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Three items in the news in early January are teachable moments in geotechnology, for students and citizens and for the geospatial community. They include satellite imagery from the cruise ship Costa Concordia, Google tangling with OSM and World Bank, and an outbreak of Legionnaire's Disease explained by geography.
Dr. Frank Kelly was recently appointed director of the USGS's EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Editor in Chief Joe Francica spoke with Dr. Kelly on the mission of EROS especially in light of impending budget cuts. Kelly also provided his insights on the relationship with the commercial earth observation satellite providers, and expectations for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission and Landsat 8.
Audie Cornish talks with Thomas Haupt, respiratory disease epidemiologist for the Wisconsin Division of Public Health. He's the lead author of the study that helped uncover the source of a mysterious and large uptick in Legionnaires' disease cases. The study, "An Outbreak of Legionnaires Disease Associated with a Decorative Water Wall Fountain in a Hospital" was published in the online journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.
Is it time for a global licensing framework for geospatial data? The GSDI Legal and Economic Working group thinks so and offered a presentation and a way forward at the GSDI 13 conference held in Quebec City in May. The effort aims to harmonize existing licensing without changing fundamental access policies and funding models and be compatible with the diferences in national legal systems. That's a tall order, but an important one as the world moves toward geodata sharing. Geoff Zeiss reports.