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Message from the Editor -
Welcome to GISWeekly! Last week I saw a preview of “live code” of Microsoft's MSN Virtual Earth, which will ultimately replace the MSN Maps and Directions website. According to Mark Law, lead product manager for the MapPoint business unit, MSN Virtual Earth began with a team of people who posed the question, what do we really want to do with location on the internet in terms of a web-based location site? Read about their resulting strategy in this week's Industry News.
GISWeekly examines select top news each week, picks out worthwhile reading from around the web, and special interest items you might not find elsewhere. This issue will feature Industry News, Acquisitions/Alliances/Agreements, Announcements, Appointments, New Products, Around the Web and Upcoming Events.
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Best wishes,
Susan Smith, Managing Editor
Industry News
MSN Virtual Earth Offers Up Microsoft's New Local Search Strategy
By Susan Smith
Last week I saw a preview of “live code” of Microsoft's MSN Virtual Earth, which will ultimately replace the MSN Maps and Directions website. According to Mark Law, lead product manager for the MapPoint business unit, MSN Virtual Earth began with a team of people who posed the question, what do we really want to do with location on the internet in terms of a web-based location site? “A group of us got together with executive sponsorship and submitted a paper on the concept we had on MSN Virtual Earth, which is the idea of a social networking community site on the internet based on location rather than on a specific subject,” explained Law.
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What was presented to me was live code, where a whole map looks like it's bleeding off the screen. The whole focus is on the geography and the headers and banners are all gone. The whole goal is to create an immersive map geographical earth experience. “One of the things that we've also done is improved our map style so that all the labeling you see in side the mapping actually shows up within the actual route, the aliasing is actually showing up inside the street networks,” Law noted. “We've completely perfected our map view look and feel and we've also added navigational features such as zoom in and zoom out. We've added drag capabilities, also we've also noticed that a lot of people get themselves lost after they've dragged around, so we implemented this game panning button used by gaming people. This enables people to navigate very easily around the map by moving that gaming pan.”
Microsoft just happens to own TerraServer, which serves up satellite imagery, so TerraServer is used to search for an address using aerial photography. The TerraServer group has now joined the MapPoint business unit, bringing the mapping search component and satellite imagery together in one place.
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This 'hybrid view' is a unique proposition Microsoft will go live with in this first release. On the Scratch Pad users can search for an address and then search for a second address. The Scratch Pad allows you to maintain both addresses in it.
Another great feature is the local search. If you know, for example, you're coming to 1 Main Street, Seattle, and you want to stay at a nearby hotel, you can enter hotels and submit it to the current map view. It will retrieve only the hotels located in that nearby area. Instead of a local search where you search for hotels in Seattle and you'll get all hotels in Seattle, in this case it's a location pivot search where it will locate it relevant to that number on the map view.
There is an automatic search refresh (should you want to stay near another community). The map view shows the itinerary on the right hand side of the address where you are going to stay, some information about restaurants you might want to look at, and any entertainment also. The searches that you've done have been stacked and are maintained without getting lost.
“We can take that Scratch Pad and email it to everybody and say 'here's where I'm staying, here's the restaurant we should meet at,'” said Law. “But I can also blog it and hit the blog button - it will take me to My Spaces in MSN. This is a new area Microsoft launched two months ago which 7 million plus people have already come to. People can come there and get a full list of what you have identified to look at, like restaurants, etc.”
In the second release, which will come 90 days after the summer release, MapPoint will implement the Pictometry imagery that Microsoft has licensed for the next five years exclusively for MSN Virtual Earth. It allows you to look at the Earth on 45 degree angles, and because of the way they've captured it obliquely, this imagery is rotational in four compassed directions, presenting aerial photographs in a 3D-like manner. As a result, Pictometry's image databases of cities, counties, and states provide a more information-rich source of visual data, and at a significant cost savings compared to computer modeling systems of municipalities.
The second or third release of MSN Virtual Earth will be opened up to add content, to include 'the global access to local knowledge.' No single company can capture everything about a neighborhood at the local level.
“Most of the local knowledge, restaurants, bike paths, resides in you and me,” said Law. “The only way we can capture it is to enable you to contribute to it. You will be able to share social information with your friends. You can share information, dog walking areas, etc. for public consumption. People can put layers of content in, put business listings, etc. and do it real time. MSN Virtual Earth will turn into a daily release or even an hourly release, with content which will flow in and out of it.
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There is a plan to enable this in a mobile environment; the MapPoint team is part of the Mobile and Embedded Device Division; however, Law said the challenges will be both technical and partner based.
“We are changing the way we develop products here for MSN Virtual Earth and Microsoft,” Law stated. “Our normal approach is to release a product and release another product twelve months later. We are going to be re-releasing another product every 90 days, so every quarter MSN Virtual Earth will have a complete update.”
MSN Virtual Earth will be free online to the consumer. You might be asking yourself right about now, where is Microsoft going with this product? With all the press about Google and Google Maps these days, it is natural to want to compare the two. According to Law, Microsoft's investment is long term and really will be very different from that of Google.
Law claimed that MSN Virtual Earth wasn't created in response to Google, as Microsoft clearly has their own roadmap for MSN Virtual Earth. MSN Virtual Earth has been in development since last fall and Google Maps came out in February. The contract with Pictometry is for the next five years, which signifies a long term commitment for Microsoft. Microsoft's two-pronged strategy will eventually replace their Maps and Directions mapping portal, and evolve their local search strategy to become part of their overall search strategy at MSN.
There are also plans to enable developers to build onto and into MSN Virtual Earth. “In all of our products at MapPoint that we've created in the enterprise space, we always have a dedicated fully supported developer strategy, and we're currently working out what that strategy will be with MSN Virtual Earth,” said Law.
Other partner involvement includes a map database that comes from NAVTEQ, business listings from Amicai, and all the layers through partnerships.
Acquisitions/Alliances/Agreements
Digital Dispatch Systems Inc. announced that it has signed new agreements with Sammenslutningen Københavns Taxa of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Taxis G7 of Paris, France, to provide them with additional mobile data terminals. TAXA 4X35 will also purchase SmartPrint mobile printers and communication products in addition to iPilot 8000 mobile computers.
Terra Image USA, LLC (TI-USA) has been named by SPOT Image Corporation as a master distributor for SPOT satellite imaging products and services. Under its new role, TI-USA will share responsibility for market development and sales to the U.S. Department of Defense and commercial markets. The company will continue its role as SPOT's exclusive Channel Partner for the U.S. civilian government markets which began in July 2004.
RADARSAT International announced that it has signed $1.54 million USD in network station licensing and renewal agreements. New network stations include the Nato Undersea Research Centre (NURC) of Italy, and the Astana station of the Space Research Institute (SRI) of Kazakhstan One-year renewal agreements are with South Korea and an unnamed station in Asia.
The addition of NURC and SRI increases the global network of RADARSAT-1 ground receiving stations to 26. One of the hallmarks of the RADARSAT-1 program is the near-real time delivery of data to operational users requiring time-sensitive information. Data is processed and delivered within 1 - 4 hours after downlink to the nearest network station.
EarthMap Solutions, LLC, has formalized reseller agreements with Borel Consulting and YVI, Inc., expanding its sales channel in the national corporate agribusiness and California growers markets.
Mike Borel, principal of Borel Consulting, focuses his efforts on corporate agribusiness clients and draws upon more than 25 years of agricultural business experience including positions with DuPont and Valent USA Corporation, a $200M agricultural/horticulture chemicals and biologicals subsidiary of Sumitomo Chemical Company, where Borel served as president and COO.
NavCom Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of Deere & Company (NYSE:DE), announced that Espatial Resources (ESR) have been signed as a dealer, providing NavCom Technology's GIS and Remote Sensing Solutions for Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. Espatial Resources provides system integration and customization using NavCom Technology's products. Applications include remote sensing, mapping, GIS and earth sciences.
Announcements
MWH Soft, a leading global provider of environmental and water resources applications software, finalized the technical program for its 2005 International Geoengineering Conference. Water/Wastewater and GIS/IT professionals from all five continents are expected to convene at this important event, widely considered to be the most comprehensive and significant infrastructure modeling and management technology conference of its kind. The premier event, slated for August 8-9, 2005 at the Renaissance Suites Hotel in Broomfield, Colorado, is targeted to industry executives and decision makers involved in all aspects of the operation, production and protection of water distribution and sewer collection systems.
To register and reserve your seat, visit the Conference Website at www.mwhsoft.com
Digital mapping and geographic information systems (GIS) software developer Cadcorp has announced that its Cadcorp SIS - Spatial Information System - software suite is now able to connect directly to ESRI ArcIMS Image Services. This new capability builds on the multi-format support that Cadcorp SIS users already enjoy out-of-the-box for working with ESRI data, including shape files, Personal Geodatabases, ArcSDE, ARC/INFO Export (ASCII), ARC/INFO DTM, BIL, BIP, BSQ, ARC/INFO Binary Grid and ARC/INFO ASCII GRID. It also adds to the 120-plus different data sources that Cadcorp SIS already reads in their native form.
Local Authorities in England, Wales and Scotland will soon be using a completely new type of computerized map that shows the world in 3D. It follows a strategic national mapping deal brokered by the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), with the firm Intermap Technologies, Inc. Intermap has used their aerial radar mapping technology to create the 3D map.
Called NEXTMap Britain, Intermap's computerized maps show the rise and fall of the land to sub-meter accuracy across the length and breadth of Britain. Local Authorities can combine this data with traditional maps and aerial photography to create realistic 3D visualizations at any location. Staff can view any scene on their computer screens as if they were actually on site and undertake detailed analysis for activities extending from planning to highways, environmental services and tourism.
The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) welcomed six additional new members, bringing the total number of sustaining members to more than 65. New sustaining members include 3001, Inc.; ADAM Systems Group of Advanced Software Resources, Inc.; Compusult Limited; Pixia Corp., Stellar Solutions, Inc.; and The Titan Corporation.
Intergraph Corporation announced Empresas Publicas de Medellin E.S.P. (EEPPM), Colombia's multi-utility company, is upgrading its successful FRAMME-based geofacilities management system to Intergraph's G/Technology(TM), the next-generation enabling core of a Geospatial Resource Management (GRM) system. EEPPM manages and maintains five distribution networks - electric, gas, water, wastewater and telecommunications for 2.5 million customers throughout Colombia. The open architecture of G/Technology will enable EEPPM employees to easily leverage and share data, further streamlining day-to-day activities and processes for provisioning and maintaining its service delivery networks. Using G/Technology, EEPPM can more efficiently and cost effectively manage their assets and resources.
Awards
GIS Solutions and ESRI were selected by the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) to develop geographic information system (GIS) tools that will improve the effectiveness of a coordinated response to a Foreign Animal Disease outbreak. IDOA is pursuing GIS technologies to provide support for critical emergency response functions and gain critical information about threatened areas, animals and producers. The goals of the project are to improve IDOA's ability to respond to an emergency outbreak of a Foreign Animal Disease as well as supporting IDOA functions of monitoring and promoting animal health and productivity.
Appointments
Space Imaging announced the appointment of Dennis Jones as vice president of U.S. Government and North America Sales. Jones' appointment is effective immediately.
Jones has more than 15 years of national security affairs and commercial industry experience. Earlier in his career, Jones held various policy management and advisory positions within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in the Executive Office of the President, and was senior policy advisor to the director of Policy in the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Later Jones held management positions with Space Imaging's international and federal departments to expand the company's U.S. government and global business presence in the marketplace. Jones rejoins Space Imaging having most recently served as DigitalGlobe's Director, National Information Solution Center.
New Products
Researchers from leading universities and technology companies demonstrated a proof-of-concept for a next-generation E9-1-1 solution at the National Press Club this week. Called NG9-1-1, this is said to be currently the only solution that ensures that emergency callers will reach the help they need regardless of the technology used to originate or answer the call. MapInfo Corporation's Location Intelligence technology is an integral component of the prototype.
Miner & Miner, a Telvent company, is pleased to announce that the ArcFM™ Solution 9.1 is now available. The ArcFM Solution is an enterprise solution for editing, modeling, maintenance, and management of facility and landbase information for electric, gas, and water/wastewater utilities. ArcFM Solution 9.1 is being released concurrently with ESRI's ArcGIS 9.1, and supports both ArcGIS 9.0 and 9.1.
LandVoyage.com, an online mapping services company, has announced the release of a new interactive weather tool. LandVoyage.com subscribers can now view current weather conditions as well as a local forecast for anywhere in the continental United States.
AccuWeather.com, the world's leading commercial weather service, announced that it is now providing the free weather content for the “Forecastfox” extension created by Ensolis, LLC. Forecastfox is a free downloadable extension that brings worldwide weather from AccuWeather.com to a browser toolbar, so that a choice of weather information is free and readily available to the user. It is available to users of Mozilla's Firefox, the Mozilla Suite and Netscape web browsers.
BusinessMAP 4, the latest version of the affordable and easy-to-use database mapping solution from ESRI, is now shipping. Designed for busy professionals, BusinessMAP transforms information from databases, contact managers, and spreadsheets into color-filled maps for making better business presentations and decisions.
Upcoming Events
Kentucky-Tennessee Society of American Foresters Summer Meeting, GIS Pre-Conference
Date: June 7, 2005
Place: University of the South Sewanee, TN USA
This one-day pre-conference workshop will prepare you to make an informed decision regarding the move to GIS. You will learn the basics of how a GIS works and how it can best be used to monitor and manage natural resources.
Open Source Geospatial '05 - MUM3/EOGEO
Date: June 16 - 18, 2005
Place: University of Minnesota/Radisson Hotel Minneapolis, MN USA
Open Source Geospatial '05, an international conference addressing geospatial data technologies developed by or of relevance to the Open Source community, will be held June 16-18, 2005 in Minneapolis, Minnesota USA. The conference will bring together the MapServer, EOGEO, and OSGIS communities, but seeks to be more broadly inclusive. A committee has been working since July to design a program with elements that will interest participants from the novice to the expert. The conference strives to build on the successes and enthusiasm generated by previous, related meetings.
EcoBuild America
Date: June 20 - 23, 2005
Place: Disney's Coronado Springs Resort and Convention Center , Orlando, FL USA
Focused on the needs of the expanding green building market, the unique event combines sustainable building techniques with the technology that supports the entire process from concept, through design, construction and long-term operation. For information about exhibiting, presenting at, or attending Ecobuild America, call 1-800-996-3863, fax 1-508-790-4750 or visit www.ecobuildamerica.com.
The Where 2.0 Conference
Date: June 29 - 30, 2005
Place: Westin St. Francis San Francisco, CA USA
Location-aware technologies and services--GPS, RFID, WLAN, cellular networks, and networked sensors--are driving a renaissance in business strategy and opportunity, paving the way for a growing array of capabilities around local search, mapping, mobile social applications, business analytics, asset tracking, and e-commerce. O'Neill Media, Inc. has launched Where 2.0, a forum for surveying the technological landscape surrounding location-determining technologies. Join us at Where 2.0 and learn how vendors, application developers, and consumer web companies are connecting customers, products, and enterprises in real time. Whether you're incorporating location into your business or blazing a new geospatial trail, Where 2.0 pinpoints the people and projects opening this new frontier.
You can find the full GISCafe.com event calendar here.
To read more news, click here.
-- Susan Smith, GISCafe.com Managing Editor.