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Author Archives: Sue

Census Bureau awards $500 million contract

The US Census Bureau has award a 6-year contract worth more than $500 million to Lockheed Martin for the 2010 Census Decennial Response Integration System (DRIS). They will also be working with IBM and several other companies. The press release didn’t go into too much detail, but it seems like the Census Bureau may be contracting most of the work for the next census, which would be a first.

You can read the article at GISuser.com

OpenStreetMap – open source web mapping project

This is an ongoing open source project based in the UK that I read about on Mappinghacks.com,
whose main goal is to provide free geographic data to anyone. openstreetmap was basically started because geographic data is not free in many countries, unlike sources like the National Map here in the US.

If you are interested in open source web mapping projects, check out openstreetmap.org

Earth Contest – Google Earth game

This free game uses Google Earth to play a kind of geocaching, where you launch the game from within Google Earth and follow the clues to various location checkpoints. If you find the envelope “hidden somewhere on Earth, you will advance to the Big Game.”

I haven’t played it myself yet, but I may give it a try in between actually trying to get my GIS work done.

For a basic tutorial, check out the Earth Contest website

Via Ogle Earth

VirtuSphere – Immersive Virtual Reality environment

One avenue of research in geospatial technologies and geovisualization is immersive Virtual Reality. One of the biggest issues is how to simulate moving through a real landscape. The VirtuSphere rotates as the user walks in any direction while wearing the head mounted display that delivers the virtual environment. I’m sure it’s not the only apparatus out there, but the fact that it’s portable and doesn’t require the extensive structure of a CAVE or other projection-based system is kinda cool

If you’d like to see some pictures and demo video, check out the VirtuSphere website

Via Technovelgy.com

David Rumsey on the Future of Mapping – via ITConversations

While we were at the Podcasting Symposium last week, we heard a presentation from the guy from ITConversations, which is an online catalog for audio presentations. They mainly cover IT related conferences and speakers, but some of them are relevant to geospatial technologies, and they are adding new links every day. You can check out the ITConversations website
here

David Rumsey’s talk on “The Past and Future of Mapping” listed on ITConversations is available here

ViewRanger : 3D landscapes on your mobile phone

Once again, something cool for people in the UK. ViewRanger 1.0 is a mapping application for mobile phones that gives you a 3D landscape display as an interface for accessing local information, using downloadable Ordnance Survey maps. Right now, it only works with certain phones, but if I lived in Britain, I would definitely be checking this out.

Even if you don’t live there, take a look at the ViewRanger website here

via Press Release at SpatialNews.com