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, Contests, People, New Products, Around the Web and Events Calendar.
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Susan Smith, Managing Editor
Industry News
Networks in Motion Enters the World of GPS and Personal Navigation
Guest Review by Michael J. Carroll
The challenge is a big one: Can a device meant to be used in one’s hands also be successful as a hands-free navigating device?
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I started with the phone in my hand. I had already entered my destination, a friend’s house in the New Mexico boondocks. I knew that his house was located in a cellular black hole – what exactly would happen as I neared his house? Assuming, of course, the service would even get me that far.
“Turn right onto …” the woman’s voice said clearly, naming the street in front of my house, “then make an immediate left onto …”
So far, so good. I wasn’t quite ready to put the phone down.
Pulling up to a stop sign – “turn right onto …” – I glanced at the display. A brightly lit display showed the intersection of two streets, the one I was on, and the one I was to turn onto. An arrow indicated the turn. Nothing ambiguous here; even if the instructions had been unclear, the display would have left no doubt what to do. Better even, the display was instantly readable. No need to shift the phone in my hand, or waste time figuring out what to do – a real boon when engaged in the dubious activity of holding a cell phone while driving.
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After about a minute (I’m getting worried – has the phone powered off?) the same calm voice alerts me: “Be prepared to turn right onto … in point four miles.” I glance at the odometer.
It is a good warning gap. There is time enough to find a turning lane should it be necessary, even in heavy traffic.
The next head’s up comes in perfect time, about three seconds before the event: “get ready to turn right …”
And then, an instant before I get to the actual intersection: “turn right onto … for point three miles. Be prepared to turn left onto …”
By now my anxiety has been replaced by a sense of excitement. This is the kind of navigator I have always wanted. Even my wife, trained as she has been over the years, has never been this smooth, this calm, this helpful.
This is NIM’s major entry into the world of GPS and personal navigation. Utilizing the edge provided by cellular communication it offers a number of step-ups from built-in navigation systems: up-to-date databases without the need to download them (the database is at the server side, not in the vehicle); detachability from the vehicle – invaluable if you are driving, then walking to your destination. There are trade-off’s, of course: smaller displays, reliance on the battery life of the phone, quality of cellular connection. But, not once during a month of testing the device in a broad range of settings, did I ever feel the need for a larger display or run out of power.
I was halfway to my friend’s house when the first anomaly occurred.
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I followed the timely instruction.
Then there was a pause – I could almost sense a human hesitation – “You are not on a road. Please find your way to Old Las Vegas Highway.”
“What!?”
I had no doubt I was on a major artery. My tires hummed on the pavement.
A few moments passed, then the device repeated itself: “You are not on a road. Please find your way to Old Las Vegas Highway.”
I was tempted to blame the phone. But this is not a new issue; it is reflective of a much larger, ever more important issue in the world of GPS and navigation: the faulty database.
But for the driver, one like myself cruising at night in possibly strange terrain, this is not something he wants to hear.
There was no choice. I knew I was on a road (this wasn’t a Stephen King thriller) so I just kept on going. What happened next would be the true test.
What happened next: Another half-dozen warnings, all the same: “You are not on a road. Please find your way to Old Las Vegas Highway.”
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Finally, NAVTEQ and I had found each other. (NAVTEQ is the database provider for Networks in Motion.) It was a relief.
A short-lived relief.
“Prepare to turn left onto …” and here I was given the name of a road I had never utilized by before. The road I regularly used was a paved county road connecting the current artery to a parallel county road leading to my destination.
I decided to trust the device. How could I do otherwise – her tone was both confident and seductive.
In the setup menus, the user is given the choice of five voices, two male and three female. It would be nice if there were a sample of the voice when you pointed your cursor at one of the choices (“hi, my name is Andrew, would you like me to be your guide?); but to hear the voice, you must actually select it and then use it in a navigation situation. The female voices all seemed to come over the car noise with a little more clarity than the male voices; I suspect this is an interrelationship of car model, other ambient noise, and the user’s ears – we’re all going deaf, but in different ways.
I should have known better. My guide’s choice turned out to be a dirt road, passable in good weather, although unlit and treacherous in the dark. Today, however, it was rainy, and the road was a sodden mess. My vehicle was four-wheel drive so I wasn’t worried; but for a stranger to the area …?
When I arrived at the country road (“turn right onto …”) I made a U-turn and headed back the way I had come.
There is no key on the phone that forces an alternate route. I wanted to know what the software would do when I refused to stay on the road it had placed me on.
“You are going in the wrong direction. Please make a U-turn.”
I made it back to Old Las Vegas Highway, turned left toward the better cross-street.
It took only about five seconds before the device adjusted to my decision. “Prepare for a left turn onto Two Trails Road,” said my guide. This was the road I should have been taken to. Whatever advantage the server thought existed – shorter distance, quicker travel – was only in the mind of the software.
There are three navigation options: quickest route, shortest route, simplest route. This is more of a menu than I want. All three options are dubious. How quick a route actually is depends on how heavy a foot the driver is willing to have on the accelerator and how the traffic is flowing on a particular day. Until we have accurate real-time updates on traffic patterns and intelligent registration of driver tendencies, no software is going to know the quickest versus the shortest route. But thank you for trying.
And NIM is trying. Within the next months, NIM plans on a “re-route” option of some kind, a means of forcing the software to replot a route when the suggested one is unavailable for whatever reason (roadwork, accident, inclement weather).
There are even more grandiose projects in the future, the grandest of all being a multimodal navigator, one that would guide the user through any combination of walking, subway, bus, train, car, etc.
But all that’s in the future. At the moment, I am on the main road to my friend’s and the navigator is giving me an unusual message: “Bear right in point four miles.” I know this road and there is no fork in the road coming up in 0.4 miles, no confusing intersection. It doesn’t take long to find out. In 0.4 miles, we come on a road straight off to the right. The road is a dirt road, nothing special, nothing confusing. Had I known received an alert I would have driven by it without even worrying about it. Would this be the pattern, an alert on every conceivable turnoff that must be avoided in the case the driver might be brain-dead? That could be very irritating.
It isn’t but a matter of minutes that I get the same warning again, this time an alert to bear left. Come on already, I groan. Then I come upon the road I am being alerted about: A dirt road straight ahead where the actual road bends to the left. Had a stranger come upon this road at night, it would have been almost inevitable he or she would have driven straight ahead at paved road speed onto a treacherous unlighted dirt road. Having navigated this route numerous times, I had blocked this road out. Of course I didn’t need the warning, but any driver who needed navigation help, this little alert might just prevent a life-threatening accident.
And finally we get to the cellular dead zone. By now I just knew the navigator would rise to the occasion. And so it did: All maps and directions had been downloaded in advance. Even without cellular communication with the AAA host, I got instructions – good ones – right up to my arrival at my friend’s door. How well it would have coped had I needed to change the route or make a modification at the last minute, I don’t know. It did however handle the current situation with ease.
And that is pretty much how it performed for the rest of the month. It had its aberrant moments. There was the trip from San Jose to San Francisco when it insisted the driver leave the freeway for two minutes to navigate a traffic-clogged frontage road only to take us right back onto the highway. The phone was in shortest-mode at the time, but nothing about that half-mile detour made it an apparent shorter route than leaving us on the highway. There was the shortest-mode route that led me through a ravine that is filled with water half the year when a paved road was available only a half-mile away; but, yes, I did say I wanted the shortest route.
And there were moments of sheer delight, such as when my family decided while in the car that we would like to make a side trip from Santa Cruz to the Egyptian Museum in San Jose so my grandson could get some background for a school project. In less than two minutes, the Local Navigation found the Egyptian Museum, set it as a destination, and began leading us there. We had been warned that it would be a thirty minute trip, but using the fastest route setting, we got there in twenty minutes. With absolutely no anxieties of the will-it-get-me-there-or-not kind.
Where would I place this device in my grab bag of navigational aids? Probably right at the top. Yes, a good old-fashioned map would definitely be at the bottom of the bag, hard to reach but there when I really need it. If a built-in navigational system were already in the vehicle, I certainly wouldn’t turn it off; but if there were an informational discrepancy between that and the phone, I would be inclined to trust the phone, with its constantly updated database. And the ability to get out and walk with the walk with a navigational walking partner is a real boon.
There is another feature, one I think is probably invaluable, but which I was not allowed to test. If you use the phone as a member of AAA, you can call for road assistance and AAA will get your location with the car, making it easier and faster for it to provide the support you need.
All of this is available on every modern cell phone: GPS, location sending on a 911 call, etc. But this is an impressive integration of these features, the first I know of to use them as inventively and meaningful as they have been by Networks in Motion.
There is a sense – in using the device – of “of course”. Of course, this is how a navigator would work. Of course, it would make use of the call connection, the GPS, the networking capabilities, the voice capabilities of a cell phone to provide such smooth navigation.
It has been said that one sign of genius is the ability to see the obvious. I have no argument with that here.
AAA Mobile is powered by Networks In Motion, which now has more than three million subscribers for all its products.
Top News of the Week
DigitalGlobe, Inc. announced that the company has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering of its common stock.
Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated and Lehman Brothers Inc. will serve as joint book-running managers for the offering.
The offering will be made only by means of a prospectus. When available, copies of the preliminary prospectus relating to this offering may be obtained by contacting: Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, 180 Varick Street, New York, New York 10014, Attention: Prospectus Department, telephone: 1-866-718-1649 or by email at Email Contact; or Lehman Brothers Inc., c/o Broadridge, Integrated Distribution Services, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, Email Contact, (fax): 631-254-7140, Toll free: 1-888-603-5847.
Software developer Global Maps Inc. from Kibbutz Givat Haim Ihud in Israel, has announced the launching of the new version of OpenLM for ESRI ArcGIS software.
The software is available for download and evaluation at the OpenLM web site. OpenLM for ESRI ArcGIS is designed to improve the use of the popular ESRI Desktop ArcGIS family of products: ArcView, ArcEditor and ArcInfo. OpenLM offers a dramatic improvement in the availability of software licenses to end users and has a significant influence on users productivity.
At the 2008 Realcomp "Tools of the Trade" Expo recently, Realcomp II Ltd. ("Realcomp") officially announced its agreement with iLOOKABOUT Corp. ("iLOOKABOUT") for the iLOOKABOUT Streetscape product which was signed in the Fall of 2007. Realcomp, based in Farmington Hills, is Michigan's largest real estate MLS provider for iLOOKABOUT StreetScape, location-aware digital imagery of properties in Metropolitan Detroit comprising the Southeast Michigan counties of Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, and St. Clair, and additional photography services for Lapeer, Genesee and Washtenaw counties.
For the first time, probably since the 11th Century Domesday Book, a complete list of English property addresses is now available, updated in almost real-time. The National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG), the first, definitive, national (England and Wales) address list that provides unique identification of properties and conforms to British Standards is to be launched for commercial use on 30 April 2008. The onward uses of the NLPG are potentially huge, from wider public sector use to commercial application in insurance, customer profiling, logistics, satellite navigation and more.
Oracle announced that the latest release of Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management will allow utilities to take advantage of out-of-the-box integration with Oracle Application Server MapViewer, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware. Oracle Application Server MapViewer displays geospatial data from a number of sources, including Oracle Database, Oracle Spatial, utilities' GIS systems and external geospatial Web sites accessible through Web services.
Acquisitions/Agreements/Alliances
Pictometry International Corp., a provider of geo-referenced aerial image libraries whose proprietary technology is used globally to capture oblique image libraries, has signed an exclusive technology licensing agreement with Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd. (KKC), a leading Japanese mapping and surveying company.
Under the agreement, KKC has exclusive rights to utilize Pictometry’s unique image capture and processing technology and market image libraries and software throughout Japan, including customers in government agencies, commercial businesses, and web sites.
Tele Atlas, a global provider of digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location based solutions, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement with Kalyani Group (India), a leading Indian industrial group, to acquire substantial equity position in Kalyani Net Ventures Limited (KNVL), headquartered in Pune, India. The closing of the transaction is subject to the satisfaction of certain usual and customary closing conditions.
Kalyani Net Ventures Limited is a leading map provider in India serving the consumer application, business-to-business and business-to-government market segments. Previously, the company was solely owned by Kalyani Group.
Announcements
The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) membership has approved the OASIS ebRIM (electronic business Registry Information Model) application profile of the OpenGIS Catalogue Service 2.1.2 standard. The Catalogue Standard specifies a design pattern that allows for the definition of interfaces called application profiles based on different standards, such as ZF39.50, ebRIM, UDDI, or ISO metadata, that support the ability to publish and search collections of descriptive information (metadata) about geospatial data, services and related information objects.
The members of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) announced the approval of the OpenGIS KML Encoding Standard (OGC KML), marking KML's transition into an open standard which will be maintained by the OGC. Developers will now have a standard approach for using KML to code and share visual geographic content in existing or future web-based online maps and 3D geospatial browsers like Google Earth.
KML version 2.2 was brought into the OGC consensus process by a submission team led by Google and Galdos Systems Inc.
Avineon, Inc., a provider of IT, geospatial, engineering and program management services, announced that it has recently begun a geographic information system (GIS) project to migrate ACEDL Smallworld data and OSP InSight data to Fiber Manager, a new extension of the recently released Telvent Miner & Miner (TM&M) ArcFM Solution. The project entails extraction and migration of all telecommunications-related data for a mid-sized East Coast utility company and is Avineon's first using TM&M's Fiber Manager.
Azteca Systems, Inc. announced the Small Government Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) Program that allows unlimited deployments of Cityworks software to municipalities and counties in the United States. The program provides access to the leading GIS-centric asset maintenance management and permitting solutions small governments need within a clear, tiered pricing schedule.
Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced that registration is open at www.bentley.com/BEconference/registration for BE Conference 2008 - BEst Practices for Sustaining Infrastructure, being held May 28-30 at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Md. During this two-and-a-half-day event, decision makers and senior practitioners from infrastructure organizations around the globe, including owner-operators and AEC firms, will share innovative best practices using Bentley solutions. The BE Conference 2008 keynote presentation will be made by Andrew Winston, founder of Winston Eco-Strategies and co-author of the best-seller "Green to Gold."
1Spatial is pleased to announce that due to unprecedented demand, they have increased capacity for the FREE INSPIRE seminar and metadata workshop, a precursor event to the1Spatial Conference 2008.
Hosted by Robin Waters, Chair of the AGI Working Group for INSPIRE, the free seminar will provide a comprehensive introduction to INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe) and cover the potential business impact of INSPIRE on stakeholders. Rob Walker, Independent Consultant and 2008 Chair of AGI, who is also a Member of AGI Working Group on INSPIRE, will run a workshop highlighting the Implementing Rules for Metadata and how metadata issues can be addressed by organizations responsible for datasets that may be affected by INSPIRE.
Full details of the conference agenda are available at 1Spatial Conference Agenda
Registration for the INSPIRE event and 1Spatial Conference 2008 is OPEN NOW. To find out more and register, please visit here.
DMTI Spatial (DMTI), a provider of location intelligence, has announced a company realignment to better accommodate continued growth and expand the number of leaders who will work directly with DMTI’s clients. A new divisional structure comprised of three strategic business units (SBUs) will better enable the company to focus on providing the highest level of service and value innovations to the marketplace. George Staikos, SVP and GM will lead the Client Management Division; Michael Byalik, SVP and GM will lead the Enterprise Solutions Division; and John Sorrell, VP and GM will move from the Marketing department to lead the Mapping Solutions Division.
DigitalGlobe, provider of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery and geospatial information products, announced that it has chosen Boeing Launch Services for the launch of WorldView-2, DigitalGlobe's third remote-sensing satellite. WorldView-2 will offer the industry's highest collection capacity, more frequent refresh and revisit rates, more spectral information and greater imaging agility. WorldView-2, a next-generation system being built independent of a U.S. Government contract, is currently scheduled to launch in mid-2009.
Contests
The winners of the ArcGIS Server Code Challenge were announced at the 2008 ESRI Developer Summit in Palm Springs, California, on March 19. Developers were invited to post their original code samples to the ArcGIS Server Code Challenge blog so that the code could be reviewed by peers in the ESRI developer community. Prior to the summit, ESRI Developer Network (EDN) subscribers and registered attendees for the 2008 Developer Summit were asked to vote for their favorite entry based on the creativity, applicability, and originality of the code sample.
John Waterman, vice president of Geospatial Solutions at GCS Research in East Burke, Vermont, won the first-place prize of $15,000. His code sample demonstrates how ArcGIS Server can be integrated with Microsoft Virtual Earth and Google Maps. David Bouwman, senior software architect at Data Transfer Solutions in Fort Collins, Colorado, took second place and $7,500 for his ArcGIS Server Virtual Earth Tile Server entry.
People
Steve Briggs has been named Topcon Positioning Systems' (TPS) national sales manager-GIS and OEM.
Briggs joined TPS in 2004 as a product manager for network software. Prior to the recent promotion, he was TPS sales manager for networks and OEM. Before joining Topcon he was GIS business development manager and marine/infrastructure sales manager for Trimble Navigation.
Adapx announced the appointment of Ted Gauld as its new Vice President of Product Management and Marketing. With nearly 20 years of senior level product management and marketing experience under his belt, Gauld is uniquely positioned to take Adapx to the next level by expanding the Capturx product line, developing and driving a profitable channel program, and increasing marketing initiatives targeted towards enterprises and government agencies.
New Products
NAVTEQ, a global provider of digital map data for location-based solutions and vehicle navigation, unveiled CommuteVantage, a powerful new television traffic platform designed for seamless traffic report production within one comprehensive real-time data and graphics system. CommuteVantage smoothly transports viewers from one data source to the next with engaging visual sequences such as an animated 2D flow map to a 3D cityscape fly through, to a live camera view, to a travel time graphic.
Adding to the industry’s most complete portfolio of desktop virtualization offerings, HP announced it plans to support Citrix XenDesktop upon its availability in May across its industry-standard HP ProLiant server and HP Compaq thin client product lines.
Geographic Technologies Group, Inc. (GTG), a leading GIS solutions provider, is pleased to announce the release of GeoBlade AVL. GeoBlade AVL is part of a family of “blades” incorporated into the GeoBlade toolset. Blades are additional functionalities to the core viewer, specific to an agency’s departmental needs.
This highly customizable application has the ability to track the location and speed of vehicles, such as police cars, fire engines, and snow plows. Historic searches provide an effective source of accountability, leading to post-analysis if necessary. GeoBlade AVL works with GeoBlade Viewer, Dispatch, and Mobile. It also has the ability to create maps and reports.
RAND Worldwide announced that its IMAGINiT Technologies division has released the IMAGINiT GIS Assets application, helping clients regain control of their parcel, sanitary, storm, road, water, and electric assets.
Around the Web
County GIS available now online, April 13, Wabash Plain Dealer --
Wabash County has successfully gone online with its Geographical Information System data using The Schneider Corporation's “beacon” Web Portal.
New & Updated UTA Transit Data
Upcoming Events
| MAGIC 2008 Symposium | |
| Date: | April 20 - 24, 2008 |
| Place: | Kansas City, MO USA |
| GIS covers such a broad range of subjects, applications and types of people that use it, that developing a conference program that meets everyone’s needs is a challenging task. Even more challenging is an attendee trying to figure out exactly which sessions or topics will be most interesting and helpful. MAGIC 2008 is intended to focus the content of the presentation options into a program specifically geared to each attendee’s needs. |
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| 2008 Overwatch Users Group Conference | |
| Date: | April 21 - 24, 2008 |
| Place: | Westwood Country Club
Vienna, VA USA |
| We are pleased to announce the 2008 Overwatch Users Group Conference. The conference will be held at the Westwood Country Club in Vienna, Virginia on April 21-24. Each of our product development groups has been hard at work creating new features to help analysts and GIS users maximize their screen time. If you use RemoteView, ELT/Series, Feature Analyst, LIDAR Analyst, Urban Analyst or InterSCOPE, you should come to the conference |
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| 14th Annual CalGIS Conference | |
| Date: | April 23 - 25, 2008 |
| Place: | Modesto, CA USA |
The California Geographic Information Systems Conference is a premier event offering unrivaled value to individuals and organizations in the GIS field. Attendees will find opportunities to boost professional and organizational performance with access to:
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| Delaware GIS 2008: A Spatial Network | |
| Date: | April 23, 2008 |
| Place: | Sheraton Dover Hotel
Dover, DE USA |
| The annual Delaware GIS Conference provides an opportunity to exchange ideas, share knowledge, and network with other professionals in the region. Each year this conference draws more than 200 geospatial professionals from a wide array of backgrounds including decision-makers, managers, educators, and state and local government staff. |
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| 2008 ESRI Business GIS Summit | |
| Date: | April 27 - 30, 2008 |
| Place: | The Drake Hotel
Chicago, IL USA |
| The ESRI Business GIS Summit is the leading forum for collaboration and networking with other users of business-focused GIS solutions. Business professionals from banking, health care, insurance, logistics, manufacturing, media, real estate, retail, utilities, and related industries are encouraged to attend. |
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| Location Intelligence Conference 2008 | |
| Date: | April 28 - 30, 2008 |
| Place: | Santa Clara Hyatt Regenc
Santa Clara, CA USA |
| Location Technology 2008 will focus exclusively on enabling technologies: Those hardware, software and data technologies that support and enhance the development, application and diffusion of core geospatial implementations to significantly improve performance and productivity. |
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| ASPRS Annual Conference | |
| Date: | April 28 - May 2, 2008 |
| Place: | Portland,
OR USA |
| Join ASPRS: The American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, April 28 to May 2, 2008, in Portland, Oregon for the ASPRS 2008 Annual Conference. The conference theme "Bridging the Horizons - New Frontiers in Geospatial collaboration" will offer an outstanding program of general and technical sessions looking to the future of the geospatial industry.
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| Introduction to ArcGIS 2 | |
| Date: | April 29 - May 1, 2008 |
| Place: | PHOENIX, AZ USA |
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This 3 day ESRI class delves deeper into ArcGIS functionality and the geodatabase. Students work on designing and creating a new geodatabase from the ground up and learn about geodatabase functionality along the way: annotation, topology, domains, subtypes, converting shapefiles and CAD data into the geodatabase, georeferencing raster data, and more. Other topics include advanced cartographic tools, labeling, geocoding, digitizing, and spatial analysis. It's a lot of bang for your buck! Time: 8:30 - 4:30 each day Price: $1,195 per person; $950 per person when 2+ from the same organization register. |
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| IMAGIN Annual Conference 2008: Michigan’s Premiere | |
| Date: | May 4 - 7, 2008 |
| Place: | Dearborn Inn
Dearborn, MI USA |
Improving Michigan’s Access to Geographic Information Networks (IMAGIN, Inc) in partnership with the Michigan Association of Planning, announces the 2008 May Annual Conference in Dearborn, Michigan. Share your expertise, enhance your professional development, and network with those leveraging geospatial applications and technologies with professionals across the Great Lake State and Region. This year’s conference will feature speakers and professional presentations featuring how GIS applications will strengthen our economic future. Additional topic areas will include server based applications, community planning/economic development, asset management, funding partnerships, real-estate valuation analysis, and an exhibitor presentations spotlighting the latest, innovative geospatial applications. Substantial discounts for early Conference registration are available online along with exhibition and sponsorship opportunities at www.imagin.org/conference. |
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| 2008 Washington State GIS Conference | |
| Date: | May 5 - 7, 2008 |
| Place: | Seattle Center
Seattle, WA USA |
The 2008 Washington State GIS Conference, "Integrating GIS Into the Enterprise” will be held Monday through Wednesday, May 5-7 in the Northwest Rooms at Seattle Center. WAURISA - the Washington State Chapter of the Urban & Regional Information Systems Association – is finalizing a program that includes a day of educational workshops, access to leading GIS vendors, and two days of informative speakers from all corners of the State. The conference is designed to help you learn from your colleagues, network with your peers, and build a solid GIS foundation for your career, your company, or your agency. |
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| Where 2.0 Conference | |
| Date: | May 12 - 14, 2008 |
| Place: | Burlingame, CA USA |
| Where 2.0 brings together the people, projects, and issues building the new technological foundations and creating value in the location industry. Join with other developers, technologists, CTOs, researchers, geographers, academics, business developers, and entrepreneurs to debate and discuss what's viable now, and what's lurking just below the radar. |
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| NGA Technology Day | |
| Date: | May 14, 2008 |
| Place: | Headquarters NGA
Bethesda, MD USA |
| Come see how NGA’s products and services are uniting the intelligence, defense, and homeland security communities through an integrated GIS architecture for web-based dissemination, analysis, and visualization. NGA’s solutions include real-time common operational pictures of information used to describe, assess, and depict physical features and geographically referenced activities. |
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| USGIF Technology Day | |
| Date: | May 15, 2008 |
| Place: | Sheraton Premiere
Tysons Corner, Vienna, VA USA |
| This unique annual event, produced in cooperation with NGA, provides an exclusive opportunity to truly examine next-generation technology offerings for those who have a mission focus of utilizing geospatial intelligence to solve national and global security challenges. TECH DAYS also lends itself to be a great venue to network in a low-key environment among an intimate tradeshow floor and yet not have to compete with keynote speakers or other agendas. |
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| Introduction to ArcGIS 1 | |
| Date: | May 15 - 16, 2008 |
| Place: | TUCSON, AZ USA |
This 2 day class from ESRI covers the basics of ArcGIS 9.2 software. You will learn about spatial data formats (shapefiles, coverages, rasters, geodatabases, CAD, etc.), working with tables, making maps, working with selections, coordinate systems, and editing spatial data. Time: 8:30 – 4:30 each day Price: $795 per person; $645 per person when 2+ from the same organization register. |
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| MapWorld '08 | |
| Date: | May 21 - 23, 2008 |
You can find the full GISCafe.com event calendar here.
To read more news, click here.
-- Susan Smith, GISCafe.com Managing Editor.