Today, GeoIQ announced that they have joined Esri. It is not clear whether this is an acquisition or a merger, or what the nature of this arrangement is, other than the press release says Esri approached GeoIQ about joining their team and “merging technologies.” GeoIQ is a company dedicated to providing “GIS for everyone,” a popular position today, but the company’s goal is to create new mapping interfaces and change the geospatial market by doing so. The relationship with Esri enables GeoIQ to work within the ArcGIS platform and to reach their millions of users.
GeoIQ will be a presence in Esri’s efforts to create the next generation of GeoWeb technologies. Part of that effort will include a new research and development center in the Washington DC area. GeoIQ’s task at the development will focus on engineering core technologies for Esri, clearly utilizing GeoIQ’s experience working with open data and technology communities and real time and large data analytics. An ongoing project is “Twitch” which handles dynamic aggregation and visualitons of millions of points from social media streams with in-browser HTML5 support.
In a webcast presented by Carahsoft, Intermap representatives talked about the fact that they have “the world’s largest 3D terrain database with the one meter LE 90 accuracy and consistency.” LE 90 is a linear air of 90 percent, and is commonly used for quoting and validating DEMs. LE 90 value represents the linear vertical distance of 90 percent of control points, and the respective twin matching counterparts acquired in an independent geodetic survey should be found from each other. For the U.S., which most on this call is interested in, Intermap has mapped the entire lower 48 plus some of Alaska.
The young company Geofeedia offers aggregating capabilities of a new kind – assembling data from various social media sources such as Instagram, Twitter, Picassa and others – representing that data on a nice visual map with pins. Each source has a specific pin so that users can see the source and location of the data.
Geofeedia aggregates data from various social media sources such as Instagram, Twitter, Picassa and others - representing that data on a nice visual map with pins. Each source has a specific pin so that users can see the source and location of the data.
Since Eye on Earth just won an award at the Rio+20 Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero, it seemed fitting to reprint this article about the EEA and the role of Eye on Earth.
Article Reprinted from GISWeekly, June 20, 2011
The Vast Reach of the European Environment Agency
By Susan Smith
While in Copenhagen in late March of this year GISWeekly met with Stefan Jensen, head of information services group, SEIS support program that supports the implementation of INSPIRE and develops and maintains the EEA SDI related to user needs, metadata and data licensing and Jan Bliki, project officer, GIS system development for the European Environment Agency (EEA), an agency of the European Union.
European Environment Agency main building, Copenhagen
At Hexagon 2012 held in Las Vegas this past week, the opening of the Hexagon Online Marketplace, Hexagon’s Internet-based store, was announced. To many industry watchers, this is unprecedented. According to the press release, “the Hexagon Online Marketplace signifies the first ever Hexagon-level, direct-to-customer venture, and provides customers with a simplified method of purchasing select Hexagon products and services.” Those of us who have watched Intergraph, recently acquired by Hexagon, for many years, would not have thought this type of direct-to-customer marketing venture possible.
It is a sign of the times, however, where an online store allows customers of various professional backgrounds to explore high end offerings that have traditionally been the province of government and big commercial contracts.
On Monday Apple introduced a new version of its mobile operating system for iPhones and iPads that will bring a host of new features, including maps that let users soar over a three-dimensional rendering of a city, according to an article in The New York Times.
As was mentioned in this blog of a pre-announcement of Google Earth for mobile “(Pre-announcement of Google Earth for mobile made at Google event”) last week, the new map software replaces Google data with Apple’s own mapping system. This is a big step for a company that has considered Google a close partner up until now. Since Apple introduced the iPhone, it has relied on Google data to drive the mapping software. When Google released its Android platform, however, relationships between the two companies began to disintegrate. Not surprisingly as Android is the top mobile operating system in the world, putting Apple and Google head to head in several different markets.
Esri President and CEO Jack Dangermond talked to Computerworld magazine about the importance of mobile and cloud, the role of GIS in organizations, big data and consumer vs. enterprise mapping.
Pre-announcement of new features for Google Maps and Google Earth for mobile platforms was made yesterday at the “New Dimension of Google Maps” event. These features aren’t available to the public yet, but possibly announced as a precursor to the Apple iOS6 event next week. It is expected that Apple will announce that Google Maps will no longer be the default mapping application on iPhones. Since Apple has been acquiring companies and building their own mapping applications, they will be offering new mapping applications that will compete with what is offered on the Android phone. This may benefit users ultimately.
email
Facebook
Twitter
RSS Feed
