The FME 2010 release includes FME Desktop 2010 and FME Server 2010 and supports LDAP-based Microsoft Active Directory integration and SSL encryption.

Top News of the Week

DigitalGlobe's Crisis Event Service is actively collecting imagery of

Haiti in response to the recent earthquakes. With the power of the DigitalGlobe satellite constellation, there are 23 collection opportunities of the earthquake damage over the next two weeks.

In an effort to help the humanitarian efforts underway in Haiti, DigitalGlobe is offering 

free access to both pre- and post-earthquake imagery until January 28, 2010 with their ImageConnect plug-in for GIS software.

Sign up for your free access now.

The GIS Industry is stepping up to help the people of

Haiti and the organizations involved with helping the victims of the 7.0 earthquake. Here is what some of the companies are doing to help out: see

list of companies

ERDAS has updated their Online Web Services to incorporate the GeoEye imagery collected January 13, 2010 (made available for free download). Users can also access the image in ECWP in ArcMap, AutoCAD, Microsoft Office, many other thick client packages and web clients by downloading the ECW Plug-in freely available for download on the ERDAS

website

DeLorme has developed a free GPS-accurate dataset to assist in the

Haitian relief efforts. The company was contacted by numerous aid groups following the earthquake. A team of employees worked through the past weekend preparing a custom dataset utilizing the GPS-accurate DeLorme World Base Map along with aerial imagery, all of which can be displayed within the company’s XMap software and on Earthmate PN-Series handheld GPS units.

Acquisitions, Agreements, Alliances

AeroGRID has in the last month signed up three new partners to further increase its impressive coverage of high resolution aerial photography.

Geomatics of Greece,

MapSoft of Serbia and Ofek of Israel, all leading suppliers in their respective countries have joined the AeroGRID consortium.

NAVTEQ has reached an agreement with the

Hungarian

Nav

N Go to supply global map data and content to the white label, navigation software developer. The NAVTEQ data is to be utilized in a broad range of LBS applications including Nav N Go's iGO My way navigation application for iPhone.

A three-year enterprise license agreement (ELA) between

Total Exploration and Production (E&P) and

ESRI, in conjunction with

ESRI

France, will help Total E&P realize its goal of integrating spatial data with its mission-critical business processes. The use of geographic information system (GIS) technology has grown steadily at Total, and the ELA will simplify GIS software procurement and administration, make budget management more efficient, and facilitate software distribution to staff throughout the organization.

Spatial Focus, Inc. and

Farragut Systems, Inc. provider of the AddressOne product announced a strategic partnership.

Fugro EarthData and

ESRI Canada announced a strategic partnership and global distribution agreement that will allow Fugro EarthData to deliver PurVIEW worldwide. PurVIEW is a powerful stereoscopic image viewing and feature extraction extension for ESRI ArcGIS, the world’s leading geographic information system (GIS) technology.

SuperGeo introduced its new reseller in South America, where

Innova-T becomes SuperGeo’s reseller in Peru. Established in 1993, Innova-T was founded in 1993 by National Board of Scientific and Technologic Research. Innova-T provides professional consulting services in geographic information system (GIS), remote sensing (RS), cartography, cadastral (surveying), and environment-related projects.

Announcements

The

Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (

OGC) and the

International Environmental Modeling & Software Society (iEMSs) Secretariat have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate in standards development, education and outreach to enable and promote the use of interoperable Web based geospatial technologies in environmental modeling and software tools.

RapidEye archive satellite imagery now extends across some 5.3 million sq km of Australia, representing almost 70% of the continent. This represents recent archive coverage, acquired since February 2009, at less than 10% cloud cover, and generally less than 15 degrees off-nadir imaging angle. Other key areas across Western Australia, Northern Territory, and Queensland are being captured over coming months, in addition to routine and on-going repeat coverage of tasking sites and agricultural districts across Australia.

People

Enspiria

Solutions announced that it has named Mehrdod Mohseni, senior vice president, as General Manager of its Smart Grid Practice.

New Products

Tele Atlas unveiled an expanded map for India, which includes coverage of nearly 640,000 kilometers of navigable roads covering more than 75 percent of the country’s urban population. Available from Tele Atlas Kalyani India Ltd., a leading map provider in India serving the consumer markets, business-to-business and business-to-government market segments, the new maps include navigable street network coverage for turn-by-turn and location-based applications of 336 cities across the country.

ERDAS announces the release of ERDAS TITAN Client 2010, a free, downloadable 3D visualization client that includes the ERDAS TITAN Viewer and the Geospatial Instant Messenger (GeoIM). The ERDAS TITAN Viewer supports visualization of data and web services from a variety of enterprise applications and allows users to create sharable data and content mashups in a 3D globe. The GeoIM enables permission-based desktop data publishing and consumption.

WhiteStar Corp. introduced the WhiteStar Streaming Imagery product. Available by subscription, WhiteStar Streaming Imagery enables customers to view and stream high-resolution imagery directly into their digital mapping projects.

Pitney Bowes Business Insight announced the availability of the Enterprise Routing Module for the Pitney Bowes Spectrum Technology Platform.

Qbase Inc. announced release of a new, specialized suite of data quality tools that allow transformation and visualization of geospatial information for business intelligence and decision-support.

Qbase Data Transformer delivers the new capabilities. They include the ability to integrate geospatial data from more than 200 different geo-coordinate systems to create a consistent format and utilize a single geo-coordinate reference.

Garmin International Inc. announced that it will begin offering

BirdsEye Satellite and Aerial Imagery, an annual subscription service that gives users the option of loading highly-detailed photo-based maps to select Garmin handheld navigators.

Ashtech (formerly Magellan Professional) announced the release of the ProMark 500 V4.0 GNSS receiver for high-performance RTK surveying.

SuperPad

3 is the new full-functioned mobile GIS software announced by SuperGeo Technologies. SuperPad 3 has the powerful functionalities for drawing, displaying, calculation, and more.

Around the Web

GISCafe Today Blog

A Deluge of Donations via Text Messages January 18, 2010, by Stephanie Strom, The New York Times (registration required)

Stratcom keeping you on track, January 8, 2010, by Matthew Hansen, Omaha News-Herald

Northrop Grumman's MQ-8B Fire Scout Demonstrates Interoperability With the Army's One System(TM) Remote Video Terminal, January 8, 2010, CNN Money

OpenStreetMap Attracts 200,000 Volunteers January 6, 2010, PC World

Houston's My City Consolidates GIS Data from City Agencies, January 6, 2010, by Andy Opsahl, Government Technology

Events

 

You can find the full GISCafe event calendar here.

To read more news, click here.

-- Susan Smith, GISCafe.com Managing Editor.