Eddie sent me this information on a webinar for September 26th on Serving Public Health through Open Health Mapping Services.

The invitation: "In this, the fourth GovFuture webinar presented by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and Directions Media, we look at how improved sharing of geospatial information plays an important role in improving public health.

Our featured presenter is Eddie Oldfield, BA, Director, NB Climate Change Hub at the New Brunswick Lung Association. He will describe his work in coordinating implementation of geospatial interoperability standards to exchange, integrate, and visualize distributed health and environmental information. Applications he has studied have addressed chronic illness, public health resources, critical infrastructure, pollution, meteorological information, and pandemic surveillance and control.

Eddie Oldfield's current work involves helping to create a national portal [or web map services] to bring together climate and health resources for decision-makers in public health, municipal emergency management, and local climate adaptation. The portal would aid in expanding public health heat alert and response, community resilience / disaster risk reduction, and modeling of historical and forecast impacts from climate on public health. The portal could enable decision-makers to use diverse data sources through services that implement the OGC Web Map Service (WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS), and Web Processing Service (WPS) standards.

OGC and Directions Media invite you to join us in this webinar. GovFuture's quarterly webinars are designed to help people working in local and subnational (county, province, district etc.) governments worldwide make the best possible use of their ever-expanding location and geospatial information resources."

The pycsw team announces the release of pycsw 1.2.0.
The 1.2.0 release brings numerous features and enhancements to the codebase, including:
  * OpenSearch support
  * SRU support
  * OGC WMS support
  * JSON output
  * MySQL support
  * ogc:Function support
  * testing framework
  * unified administration utility
  * abstracted core model, allowing for mapping to existing databases
  * configurable GetDomain requests (list or range)
  * geometry transformations to handle multiple coordinate reference systems
  * enhanced csw:ResponseHandler support (email, FTP) for asynchronous processing
  * support links in metadata model
  * PYCSW_CONFIG environment variable support
The full list of enhancements and bug fixes is available
pycsw is an OGC CSW server implementation written in Python.  pycsw implements clause 10 (HTTP protocol binding (Catalogue Services for
the Web, CSW)) of the OpenGIS Catalogue Service Implementation Specification, version 2.0.2.
pycsw allows for the publishing and discovery of geospatial metadata.  Existing repositories of geospatial metadata can be exposed via  OGC:CSW
2.0.2.  pycsw is Open Source, released under an MIT license, and runs on all major platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X).
Source and binary downloads:
----------------------------------------

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode. My challenge in life is to find out what not to do - too much enthusiasm impacts focus. But don't worry, I'm not dropping Slashgeo just yet ;-)

From the open source and open data front:

• Here's an open source Kinect hack named Depthcam, doing live streaming of 3D points cloud via your webcam
• Via Simon, I was reminded about Graphserver, an open source multi-modal trip planner (we mentioned Graphserver), on the same topic, here's OSM Explorer, for basic routing and spatial functions using OSM data on Windows (via OGD)
• MapQuest updated their OpenStreetMap tiles and mentions more OSM switchovers, such as FourSquare and in another entry, they updated MapQuest for Android
• Here's an entry on light styles for OSM layers in QGIS, making OSM great as a base map
• Quebec City is the latest city to open its data, with layers in shapefiles and kml, and here's an entry on Honolulu opening its data
• The OSGeo-Live DVD version 5.5 is now ready

From the Google front:

• Street View on Google Maps now available for Russia
• The GEB introduces Diorama, a presentation tool for Google Earth, helping you tell a story in Google Earth
• The same blog also look a the Power of Ten, the Google Earth version
• Google explains the enhanced search in Google Earth 6.2
• Here's an entry on the iNaturalist app and website using georeferenced pictures to document nature
• The GEB wonders if historical imagery is coming to Street View?
• And yes, there was fresh imagery released about two weeks ago and another round today

From the Esri front:

• Here's why ArcGIS 10.1 will be the “Biggest Release Ever”
• Here's Esri’s Federal GIS Conference Wrap Up
• Here's the recommended System Requirements For ArcGIS 10/10.1
• Mandown also shares an entry named Using ArcGIS For Quick Visualisation Of GPX Files

From the Microsoft front:

• Microsoft announced the Bing Maps and Nokia Release of a Unified Map Design

In the miscellaneous category:

• DM asks an interesting question, Should All GIS Users Learn to Code?
• While not all are geo-aware, this is an awesome categorized list of infographic tools and resources, because beauty matters when conveying information (via Thierry)
• The book "How Maps Change Things: A Conversation About the Maps We Choose and the World We Want" by Ward Kaiser is free in pdf for this month
• We previously mentioned that the world time zones database was in jeopardy, well, it's not anymore, EFF Wins Protection For Time Zone Database
• Here's an entry on OGC mobile case studies
• Here's a Product Review of BusinessWebMap by TexMobile
• Slashdot mentions the link between GPS navigation and in-car voice commands in Siri To Power Mercedes-Benz Car Systems
• APB informs us that DigitalGlobe published an image of damage to Homs, Syria

In the maps category:

• APB shares the map of sleep in the U.S.
• Slashdot discussed a story named LIDAR Map Shows Height of Earth's Forests
• Another story from the same source is named Need To Find a Hackerspace In Africa? Check This Map
• If your into astronomy, check this TMR entry on Moon maps
• Mapperz mentions Bristol's solar power hotspots map

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode.

From the open source and open data front:

• BrainOff shares a few examples of capabilities offered only by OpenStreetMap because of its open nature
• V1 mentions ReadyMap, using OpenLayers to render 3D models directly in the browser
• Here's a way to enhance raster contrast with gdal_lightner, with may makes its way as a QGIS Plugin
• Sean made me aware of pygp, a python geoprocessing package
• Here's a short but interesting article named  The GeoWeb, Citizen Science and Open Data
• Harvard's WorldMap reached version 1.0 and they're looking for participants, we mentioned WorldMap in the past

In the everything-else category:

• MapQuest Releases Native Mobile Mapping APIs for Android and Apple iOS, and yes, you can use OpenStreetMap data with it
• And there's now live traffic cameras in MapQuest too
• SS shares a nicely done 2-minutes video of the OGC on the value of geospatial and standards
• DM shares more information on Pitney Bowes's Geosk geodata platform, we mentioned Geosk last december. From the article: "Geosk is a platform for finding and using geospatial data. It combines a data as a service (DaaS) offering with a data management product. At its heart, Geosk is a completely scalable data management system that allows our customers to share their data with any user they choose, including their customers. Around this data management system we wrap an e-commerce engine to help our customers buy and sell premium geospatial data."
• Slashdot discussed Canada's Massive Public Traffic Surveillance System, which involves license plate reading, a topic covered a few times already
• DM offers an article on socio-demographic structures in Germany
• SS informs us a 3D model of Bangkok is now publicly available
• SS also informs us of Ericsson's Geo Location Messaging API, I wonder how it relates to GeoSMS
• In two entries, V1 explore to potential synergies between music interfaces and controllers and geospatial

In the maps category:

• O'Reilly shares a map of Mexico's drug war
• WunderMap now has historical weather maps for you
• Here's a map of the U.S. showing terrain by using only the roads
• SS shares an entry named Energy Use Data for all of New York City Released in Map Form

​This batch mode edition is unusually long. It covers the past month and a bit more. Yes, that's way too much and I won't try to repeat the experience ;-) Here's what I considered pertinent enough to share with you. Exceptionally, in some cases I haven't gave attribution to the source of the news, thank you for your comprehension.

On the geospatial open source front:

• I just recently became aware of PostGISonline, a site for testing and learning spatial SQL
• You can now create and manipulate SLD (the OGC Styled Layer Descriptor standard) in Python with python-sld
• Via the AGISRS list, I learned about OpenQuake, for calculating seismic hazard and risk at any scale, which of course ingest geospatial data and outputs maps
• Here's WherePost.ca, which crowdsources the location of mailboxes and post offices for Canada
• Here's the Switch2OSM website promoting OpenStreetMap, OpenStreetMap might go indoor too
• Still on the OSM topic, V1 shares an entry on the use of OpenStreetMap data in agriculture
• Here's an entry on the future of GeoCouch and CouchDB
• GeoServer gets database-level security
• There's now a plugin to run Python scripts in QGIS
• Here's about improvements to the QGIS rule-based rendering
• On a similar topic, here's a guide to beautiful reliefs in QGIS
• Did you know you can add Google Maps, OSM, and Bing Maps directly in QGIS? You can via the OpenLayers plugin - hey, there's even a Profile plugin
• There's an updated book published by Gary Sherman, now named The Geospatial Desktop , subtitled Open source GIS and mapping
• GEOS 3.3.2 has been released

On the Esri front:

• Mandown shares how to convert GPX files to Features using ArcGIS 10
• From the same source, Learn The Basics Of Working With The ArcGIS Runtime SDK For Android
• There were updates to ArcGIS for SharePoint, ArcGIS Mobile and to the ArcGIS API for Windows Phone
• James and SS talks about ArcGIS Online as the Esri Content Management System

On the Microsoft front:

• Microsoft announced a few new Bing Maps features, such as traffic incidents and find near route
• They announced the Bing Maps Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Control v1
• There's new Bing Maps V7 modules too along with a new routing engine
• James Fee shares an interesting entry named Bing Maps gets Nokia Brand and Possibly the Boot

On the remote sensing front:

• This is pretty interesting to many: SS shares an entry named USGS Now Offers OrbView-3 High-Resolution Images for Free, 180,000 scenes at 1m spatial resolution available
• China launched their first high-resolution remote sensing satellite, Ziyuan I-02C
• Slashdot discussed the newly released version of Blue Marble high definition (and beautiful) satellite image of the Earth from the Suomi NPP satellite
• Slashdot is running a story named Who's Flying Those Drones? FAA Won't Say and related, O'Reilly mentions OpenPilot, open source UAV with cameras
• And another named Launch Your Own Nanosatellite Into Space

On the GNSS / GPS front:

• It's coming, car makers are preparing for augmented reality driving
• Not exactly GPS but via radio-tagging, see the nice and short video of whale 3D paths in the ocean
• Slashdot is also discussing a story named New Mexico Is Stretching, GPS Reveals
• MapQuest launched an html5 app-like site for Android and iPhone for using MapQuest

In the miscellaneous category:

• The 7 geo predictions for of Cédric are interesting 
• Microsoft's Flight Simulator, renamed Flight, will be available for free next Spring, with paid extra content
• We never mentioned it before, but now Indiemapper is free, it "helps you make static, thematic maps from geographic data by bringing the best of traditional cartographic design to internet map-making."
• SS mentions the new alliance between Autodesk and Pitney Bowes, APB also discuss this new relationship
• SS also shares an entry named Safe Software’s Expanded Role as a Conduit Between Sensors and Systems
• The U.S. EPA in their Locations Challenge introduced a crowdsourcing project of georeferenced photos of environmental problems
• Slashdot ran a discussion on assembling your own 3D printer
• The OGC shared a summary of the Eye on Earth Summit held in December
• Another OGC entry was named Status of the OGC's Water Resource Activities
• DM shares an article named GIS Adoption and Use on College Campuses: An End-of-Year Review and Look Ahead to
• The GEB mentions a new 3D San Francisco website
• I found interesting the possibility of a .data TLD
• A new free iPad app: GeoViewer from LizardTech, supports MrSID format and more
• It's been a while since we mentioned them, GISCorps were recently in 7 countries, including Libya

In the maps category:

• APB summarizes this: Comparing Maps of Obesity and Car Travel
• Here's an entry on cleanly using symbols on maps
• Here's U.S. routes as a subway map and the U.S. National Wind Energy Map
• Fox News shared a map with missing or wrongly placed countries
• TMR shares an obligatory animated map of rising global temperatures since 1880

Here's the latest geonews in batch mode. But first, as a media partner of the Geomatique event, if you participated to the conference, we invite you to fill this survey and get a chance to win an iPad 2.

On the Google front:

• The GEB introduces the free Maxwell Render Suite to make your SketchUp models more realistic, the screenshots are impressive 
• You can now Share biking and walking directions with Custom Maps
• We told you before that Street View is available inside businesses now, and here's a Slashdot discussion about it
• The Google Model Your Town Competition has begun
• Google requests feedback for their map news channels, if you fill that survey, you can tell them you're reading Slashgeo ;-)
• And there was new imagery released yesterday for Google Maps and Earth

On the Microsoft front:

• Microsoft announced several updates and new features in the Bing Maps REST web services and the Bing Spatial Data Service
• In another entry, Microsoft informs us that the improved map sharing and Bing Maps route modifications

On the Esri front:

• Mandown mentions that the ArcGIS API for iOS 2.1 is now available

On the open source front that wasn't mentioned yesterday:

• Via O'Reilly, I learned about an jQuery open source Country Selector that has autocomplete
• I also forgot to share this DM article named Experiences Teaching Free and Open Source GIS at the Community College Level

In the miscellaneous category:

• APB reports that Yahoo Maps is now powered by Nokia
• The U.S. Geoplatform launched based on Esri's Portal for ArcGIS, here's the direct link
• V1 has an interesting perspective named What Do You Think GIS in the Cloud Will Be Like? and on the same topic, DM shares an informative article named Is Geospatial Cloud Computing a Commodity?
• SS mentions a iOnRoad, free Android app that includes colision avoidance
• MapQuest Vibe is now available for the iPhone
• O'Reilly tells us about Dark Sky's app Kickstater project for "hyperlocal hyper-realtime" weather prediction, with similarities to NowCasting
• If you're into podcasts, VerySpatial mentions another geospatial-related podcast now in English, Geografree
• APB informs us of a OGC survey of the business value of geospatial standards
• V1 lists what he thinks are the Hottest Jobs In The Geospatial Sector Today
• APB has excellent coverage of the SimpleGeo acquisition by Urban Airship
• Remember we told you about Atanas Entchev? There's now a petition to help him

In the maps category:

• StrangeMaps shares an informative map of electric sockets of the World
• Here's a Google Maps mashup on disease risk and migration
• O'Reilly shares an animated map of how dance music travels
• APB share their disappointment at the map of the American Jobs Act

This is an update to my previous post here: I managed to get WMS on ArcGIS Explorer, with two caveats from ESRI Support related here, to produce a nice mashup directly online with more to follow... stay tuned!

Via OSGeo-Discuss, I learned about a few recent news from 52° North. A reminder, what it is: "The open source software initiative 52°North is an international network of partners from research, industry and public administration."

• The open source smartEditor Online metadata tool has been updated to version 1.1. Since we only mentioned smartEditor in a press release before, "smartEditor is a web based editor to easily create and update ISO19115/19119 metadata documents on geospatial data sets, services, series and applications and many more resources. This tool provides templates, validation with error highlighting and comprehensive user support through comprehensive help texts and integrated code lists."
• The Sensor Observation Service (SOS) tool, SOS being an OGC standard, has been updated to 3.2.0, including new features and bug fixes. In short, "the Sensor Observation Service aggregates readings from live, in-situ and remote sensors." We mentioned it several times in the past.

This year marks the third 52°North Student Innovation Prize for Geoinformatics. 52°North awards this prize on a yearly basis to motivate students to contribute their own ideas and concepts to the development of innovative technologies and applications in the field of geoinformatics. A jury of nine representatives from Science and the IT industry evaluated this year’s submissions, assessing not only new technological approaches, but also the potential for practical application.

Tobias Kohr won first prize for his paper "Development of a service-based Geoportal enableing the Mapping of Whale Watching". In his paper, he proposes the implementation of a system for entering and retrieving whale observations by animal-rights activists or volunteers having a general interested in nature. The concept supports multilingualism while implementing well established open technological standards to address the particular requirements and interests of these user groups. The innovative aspect of this system is not so much the development of new technologies, but rather the use of existing technologies to solve a socially relevant problem. Various technological building blocks and open source software components come together to an overall system which enables the collection, organization, retrieval and dissemination of volunteered geographic information. In this case, the focus of the information is the observations of whales, which - like no other animal species – stand for an endangered species’ fight for survival. Not only can this system provide valuable data to whale watchers, researchers and animal activists, but it can also help to broaden public awareness and discussion of endangered species protection.

Second prize winner Marcell Roth proposes in his paper "Geographic Feature Pipes" Linked Data as a trendsetting way to solve the problem of linking and aggregating data coming from different web services. OGC standards are combined with subject-specific ontologies to analyze complex spatial or spatio-temporal questions. The Geographic Feature Pipes portray a process for translating data from OGC Web Services in to the Linked Data Model.

Mrs. Svenja Schulze, North-Rhine Westphalia's Minister of Innovation, Science und Research and Dr. Albert Remke, 52°North GmbH presented Tobias Kohr and Marcell Roth with their awards at the GEOINFORMATIK - "Geochange" in Muenster. In addition to the certificates, the winners received up to a total of 3,000 EUR as prize money.

52°North GmbH, together with con terra GmbH, ESRI Deutschland GmbH, the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC in Enschede) and the Institute for Geoinformatics at the University of Muenster, endows the Student Innovation Prize.

The pycsw team announces the release of pycsw 1.0.0. This is the first formal release (previous version 0.1.0), and adds numerous core features since 0.1.0 (see below). pycsw is an OGC CSW server implementation written in Python. pycsw implements clause 10 (HTTP protocol binding (Catalogue Services for the Web, CSW)) of the OpenGIS Catalogue Service Implementation Specification, version 2.0.2. pycsw allows for the publishing and discovery of geospatial metadata. Existing repositories of geospatial metadata can be exposed via OGC:CSW 2.0.2. pycsw is Open Source, released under an MIT license, and runs on all major platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X). Source and binary downloads:

• simplified setup and configuration
• support for INSPIRE Discovery Services
• support for CSW-T
• support for additional databases
• Ubuntu and openSUSE installer
• support GetCapabilities updateSequence parameter
• support for FGDC profile
• support for NASA DIF