Welcome to GISWeekly! Happy New Year! GISWeekly wishes you a prosperous and healthy 2010.
                               
 
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, Top News of the Week, Acquisitions, Agreements, Alliances, Announcements, People, New Products, Around the Web and Events Calendar.

GISWeekly welcomes letters and feedback from readers, so let us know what you think. Send your comments to me at Email Contact

Best wishes,
Susan Smith, Managing Editor

Industry News
What’s in Store for Geospatial in 2010
By Susan Smith

2010 began with a stock market rise, perhaps signaling renewed confidence in a slumped economy, or reflecting the hopes that generally accompany the start of a new year. Peter S. Goodman’s The New York Times’ article, Divergent Views on Signs of Life in the Economy suggests that there is an upswing in the stock market as well as other indicators.

However, to quote him, “But if the Great Recession has indeed relaxed its grip on American life, it has been replaced by something that might be called the Great Ambiguity — a time of considerable debate over the clarity of economic indicators and the staying power of apparent improvements.”

In summary, the economy has been bolstered by $787 billion in stimulus federal spending, some of which is earmarked for the geospatial industry.

Last year, we watched that money be allocated and attempted to figure out how much was going to geospatial, as it was also shared with other industries. This year, we may see results of some of that allocation.

There is also some jostling in the geospatial space in terms of the players; it looks as though traditional geospatial companies such as ESRI, MapInfo and others are still firmly ensconced in the market, while Autodesk may be shifting their focus from geospatial to other areas of their businesses. Intergraph’s Security, Government and Infrastructure division is focused primarily on government, defense and intelligence, public safety and utilities without any products geared for the consumer. Google, who ushered consumers into GIS, and was responsible for a large amount of geo-awareness, now comes forward with some surprising technology announcements of its own.

Below are some news bits that may signal some shifts in the market that we might want to watch. These are not predictions, just interesting events that may have significance during the coming year.

Google Wants to Fill White Spaces

As I write this, Google is about to announce its new Android Nexus One phone.
This past year Google has been positioning itself as a more serious contender in the geospatial space, with the announcement of their own map database. In 2010, Google will continue to surprise us with its strength in the geospatial market.

Google created its own digital maps of the U.S., ending a contract with map data provider TeleAtlas, owned by TomTom, a provider of mobile phones.

Next Google moved into the GPS turn-by-turn navigation market for mobile phones, with its announcement that it will offer a free service for the new Motorola Droid called Google Maps for Mobile.

Now Google will offer this service on its own phone, the Nexus One, which includes a five-megapixel camera and is lighter and thinner than Apple’s iPhone, according to press reports.

The Nexus One is the first smart phone designed by the company’s own engineers. Unlike other mobile phones, it will be available from Google itself, allowing customers to use the network of their choice.

Further, is Google’s most recent request of the Federal Communications Commission to designate it as one of the administrators of a database for "white space" devices. Google has been urging the FCC to open up the "white spaces"—which are small amounts of spectrum between broadcast television channels--to unlicensed use. According to an article in CNET, Google joined the White Spaces Database Group in February to help move the project along, since one of the requirements of the white spaces plan is a database that devices can use to figure out which channels are available for use.

What is significant about this from the geospatial perspective is that Google's Richard Whitt, Washington telecom and media counsel, said in a blog post that "we don't plan to become a database administrator ourselves, but do want to work with the FCC to make sure that a white spaces database gets up and running." Contrary to this, Google just announced a plan that "the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC" or "Commission") designate Google to be administrator of a TV bands geolocation database."

This announcement is profound in that two kinds of databases will be needed for the white spaces database: one, a geolocation database which Google is confident it can build, and a spectrum-sensing technology database. The databases will be designed to avoid causing interference with TV broadcasts and wireless technologies.

What is also significant about this announcement is that Google is influencing standards for an area that hasn’t yet been defined – white spaces.

Standards play a key role in enabling increased ROI/value and risk reduction. If Google does move into geolocation then there will likely be discussions with the OGC regarding standards. KML is an OGC standard and Google’s Geolocation API is a W3C draft recommendation.

Google has also applied for approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to be allowed to buy and sell power much like utilities do. Last month the company created a subsidiary called Google Energy. Google consumes vast amounts of electricity to run its computers in its data centers, which the company said is the main reason for wanting the ability to buy more renewable energy.

Whether or not that is the case, approval of the application for the grant would mean that Google would be able to sell any surplus power just as utilities do.

Location

In The New York Times (Jan. 4, 2010) “Five Tech Themes for 2010,” by Jenna Wortham notes Location as one of the five big predictions for the new year,, with more useful location based applications such as the location awareness in Twitter. In geospatial, we have been location aware for some time, but the notion of location is now much more mainstream.

Homeland Security

I checked in with Got GEOINT? to learn about the government’s geospatial response to the Christmas Day terrorist who ignited an explosive aboard a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on the holiday. Certainly such an event suggests more stringent methods of tracking of terrorists throughout the world. Detection methods will certainly be ramped up from now on and flying America’s friendly skies will probably be subject to more scrutiny than we have become accustomed to.

This website is a useful source of ongoing government geospatial information so it will be a good idea to stay tuned to it over the coming year.

Applications

Applications have proliferated in the past year, and there is no end in sight to how many are yet to come.

An example of one that was announced last week: iPhone now has the only national crime map providing up-to-date crime data from every major U.S. city, as well as numerous foreign markets. The SpotCrime iPhone mobile application is also the first crime map to feature Augmented Reality (AR) views of criminal activity. Augmented Reality is a new area that allows users to see a live view of a real-world environment with merged or augmented elements complete with computer-generated imagery of crimes which have occurred in that location.

3D

2009 presented ArcGIS 9.4 as a complete 3D GIS, which offers a powerful visualization environment for virtual cities, analytical operations and the integration of real time video.

What we can expect to see as a result of this technology is a growth in applications that support 3D GIS. Perhaps the gaming and film industry is a good place to look for what the future can hold: if we can create virtual worlds such as those created for the film “Avatar,” then what can we do with geospatial datasets to visualize a future? Will we do this with 3D glasses or will we employ something like Alioscopy’s “autostereoscopic” technology that allows watchers to experience 3D without glasses?

Navteq Laser Vision was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this past week. Navteq has begun capturing 3D data with the vehicles used to gather digital map information. Navteq's laser technology uses 64 lasers mounted on a stalk atop a vehicle. It can work even when the vehicle is traveling at highway speeds.See a slideshow of the laser scans: http://news.cnet.com/2300-7345_3-10002107-1.html?tag=mncol.

Community Input

Google is using crowdsourcing to add accuracy and validity to its new maps, but they’re not the only ones. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Tele Atlas ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)), was unveiled, sporting the first gradient and curvature enhancement product to use community input and other authoritative sources to develop maps that can power a new generation of eco-routing, vehicle safety applications and ADAS solutions. Tele Atlas ADAS includes gradient, road curvature and ADAS-quality geometry that can be used to create a variety of ADAS-level applications, including eco-routing, adaptive cruise control, energy management, headlight steering, road preview and curve warning. These solutions are highly valuable to drivers and to the automotive industry. It is a type of behavior modification tool with the expectation that given useful information to assist in driving, drivers will make better choices in terms of routing, gas mileage and energy management.

Intermap was developing this type of technology for gradient, road curvature, adaptive cruise control, eco-routing, road preview and curve warning, and perhaps this technology has incorporated some of it.

The jury is still out on how much value community input has for maps, but those who travel the same roads each day most likely have a better idea of the curves in the road and how they impact traffic than some so-called mapping experts.

Top News of the Week

SuperGeo announced that SuperWebGIS 2.1, the Internet Map Server software, passed the OGC WMS (Web Map Service) 1.3.0 compliance test and got the certification of compliance.
SuperWebGIS 2.1 is the Internet map server software supporting to build a spatial map server to distribute spatial data. The easy manipulation and powerful functions of SuperWebGIS not only helps you publish the spatial data to display online but also enables users to query and analyze the map online to enhance the units’ and organizations’ competitiveness and working efficiency.

Magellan GPS announced availability of an upgraded version of its Magellan RoadMate App for iPhone. The new App can be purchased for $59.99 (a $40.00 savings off of the regular price – Now, until January 3, 2010).

Acquisitions, Agreements, Alliances

NAVTEQ confirmed Telefonica as a returning sponsor of the Global LBS Challenge, making this the third consecutive year. Telefonica is a Regional Sponsor of the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA), North America and South America regions.

Announcements

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) is seeking broad input on enhancements and changes for a revision of the OGC City Geography Markup Language (CityGML) Encoding Standard ( http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/citygml). CityGML is an open information model and XML-based encoding for the representation, storage, and exchange of virtual 3D city models. CityGML is implemented as an application schema of the OGC Geography Markup Language 3 (GML3) Encoding Standard ( http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/gml), an international standard for spatial data exchange and encoding approved by the OGC and ISO.

DigitalGlobe announced that its latest high-resolution satellite, WorldView-2, has achieved full operational capability. Imagery from the satellite is now available to global resellers, partners, and customers.

SuperMap Software (Stock Code: 300036) was listed on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) on 25th December.

On the listing ceremony, Dr. Ershun Zhong, board chairman of SuperMap Software Co., Ltd (SSCL) highly appreciated the wide range support of SuperMap customers and partners and the sincerely thanked the trust of China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and SZSE.

NAVTEQ is sharing insights gleaned over the course of the past year to provide a state of the industry perspective on consumer use of navigation. While 2009 has been a year where consumers have been offered an increasing number of choices in how they experience navigation and other location-based information, the aim of this analysis was to provide a quantifiable look at actual usage, as well as some related consumer desires. See press release

People

PCI Geomatics announced that Dr. Robert Moses, President and CEO of PCI Geomatics, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of Tecterra Inc.

New Products

ERDAS Inc. announces the availability of ERDAS APOLLO 2010, the geospatial industry’s leading enterprise-class data management, delivery and collaboration solution.

ERDAS APOLLO 2010 is equipped to fully understand, competently manage and rapidly serve large volumes of vector, raster and terrain data. ERDAS APOLLO implements an out-of-the box Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), that provides a publish, find and bind workflow for any data type. Integrating ERDAS Image Web Server and ERDAS TITAN, ERDAS APOLLO is now available in three tiers to cater to any organization’s management, collaboration and delivery needs.

ERDAS announced the release of IMAGINE Feature Interoperability, a new product extending ERDAS IMAGINE’s native vector support by adding support for additional CAD and GIS formats and tools.

IMAGINE Feature Interoperability offers direct support of the DGN format in ERDAS IMAGINE. Powered by Safe Software’s FME technology, IMAGINE Feature Interoperability provides direct read and write support to an ever expanding number of vector feature formats, starting with MicroStation’s DGN v7 and v8 format files. In addition to direct DGN support available from the Manage Data ribbon in ERDAS IMAGINE, Safe Software’s FME Workbench and Viewer allow for format conversion, as well as data manipulation and analysis.

NAVTEQ announced NAVTEQ True, the company's new mapping collection system. NAVTEQ is beginning the roll out of this new technology in its U.S. fleet of field collection vehicles, further enhancing the company's ability to deliver a growing range of high quality digital map data.

NAVTEQ announced at the Consumer Electronics Show, the availability of its Enhanced 3D City Models product.

This addition to NAVTEQ's growing visual content portfolio enables navigation systems to display high-quality, situation-specific 3D textured urban environments to simplify guidance and orientation. Built from key attributes of the highly-accurate NAVTEQ map, Enhanced 3D City Models enables navigable 3D animation to be generated in real-time. Additionally, NAVTEQ's unique build approach makes it possible to seamlessly incorporate other NAVTEQ map and visual content with Enhanced 3D City Models to further enhance the user experience.

NAVTEQ announced its NAVTEQ Traffic service is now available through an on-board turn-by-turn navigation application for the iPhone for the first time. The G-Map US & Canada navigation application was created by XROAD, a leading brand of location-based service products and mobile navigation software and devices, is powered by NAVTEQ map data and provides real-time traffic via NAVTEQ Traffic, for the US and Canada.

Everyone wants seamless GIS and database integration, but achieving this is rarely easy and certainly isn’t always affordable. “ArcSquirrel” provides an innovative solution for ArcGIS users, turning ArcMap into an editing client for Microsoft SQL Server, without the need for any additional middleware or higher license levels. This allows users to benefit from the power of ArcGIS desktop, while achieving enterprise-level scalability, data security and the integration of spatial data with wider business systems.

Sokkia Corporation announces the new GRX1 GNSS system that includes the new SHC250 data collector, as well as a new controller and post-processing software.

The new SHC250 data collector incorporates the latest Windows Mobile 6.5 OS, built-in Bluetooth modem and the new Spectrum Survey Field software that fully controls the GRX1 receiver with ease and speed.

GuidePoint Systems announced the launch of a new tracking, safety and convenience application for users of Apple's iPhone.

The Madison Heights, Mich.-based telematics supplier said the new Guidepoint App, which can be downloaded for free, allows users of iPhones to control their vehicles or access a variety of GPS-based services including stolen vehicle recovery, emergency help, turn-by-turn driving directions, towing and other assistance.

MWH Soft announced the worldwide release of the Sustainability analysis extension for all its industry-leading water modeling product lines. The breakthrough extension is available in InfoWorks WS as well as the H2ONET, H2OMAP Water and InfoWater Executive Suites. The tool gives water utilities unprecedented energy efficiency management capabilities for reducing both power costs and carbon footprints while realizing increased reliability and design optimization.

Dell’s Inspiron Mini 10 netbook has a new look and longer battery life, technology enhancements and easy connectivity capabilities. Updates to the Mini 10 include optional high definition entertainment bundles that deliver rich, smooth playback of streaming HD video in addition to Web surfing, email, listening to music and sharing user-generated content in real time.

  HP Introduces Innovative New and Upgraded Products at CES 2010

Around the Web

Fielkow Seeks Second Term on New Orleans Council Bayou Buzz.com, January 3, 2010

Mumbai's civic body to map city's underground Sandeep Ashar, DNA, January 4, 2010

Up Front: NGA Supports Samoan Island Recovery Efforts, by Susan Meisner, Doing Business with the Intelligence Community, January 2, 2010

Brentwood wants to register wireless numbers, by Bonnie Burch, The Tennessean.com, January 1, 2010

Google Moves to Keep Its Lead as Web Goes Mobile The New York Times (registration required), January 4, 2010

C.I.A. Is Sharing Data With Climate Scientists by William J. Broad, The New York Times, (registration required), January 4, 2010

Events