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Apple's new Maps offering for iOS had some expected features and a few unexpected ones. What are the implications of this new player in the mobile mapping marketplace?
Google shared some of the history of its geospatial offerings and then made three announcements about some features and technology that are "coming soon." But what was the company really saying the week before Apple is expected to announce its new mapping apps? Our editors try to read between the lines.
The Geospatial Information and Technology Association (GITA) has told its members that it will reorganize the association under a new business model, effectively ending the current professional society as we know it. Does the decline of GITA hold a lesson for other geospatial technology associations? Our editors discuss the challenges of staying relevant when so many other forms of communication are available thus displacing some of the functions of professional societies.
A report from the National Research Council suggests that NASA is not putting up satellites fast enough to support the needed basic science related to weather, climate and other challenges facing the U.S. and the rest of the world. The report warns that the U.S. constellation may drop to just one quarter its size in just a few years. What does this mean for geospatial technologists and how can we help fellow citizens to understand the value of this in-orbit infrastructure?
Two weeks ago the world learned about Zombie-based Learning, a geography teaching tool envisioned by a middle school teacher from Seattle. He used the crowdfunding site, Kickstarter, to ask the world to support his project. He had $5000 pledged in just four days. What other geography-related projects, educational and otherwise, are appearing on Kickstarter? What is getting funded? What isn't?
Welcome to another Directions Media podcast sponsored by Intergraph. We’ll be speaking today with John Graham, president of Intergraph’s Security, Government & Infrastructure (SG&I) Division, and he’ll be telling us more about the upcoming Hexagon 2012 conference this year in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Hotel.
How do you put a value on geospatial technology? Does it just come down to revenue and profits? Or intrinsically is it more because critical information is held within the bounds of certain technology formats?
GeoEye and DigitalGlobe have been communicating via letter and press release over the last few days. The topic: who might acquire whom. As we go to press neither company has said "yes" but our editors feel wedding bells are likely. The U.S. federal government is both holding the shotgun and hoping to catch the bouquet.
Last week Google sold off its 3D sketching product, SketchUp, to Trimble. What is Trimble's plan? To move into near real-time 3D modeling? To move into BIM?
National Public Radio's Scott Simon celebrates Gerardus Mercator.
Journal News Removes Interactive Gun Permit Map
The Lower Hudson Journal News has been under fire for publishing a map of gun permit holders in two counties in New York State before Christma. (APB coverage 1, 2, podcast). On Friday January 18 the paper removed the interactive map. Why? Publisher Janet Hasson gave answers in a media statement and in a letter to readers.
In a statement in response to The Poynter Institute (a journalism school) she argued:
With the passage this week of the NYSAFE gun law, which allows permit holders to request their names and addresses be removed from the public record, we decided to remove the gun permit data from lohud.com at 5 pm today. While the new law does not require us to remove the data, we believe that doing so complies with its spirit. For the past four weeks, there has been vigorous debate over our publication of the permit data, which has been viewed nearly 1.2 million times by readers. One of our core missions as a newspaper is to empower our readers with as much information as possible on the critical issues they face, and guns have certainly become a top issue since the massacre in nearby Newtown, Conn. Sharing as much public information as possible provides our readers with the ability to contribute to the discussion, in any way they wish, on how to make their communities safer. We remain committed to our mission of providing the critical public service of championing free speech and open records.
In a letter to readers published on Friday she wrote:
So intense was the opposition to our publication of the names and addresses that legislation passed earlier this week in Albany included a provision allowing permit holders to request confidentiality and imposing a 120-day moratorium on the release of permit holder data.
She goes on to say that during the 27 days the map was online any one interested would have seen it and that the data would eventually be out of date. She also noted that the paper does not endorse the way the state chose to limit availability of the data.
The original map/article still includes a graphic - but it's a snapshot, a raster image, with no interactivity. Says Hasson in the letter to readers:
And we will keep a snapshot of our map — with all its red dots — on our website to remind the community that guns are a fact of life we should never forget.
I continue to applaud the paper for requesting the data via a Freedom on Informat request, mapping it, keeping the map up despite threats and criticism and now responding to state law. I think the paper did a service to the state, to citizens and to journalism.
- via reader Jim and Poynter
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