported that the Landsat 5 mission is in jeopardy.

From the USGS: "The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has stopped acquiring images from the 27-year-old Landsat 5 Earth observation satellite due to a rapidly degrading electronic component. Landsat 5 was launched in 1984 and designed to last 3 years. The USGS assumed operation of Landsat 5 in 2001 and managed to bring the aging satellite back from the brink of total failure on several occasions following the malfunction of key subsystems. There is now an increasing likelihood that the Landsat 5 mission is nearing its end. [...] For several months, the Landsat flight operations team has been closely tracking the fluctuating performance of an amplifier essential for transmitting land-surface images from the Landsat 5 satellite to ground receiving stations in the U.S. and around the world.  Over the past 10 days, problems with the amplifier have led to drastically reduced image download capabilities, a sign of impending failure. [...] Landsat 8, currently called the Landsat Data Continuity Mission, is now scheduled to be launched in January 2013."

We obviously mentioned Landsat 5 often in the past, including in 2005, 2007 and 2009 when it suffered technical problems, but each time, was able to resume satellite imagery acquisition. This time, it's probable it's really the end of Landsat 5. Here's the Landsat 5 Wikipedia article.

That's probably our biggest "geonews in batch mode" issue ever. That's the price I have to pay for three weeks of holidays! ;-) I tried to keep only the most pertinent geonews. After reading this unusually long entry, you and I are back to being up to date in terms of geonews.

On the Google front:

• Here's a Google Earth mashup of Fukushima and Chernobyl meltdowns side-by-side
• Google added a Regional Expert Reviewer Program to Google Map Maker
• The tool Shaderlight to create awesome SketchUp models is now at version 2
• Google purchased Zagat Survey, a firm offering local ratings of restaurants and much more  
• And there's new imagery in Google Earth released on September 7

On the ESRI front:

• ArcGIS 10.0 SP3 is coming next month
• Spatially Adjusted has an entry seemingly confirming You Can’t Edit Spatial RDBMS with ArcGIS for Desktop without SDS
• V1 reviews the Esri Map Book, volume 26

On the open source front:

• Via no solo I read this informative QGIS and gvSIG comparison, useful to understand the differences between what are probably the two most mature open source desktop GIS packages available
• The FOSS4G 2012 conference will take place in Beijing, China
• We did mention them before, but only indirectly - here's osmdroid, OpenStreetMap tools for Android (maybe that's what missing for iOS?)
• In case you don't read our geospatial press releases, the OSGeo-Live 5.0 DVD has been released
• If you're interested in Brazilian topography, see this entry on TOPODATA's version of SRTM-DEM for Brazil

In GPS news:

• North Korea forced a US reconnaissance plane to land by jamming GPS signals
• Via Spatial Law, Bangladesh Mandates Use of GPS in Vehicles

In Apple news:

• Autodesk released the 'Lite' version of AutoCAD for MacOS X, in addition to the full version available since a year
• For their iOS devices, Apple is exploring enhancing maps with augmented reality
• APB mentioend Apple's patent application on crowdsourcing data for local searches
• The class-action lawsuit against Apple in South Korea over location data collection has started 

In Microsoft news:

• Streetside is now available for parts of London
• Microsoft shares an entry on the Bing Maps v7 Module CodePlex Project
• Even if Virtual Earth 3D is discontinued, Microsoft posted details to enable you to use it longer
• Microsoft released the Bing Maps 'Windows Presentation Foundation' (WPF) Control
• Here's an entry on the Wall Street Journal using Bing Maps in their hurricane tracking tool

In transportation news:

• SignalGuru system that change your route to avoid red lights
• Regarding tracking and privacy, the NYC mayor wants traffic cameras at every corner

In remote sensing news:

• A critical milestone has been reached for Landsat's LCDM mission in 2012, aka "Landsat 8"
• Both NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X remote sensing satellites have been launched successfully
• The ERS-2 mission is completed, its last image has been taken
• Can you believe that over 700 government satellites will launch in the next 10 years? Obviously not all for remote sensing purposes
• The bankrupted RapidEye has been purchased

In the miscellaneous category:

• It seems UniStrong has 40% of GIS marketshare in China
• V1 shares a perspective named Where Did All the Talk About Spatial Data Quality Go?
• The data provider Infochimps have a new GEO API
• Slashdot discusses a story named Judge Nixes Warrantless Cell Phone Location Data
• Of course I'm a bit too late, but here's a recap of mapping and mobile data for Hurricane Irene
• Here's an entry named Everything you wanted to know about UK Coordinate Systems
• It's confirmed, Kansas is flatter than a pancake
• Do we need another map building website? There's the new Build-A-Map site in Beta
• APB mentions 'Location Aware', a free location-aware task management app for Android

In the maps category:

• O'Reilly shared a map of U.S. job losses
• Here's the U.S. National Parks as seen from space
• Tthe USGS launched their Historical Topo Map Collection

Here's the Friday geonews in batch mode, exceptionally covering the last two weeks. We're now up to date regarding geospatial news!

From the open source front:

• You can influence what the OSGeo priorities should be with this quick survey, here's funding ideas partial results
• Here's an entry on Sextant, a geoportal solution from IFREMER
• In a maintenance release, GeoTools 2.7.1 is now available

From the Google front:

• Google Transit is now available in Washington DC
• Google shared an entry named Make beautiful interactive maps even faster with new additions to the Fusion Tables API
• Google Places now supports in-business 360-degree perspectives, in another entry, the new Google Places API is described
• The GEB compares Nokia's new Ovi Maps 3D vs Google Earth
• The GEB discusses using Google Earth to confront government lies about damaged rainforest in Sarawak

From the ESRI front:

• Andrew Zolnai has en entry on ESRI's Change Matters website to compare satellite imagery, and that's possible thanks to Landsat imagery dating back to 1972 now available through ArcGIS Online

From the  Microsoft front:

• While we mentioned it before, Kurt too is, as I am, enthusiastic about Microsoft's free Photosynth iPhone / iPad 2 app
• There's a New Bing Maps iOS SDK
• Microsoft invites you to See AJAX 7.0 in action with the new interactive SDK

In the miscellaneous category:

• The MapQuest for Android Navigation App got updated and improves GPS capabilities
• Slashdot discusses using credit card transaction locations to determine CO2 footprints
• Spatial Law mentions a California Bill that would regulate 'Precise Geolocation Information'
• Vector One argues on Why Now is a Good Time to Invest in Geospatial Technology Stocks, and here's entries specifically on Trimble and DigitalGlobe stocks
• SS informs us Moscow Upholds Limits on the Resolution of Satellite Imagery

In the maps category:

• TMR links to an excellent series of 12 static maps of the 2011 Canadian federal election results 
• Mapperz mentioned WeatherSpark Beta, a Google Maps mashup to visualize historical weather patterns
• The FGT blog mentions Free Marine Chart Views, Plus An Online Waypoint/Route Editor With GPS Export
• Here's a New York Times's Natural Disaster Map for the U.S.