In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

A lot of interesting geonews in this 'batch mode' edition.

On the Google front:

• Unsurprisingly, you can track Santa Claus again this year in Google Earth, thanks to NORAD
• As SA points out, Garmin went back to Google Maps in addition to Bing, due to popular demand 
• Google Maps improved its handling of the display of multiple stores in a shopping mall or doctors in hospital  
• Here's the official entry on last week's imagery update

On the Esri front:

• Esri is phasing out their Certified Trainer Program

In the miscellaneous category:

• In this press release, it was the first time I heard about MapInfo Stratus, a web based mapping application, related, PBBI also recently launched Geosk, their data as a service platform
• The GEB mentions access to seamless topographic USGS maps
• This O'Reilly entry details the GreenGoose stickers that are used as sensors
• LAS, the Lidar exchange format, has been updated to version 1.4
• Via O'Reilly, here's a new data structure for spatial search, named VP Tree, "Vantage Point Trees"
• Mapperz mentions qrd.by, a Geottager for QR Codes
• APB mentions the size of the Chinese GIS market
• Slashdot is discussing a 3D display we can touch, using cold fog and lasers
• DM shares an article named What are the Latest Developments in the Mobile LBS Market in Europe?
• James Fee reviews the Wacom Inkling digitizer for GIS work
• These five disruptions from Autodesk's CTO are interesting
• Here's a perspective from SS named Is it inevitable for BIM and GIS to force different pathways?

In the maps category:

• APB links to the new Wikileaks Spyfiles interactive map
• SS shares an entry named Himalayan Glacier Reductions Mapped
• Here's every death on every road in Great Britain 1999-2010 mapped

And as a bonus for reading this, see this wonderful time-lapse movie from the International Space Station around the world in 90 minutes

Here's recent geonews in batch mode. I will be away the reminder of the week, so expect less stories, but we'll take care of your submitted content.

From the Google front:

• Here's Google Maps JavaScript API: A Year in Retrospect
• A third official entry, this time on how to Monetize your Maps API v3 application with AdSense for Maps
• The GEB mentions a collection of hearts in Google Earth
• There was new imagery published to Google Earth last Friday
• The GEB explains the 6 markers in Building Maker
• Here's an entry on planning new roads with Google Earth

From the ESRI front:

• Two entries on the File Geodatabase API: Esri releases the File Geodatabase API Beta 2 and the File Geodatabase API is now available on Linux
• The ArcGIS API for Android Public Beta is now available
• Here's a review of a new Estri book named GIS Tutorial for Humanitarian Assistance, by Firoz Verjee

From the open source / open data front:

• There's new 3D OpenGL-based OpenStreetMap rendering, for more on 3D OSM, head to the wiki
• Here's an entry on Harvard's WorldMap, an open source tool to support academic collaboration. Expect more news once the tool become Beta next month
• Here's an entry on cross layer filtering directly in GeoServer
• An entry on web based printing with QGIS server and a nice comparison of MapInfo to QGIS Styling

From the Microsoft front:

• Certainly major news in the smartphone arena, Nokia and Microsoft signed an important alliance, APB summarizes the tidbits related to their location and mapping business
• Microsoft also shared an entry named Next Gen Spatial Search Comes to the Bing API

In the miscellaneous category:

• MapQuest Introduces Walking and Transit Directions
• Here's O'Reilly on IssueMap.org, a U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tool to convert "open data into information that people can distill into knowledge and insight."
• TMR provide links related to Canon and Pentax cameras with GPS and another entry on the Casio Exilim EX-H20G Geotagging Camera
• SS shares a short entry named The Cloud Gains Favor as GIS Storage Solution
• Wikileaks informs us that the U.S. and Australia signed a secret geospatial intelligence deal in 2008

In the maps category:

• Via the OSGeo mailing list, here's a map of U.S. copyright treaties
• Here's a new approach to mapping the digital divide
• Here's a new map of global obesity
• The U.S. Census Bureau launched an interactive map

 Here's Friday geonews in batch mode. Exceptionally, the last two weeks are covered.

From the Google front:

• Google now offers 'Follow Your World', an alert system to let you know when new imagery is available for your area of interest
• The official entry on this week's imagery update
• Google discontinues the real estate feature in Google Maps
• The California Bay Area is now in 3D and the GEB discusses the nice 3D models of Belgrade

From the open source / open data front:

• MapQuest is providing an update on their increasing use of OpenStreetMap data, 8 new countries is now using OSM data, MapQuest also continues to financially support OpenStreetMap. There's even a new MapQuest Directions API based on OSM.
• It seems SPRING GIS is now open source software (GPL) [post in Spanish]
• Fortius One announced their new tool called Acetate, "a brand-new custom styled map that is designed for visualizing data and reintroduces the idea of a multi-layered basemap". Here's their technical introduction to Acetate, and the software they've used is open source.
• The city of Paris now offers open data and Finland's Land Survey opened its data too
• Ushahidi will be using the open source GeoDict free form geocoder. GeoDict is described as "a simple Python library/tool for pulling location information from unstructured text"

From the ESRI front:

• The Geodatabase Toolset for ArcCatalog 10 is now available

From the Microsoft front:

• Microsoft released a new Bing Maps Drupal module

In the miscellaneous category:

• Here's an entry named playing with the HTML5 Geolocation API
• O'Reilly offers an article named Social data and geospatial mapping join the crisis response toolset, another one on Urban Mapping's Mapfluence and two articles on health and location: New geolocation app connects citizen first responders to heart attack victims and Healthier living through mobile location data
• Via TMR, MacWorld offers an article named Apps with Maps: 11 iPhone GPS apps compared
• The FGT blog mentions iCMTGIS, a free field GIS data acquisition tool for the iPad
• ESA's budget rises to $4 billion, with 14 nations boosting contributions. And the GALILEO program is on track. And guess what, a Wikileaks cable forced a GALILEO head to step down.
• TMR also mentions U.S. Defense Department testing may affect GPS signals in Southeastern U.S. until Feruary 22nd
• TMR also note that the book "Map Projections: A Working Manual" published in 1987 by John P. Snyder is now available online.
• NAVTEQ is still selling more and more data

In the maps category:

• Here's a discussion on a map of worldwide suicide statistics, let's hope you don't live in Mari El
• Here's a map of scientific collaboration

This is more of an "end of year" geonews in batch mode! Everything pertinent found in the last two weeks that we haven't shared yet. I wish you an excellent holiday break. We'll be back in January. You can still send in your contributions.

From the Google front:

• A summary entry on everything Google Maps/Earth and Santa Claus and another one on holiday trees in 3D
• More details on Google Maps 5.0 for Android
• Paris gets major 3D enhancements in Google Earth
• Google Kills (beta) Location Alerts Feature in Latitude
• Google now offers a 3D Body Browser
• There also was an imagery update in the middle of the month

From the ESRI front:

• ESRI Confirms 400 million user-genenerated maps on ArcGIS.com in October

From the open data / open source front:

• Via the geodata list, I learned about the 2010 U.S. Census TIGER/Line Shapefiles starting to become available, and it's also available from WeoGeo
• OpenLayers gets a new Bing Tiles layer
• Natural Earth map data in the public domain
• An entry on Geocoding Github: Visualizing Distributed Open-Source Development
• An O'Reilly article on Ushahidi enabling crowdsourced journalism and intelligence
• rgeo, a new geo library for Rails
• Here's a new project named GeoApt Spatial Data Browser
• The OpenGeo Suite Community Edition 2.3.2 released
• An entry on QGIS 1.7's vector rule editor and polygon line styles

From the Microsoft front:

• Bing Maps REST Services now supports transit routes

In the miscellaneous category:

• SS informs us Russia Launched a Geospatial Data and Earth Imagery Portal
• V1 offers their geospatial top 10 of 2010, DM also have their own geospatial top 10
• Here's a new augmented reality app that translate text that you see
• Still in the AR topic, an entry on how Kinect democratizes augmented reality
• Two Slashdot entries on 3D printing: MakerBot Thing-o-Matic 3D Printer Assembly and Cheap 3D Fab Could Start an Innovation Renaissance
• Still on the 3D topic, Researchers Develop Genuine 3D Camera
• TanDEM-X is now operational

In the maps category:

• Here's visualization of Wikileaks mirrors around the world
• A colleague sent me a link to the BBC Facebook connections map the world
• An Interactive Map of Diabetes in the U.S.
• Don't we all dream, here's an Atlas of Remote Islands

And the almost-off-topic link of the week, an amazing 4-minutes animation of the last 200 years of global history

A series of recent Google-related geonews in batch mode. Nothing major (that's subjective ;-), but still interesting news.

From the official blogs:

• An entry on changes to historical imagery in Google Earth 6
• StreetView is now available in Romania
• An entry named Hurricane Visualization using KML
• For developers, Samsung Bada and BlackBerry 6 platforms now supported by the Maps API v3
• You can now also animate markers in the Maps API v3
• There's a Google Earth tour for the cricket season that just begun

From other sources:

• Ogle Earth reports that Wikileaks informed us that in 2006, China asked US to get Google Earth censored
• Yesterday, new imagery in Google Earth has been released
• Via O'Reilly, a long and interesting entry on Google Maps & Label Readability
• The GEB is sharing surprisingly nice 3D models in Google Earth

I wasn't available to share the recent geonews in batch mode last Friday, so there you go!

On the Google front:

• Google Places is now more widely available in Asia
• New in Google Maps for Android: Latitude real-time updating and more
• Via APB, there's a 'big buttons' version of the Google Maps UI that is being tested

On the Microsoft front:

• Bing Maps' latest map app is OnTerra’s “RouteSavvy” Route Optimizer, allowing you to find the best route for multiple destinations (think solving the travelling salesman problem)
• IDV's Visual Fusion 5.0 has been released, it integrates with Microsoft tools such as Bing Maps and Sharepoint

On the open source / data front:

• Here's an important entry if you use ExtJS or GeoExt, it's about the licensing limitations of GeoExt depending on your use case
• Here's a blog entry on how do OpenStreetMap and open government geodata fit together
• There's WMS cascading in the latest GeoServer
• Here's an interesting entry named Latest on JPEG2000 Improved Support for the Java world

On the ESRI front:

• An entry named Esri Forestry Group Aims to Create Open Templates and Tools
• Here's two entries from V1 on ESRI's Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) conference, one named “All Roads Lead to Rome” and a second one named Thought – Is ESRI Building a Search Engine?

In the miscellaneous category:

• Here's an entry on a disagreement of the value of REST for geodata processing and the OGC
• We mentioned China's MapWorld recently, here's more info and a note that it uses DigitalGlobe imagery
• Here's a free set of online calculators for geographic coordinates and distances
• It seems that Vans can Drive Themselves Across the World and another geo-related discussion over Slashdot: Forming New Mobile Networks With People-Borne Sensors
• Here's news from LizardTech: Next Generation MrSID Technology Offers Enhanced Compression Technology for Hyperspectral Data
• I liked this short tidbit letting us know that a "trial in New South Wales revealed that a GPS device that beeped when drivers were over the local speed limit (access from a database, not input by drivers as other devices require) caused 89% of drivers to slow down."
• Also from APB: MapQuest Visits Down 22% over Last Year
• And if you like editwars, "Neogeography" has been deleted from Wikipedia
• And ending up the serie from APB, updating a NAVTEQ in-dash GPS can cost you more than the value of a new handheld GPS device
• Why not, Australian Researchers Design Software to Help Robots Read Maps

In the maps category:

• The Wikileaks Iraq War Logs Mapped
• Here's an interesting entry named The Surprising Geography of International Tourism
• Here's a review of the new National Geographic Atlas
• Here's about the Berlin Solar Atlas project
• The One Europe One Geology book is now online