This is awesome. I love this name, especially for a navigation & mapping software company, FUGAWI. Who ever came up with it must of heard the innappropriate joke I once heard about being lost in the woods. [I'm stopping there.]
Perusing the front page of the Minneapolis StarTribune website, I came across a front page article on a geocaching event. I think this is one of the first times I’ve seen geocaching on the home page of a major metropolitan newspaper? Otherwise, I’m chalking this up as something out of MapServer’s backyard that’s pretty normal in Minnesota.
URL: http://www.startribune.com/332/story/387916.html
Geocaching — using global positioning system technology to find items hidden in parks — will be on display around the south-metro area Saturday during the South of the River Recreators’ first “Amazing GPS Family Race.”
Brady, I’ve been trying to track down your email address. I wanted to see if you wanted to hang at Where 2.0. There’s a lot we can discuss.
The kind folks at Very Spatial took note of my thoughts about the Sony-Intergraph patent MOA today. And I think we’re partially right, this could be about the PSP and the PS3.
Thinking this over today I realized something:
Could the PS3 be mobile and immersive?
Take your next-gen PSP controler-like ubiquitous computing device with you to locate, search, communicate, visualize, and play. Then go back to your main console and bridge your real world with your “WoW’d SecondLife” world.
Microsoft has thought about it, but is Sony actually going to do it?
Hmm? I wonder what Intergraph is up to these days?
h-t-t-p-:-/-/-w-w-w-.-i-n-t-e-r-g-r-a-p-h-.-c-o-m
Let’s see. . . Ooh! Colin Powell will be speaking at Intergraph 2006. Too bad we’ll all be at Where 2.o. . .
. . . Nuclear power . . . New York MTA . . .Intergraph Reaches Patent Agreement with Sony. . .
WTF!?!
Here’s some news for you PS3 conspiracy theorists out there: Sony & Intergraph have settled some patent sharing arrangement, where Intergraph gets $15 million from Sony. I wonder if this means Sony has something up its sleeve for LBS? Or, PS3?
As geospatial peeps we know who OGC is. Or, at least we should. Well, in a press release earlier this week OGC signed a MOA with the International Alliance for interoperability (IAI). This MOA between the two organizations is to work to strengthen interoperability “between systems used by the building infrastructure community and the broader geospatial, architecture/engineering/construction (AEC) and information technology (IT) communities.”
That’s a pretty good aim. “We map it, you build it, it all gets modeled together in GE/WW/AGX/Skyline/MapGrinder.”
I also wonder how this will play in with the Open Source Geospatial Consortium. Are we going to see the combination of GIS, LIS, and FM systems on one big globe soon?
I took the liberty of organizing the Where 2.0 agenda into something I could print out or send to other geographers in my office to spark their interest in going. I can’t believe O’Reilly wouldn’t put up an aggrigated schedule.
I really want to know what talks I should skip if I have to.
Anyway, below—in lengthy detail—is the order of the speakers.
BTW, I don’t really plan on skipping any of these.
Tuesday Welcome
Nathan Torkington, O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Date: Tuesday, June 13
Time: 9:00am - 9:15am
Location: Imperial BallromThe Geospatial Web: A Call to Action
Mike Liebhold, Institute for the Future
Date: Tuesday, June 13
Time: 9:15am - 9:45am
Location: Imperial BallromOpenStreetMap
Steve Coast, OpenStreetMap
Date: Tuesday, June 13
Time: 9:45am - 10:00am
Location: Imperial BallroomGeoHacking That Scales: OGC Standards Connect “Big” Science and “Little” Hacks
Raj Singh, Open Geospatial Consortium
Date: Tuesday, June 13
Time: 11:00am - 11:15am
Location: Imperial BallromGeoRSS
Mikel Maron, worldKit
Date: Tuesday, June 13
Time: 11:15am - 11:30am
Location: Imperial BallromFrom the Labs: Metacarta
John R. Frank, MetaCarta, Schuyler Erle, locative.net
Date: Tuesday, June 13
Time: 2:45pm - 3:00pm
Location: Imperial BallromLiberation from Geopolitcal Boundaries
Di-Ann Eisnor, Platial
Date: Tuesday, June 13
Time: 4:15pm - 4:30pm
Location: Imperial BallromMap Spam 2008: A Sanity Check
Perry Evans, Local Matters, Inc.
Date: Tuesday, June 13
Time: 5:00pm - 5:15pm
Location: Imperial Ballrom WednesdayWelcome
Nathan Torkington, O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Date: Wednesday, June 14
Time: 9:00am - 9:15am
Location: Imperial BallromThe Disappearing Data Problem
Steve Morris, NCSU Libraries
Date: Wednesday, June 14
Time: 9:45am - 10:00am
Location: Imperial BallromThe Best Geo Hacks of the Last 3,000 Years
Chris Spurgeon, American Public Media
Date: Wednesday, June 14
Time: 10:00am - 10:15am
Location: Imperial BallromPlazes
Felix Petersen, Plazes
Date: Wednesday, June 14
Time: 2:15pm - 2:30pm
Location: Imperial BallromLoki - A Case Study in Developing a ‘Mass Consumer’ LBS Application
Jed Rice, Skyhook Wireless
Date: Wednesday, June 14
Time: 3:45pm - 4:00pm
Location: Imperial Ballrom
This is a bit of news I picked up from my hometown newspaper, the Wright County Journal-Press, about how a number of Minnesota counties are seeking to end a contract with Nazca Solutions Inc. for a land records portal. It was reported by the Minneapolis StarTribune that the counties seek a refund of over $240,000 from Nazca due to the delays of developing the system.
I gotta say, this sucks for all parties. Nazca’s technology looks pretty schweet, but the company’s project management sounds like it could use a dose of the PMBOK.
Programming Note: The weather was terrible this weekend and when I wasn’t doing chores, playing with my kid, and spending time with my wife, I was reading OGC implementation specifications. Boy, what an exciting life I lead, eh?
So, there I was, reading the OGC OpenLS specification. Yawn. Then I thought, “this sounds a lot like the some of the directions microformat stuff that came up last week from Mix06.”
In my attempt to uncloud my ignorance, is this stuff simialar? Or, are they so far unrelated to one another that I should stick to my day job?
Patrolling the Federal Pages of the WashingtonPost.com, I came across an article about how U.S. Government policymakers are affecting the information that its scientists release to the public. In this article, it highlights the sensitivity of climate change as it relates to bureaucracy of government and the restrictions government scientists are beginning to face when it comes to publishing their findings.
I just wanted to note that if the government is funding scientific research, and policymakers don’t agree with the findings, tough. It’s science. Although, both the policymakers, administrators, and scientists could do a better job of placing their findings in context.
As with climate change, I like Harm de Blij’s method of placing global warming in context. He basically gives us a history lesson. . . From the beginning: 4 billion years ago. (No, I don’t think he was there to experience it all.) He explains the cycle of climate the earth has faced over millennia, and highlights the cold spells are SO much longer than the warm periods. He does this with a good laugh too, citing moments in recent history of cold snaps, such as when in the 1400’s climate change affected human geography and probably prevented the world from speaking Chinese, and more recently what some call The Little Ice Age.
Otherwise, this headbutting over terms deemed “sensitive” or “controversial” to restrict them to prevent an agency from headaches is just plain stupid. You have an obligation.
