In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

This is important if you consider the immense popularity of Wikipedia, its engine Mediawiki, and the related Wikimedia Foundation projects, including the new Wikidata and Wikivoyage. Here's the blog entry named GeoData: a new age of geotagging on Wikipedia.

From the entry: "Today, we present the GeoData extension for MediaWiki, which now provides a structured way to store geo-coordinates for articles, as well as an API to make queries around this information. [...] Coordinates added to articles are now stored separately in the database, as opposed to being stored arbitrarily in wiki markup. This makes it easy to query the coordinates of a particular page or a list of pages around a given set of coordinates. The Solr search engine is used for spatial queries, making the searches extremely fast. All the functionality is also available via the API, allowing developers to create tools that use this data."

You guessed it, that's the last 'batch geonews' entry for the next two weeks. This edition is much shorter than usual. 

From the open source front:

• The open source virtual globe Marble 1.4 has been released for MS Windows
• On scalability, Troubleshooting large GeoServer deployment

From the Google front:

• Nothing less than 130 smaller U.S. cities now with traffic on Google Maps, along with additions and improvements elsewhere
• Expect cities added to the new Google 3D display mode on a regular basis, this time, fly through Seattle and Denver with new 3D imagery on Google Earth for mobile
• Google Map Maker spreading, add your knowledge to the Poland and Ukraine maps (you know me, I am going to tell you you can also add it to OpenStreetMap ;-)
• Kurt shares two short entries on MSL/Curiosity in Google Mars and Gale Crater - Mars Science Laboratory / Curiosity

In the miscellaneous category:

• A demonstration of how things can be easy nowadays, a DM article named Georeferencing on a Budget: Using iPhone and Freeware Apps to Geotag a Mountain of Image Files

Here's the recent geonews that haven't made it into an individual story in batch mode.

From the open source / open data front:

• While we mentioned it indirectly in the past, we never specifically mentioned the existence of OpenCycleMap.org, based, of course, on OpenStreetMap
• The "open" MapQuest maps now support worldwide pedestrian and bicycle routing along with transit routes
• An article in Scientific American is using OpenStreetMap data to map the local 'food desert'
• The OpenGeo Suite Enterprise Edition 2.4.0 has been released

From the ESRI front:

• ESRI released their ArcGIS API for JavaScript version 2.2
• A third entry on useful ArcGIS Explorer add-ins III

In the everything-else category:

• GeoCurrents offers an informative serie of entries on Libyan maps: Libya’s Tribal Divisions and the Nation-State, Libya’s Geographical Divisions and the Challenge to National Unity, Libya’s Fezzan: A Bulwark of the Gaddafi Regime
  , Gaddafi’s Saharan Farming Schemes and Libyan Agricultural Hexagons. On the same topic, TMR shares an entry on the Libya Crisis Map
• Rememer that GPS positioning in the U.S. is in danger because of LightSquared? APB shares a followup including the mention of the 'Coalition to Save Our GPS'
• Following the earthquake in New Zealand, there's fresh imagery of Christchurch
• Google and Microsoft have teamed together to sue a patent troll who sued 397 companies over a geotagging patent
• Microsoft offers an entry on modular design and client side clustering with Bing Maps V7
• O'Reilly offers an article on location privacy named Privacy law needs a reboot
• A followup on a previous story, Slashdot discusses a student suing the FBI for planting a GPS tracker on his car. On this topic, SpatialLaw offers an entry named Government's Use of Tracking Technology: More Than A Constitutional Issue?
• It seems the FAA now allows iPad as an alternative to aviation charts
• TMR links to a review of Casio's geotagging camera
• APB mentions that Turtles Use Earth’s Magnetic Field to Determine Longitude
• In a perspective entry, SS asks Is it time for an impartial auditing board on spatial data accuracy?

In the maps category:

• TMR shares a map of the index of potential unrest, on this topic, some claims Google Earth as a Factor in Middle East Unrest
• TMR shares a map of internal U.S. migration flows