In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode.

On the open source and open data front:

• This entry introduces iD, a new open source friendly editor for OpenStreetMap, which uses only javascript (no plugin required like Potlatch)
• If you want to try a full-featured OpenStreetMap maps display, try this version by skobbler

• Here's what's coming to the next QGIS: Better date and time support in QGIS expressions and styles
• Here's an entry on MapGuide Open Source scalability
• In Canada, the Province of Quebec now has its open data portal, a lot of it being geospatial [site in French]

On the Esri front:

• Big news, GeoIQ, which runs GeoCommons, has been acquired by Esri, several bloggers see this move as a reduction of competition, from GeoIQ: "GeoCommons and GeoIQ customers will continue to be supported as we integrate the capabilities of ArcGIS Online and GeoIQ into a next generation platform."
• The ArcGIS 10 Service Pack 5 is now available

In the drones category:

• UAS can stay in the air for a long period of time now, Slashdot discussed a story named Laser Powers Lockheed Martin's Stalker Drone For 48 Hours
• However, another story goes like this; GPS Spoofing Attack Hacks Drones

In the car navigation category:

• Slashdot discussed a story named Ford Predicts Self-Driving, Traffic-Reducing Cars By 2017
• And another one named Boston Using IBM Engineers To Solve Traffic Problems

In the everything else category:

• Certainly using the momentum against Google that is limiting the free use of their Google Maps API, MapQuest shared an entry named Unlimited Free Maps with MapQuest API Community Edition, and whle they do use OpenStreetMap data, MapQuest selected TomTom Maps to power its mobile application
• Direction Mag offers an Overview of Pitney Bowes Software’s Server and Web Technology for Geospatial Applications
• Slashdot discussed a story named MIT Develops Holographic, Glasses-Free 3D TV
• Still want more on Google's Project Glass before it hits the road? Sergey Brin Shows Project Glass Glasses to Journalists (Video)
• APB shares an entry named Algorithm Uses Your and Friends Locations to Predict Your Future Location (within 20 meters!)
• James shares an short entry named Autodesk on the Future of Design
• APB links to the top world cities to live in, based on the Spatially Adjusted Livability Index

In the maps category:

• Ogle Earth has detailed entries named Apple censors iPad Maps app over South Korea and Constraining online maps: The case of South Korea
• It's hot over there? Here's a map of continental US climate changes, 1895-2012
• Two related entries, Renewable Electricity Production Mapped and Mapping Renewable Electricity Generation
• Here's Misleading Language Maps on the Internet and from the same source, Mapping International Languages

• Here's a map of Global Earthquakes since 1898

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode.

On the open source front:

• Thanks to reverse engineering, GDAL/OGR can now use the Shapefile native .sbn spatial index, to understand the context: "The Shapefile format had been documented since 1998, but the documentation was limited to the minimum core, that is to say the .shp file that contains the geometries and the .shx that is an index to the geometries. However the format of the .sbn file, that was known to contain spatial index (aimed at speeding up spatial filters), has never been published."
• Another entry on the visions for OpenLayers 3
• Here's an entry on QGIS Cloud, a hosting service for QGIS Server and still on the QGIS topic, Styling temporal (time) data in QGIS

On the Esri front:

• APB shares their thoughts on Just What is ArcGIS Online for Organizations?: "It’s a cloud hosted platform for a GIS intranet for an organization."

On the web mapping front:

• Microsoft added thousands of international shopping malls to Bing Maps
• Styles Maps in the Google Maps API just got improved

In the miscellaneous category:

• APB shares a interesting new App called Mapfia that "lets users make free "map calls" to see each other's real time location"
• Even geospatial files are prone to virus, AutoCAD Worm Medre.A Stealing Designs, Blueprints
• On a more positive note for Autodesk, James mentions Project Artoo "that allows AutoCAD Map 3D users to perform geometry cleanup operations on geospatial data"
• Also from Slashdot, here's what can happen when you map someone else's data, PadMapper Gets C&D From Craigslist Over Apartment Listing Maps
• Via OGD, with Map Compare, you can now compare side-by-side 35 basemaps from OpenStreetMap versions to Google Maps versions and Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple and more

In the maps category:

• That's an interesting and probably sad map in an entry named The Great Indoors, or Childhood's End?, showing how much less we allow our children to go away from the house over the last decades
• The annual map of the Tour de France in Google Earth

• Here's an entry on the On-Going Japan Sea/East Sea Naming Controversy

From my blog: "As I'm off for two weeks you get next week's posting today! Following last week's blogpost on Esri's beautiful ocean base map, I painted over it (to use their simile) Goddard Earth Sciences' stunning near-real-time global sensor data for:

• false colour imagery and dust cover for the last week
• carbon monoxide and SO2 measure up- and down-current for the last three days

At the Icelandic volcanic eruption last year, posted these on giscloud.com and desktop ArcGIS Explorer. I noted then that ArcGIS Explorer Online didn't consume web mapping services (WMS) - it is still so, even though arcgis.com is supposed to consume OGC WMS that NASA used, stay tuned on Esri's response to my support call - so I layer-packaged it and posted it on arcgis.com."

East Anglian economic geography from 1087 to the present was posted on sharegeo.ac.uk and on giscloud.com; it is now on arcgis.com to further explore it over time. The study of economics and land cover are pushed back as far as possible: early 19th c. for surficial geology, 14th c. for measuring wealth via tax assessment, and 11th. c. for the same via plough shares! How come? Parishes are a persistent geographic unit that allow mash-ups over almost a millenium...  Not only that, but changes in land cover mapped over the last 150 years are detailed by satellite imagery change detection in the past generation. 

Some Google-related geonews for the last two days:

• Google SketchUp 8 has been released: Major new features for modeling in geospatial context and for creating new 3D building models for Google Earth. [...] new “Solid” tools in SketchUp Pro for common additive/subtractive modeling operations [...] additional features in LayOut for documenting models professionally.
• Google added business logos to Google Maps.
• The FGT blog offers an informative 2-parts article on Android and the future of consumer GPS. An excerpt: "Android has the capability to turn GPS into a commodity market, meaning less control and more competition, leading to lower prices. And this is an environment that the old-school GPS vendors may have trouble with." FGT also decided to launch a new blog named AndroGeoid.
• Google's Ed Parsons wonder if 'When' is the next big thing after the 'Where'.
• Here's an entry named Mapping with Google Fusion Tables .
• The GEB has an entry on 3D sound with the Google Earth plug-in.