Slashgeo

nan writes " A library for Google Maps to provide a simple, elegant interface to standard thematic cartography
It supports:

• Choropleth maps—sometimes known as heatmaps—color regions or polygons based on values.
• Pie charts at specified latititude/longitude points.
• Area scaled circles that represent clusters of points. Zooming in or out will re-cluster the points. Useful for large quantities of points. Individual points can contain unique values that will be summed to equal the value for a particular item in the cluster. Info balloons will be created as an ordered list of all the labels in the data set for a particular cluster.

" And it's open source. See also excellent related stories below.

Erik Olsson writes "During the Swedish event 24 Hour Business Camp, 120 Swedish entrepreneurs gathered to realize an idea in less than 24 hours. My project was a very efficient clustering suitable for normal users with normal servers. People outside the mapping world are generally not aware of spatial complexity in general, so it may not have been the best project to bring to the camp. I have a MSc in Geoinformatics and I've developed this clustering technology in my free time during the last months or so. The solution is based on Mysql and PHP. At the moment there are two implementations of the engine available: with data from Sweden's biggest site for classified ads, with data from one of Sweden's biggest property sites. Feel free to try it out. Best regards, Erik Olsson" See also related stories below.

Bull_UK writes "The original version of World Wind was built using .NET, but was switched to Java to promote cross platform development, this current incarnation has been recognised by NASA who have awarded it the NASA Software of the Year award. As a community member who has worked on this project for several years I feel this shows how the public and Government agencies can work together to produce great software, which is beneficial to the Government, Private sector and the public in general."

Inventis - ogr2gui writes "Inventis today announced the release of OGR2GUI version 0.6, the graphical user interface used to convert and manipulate geospatial data.

What’s new in this version?

• The migration of the GUI code to Nokia’s QT platform
• Now supports database formats such as Oracle Spatial, PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite and ODBC connections.
• Added support for GPX, GMT, GeoJSON, Geoconcept and FME Objects Gateway formats
• A new website for downloading and exchanging between users : www.ogr2gui.ca

OGR2GUI is based on OGR2OGR, a command line utility from the "Geospatial Data Abstraction Library” (gdal.org). Through its graphic interface, OGR2GUI allows to use all the power of OGR2OGR without worrying about its complex syntax. It brings speed, efficiency and accessibility to its users.

OGR2GUI is an open source project licensed under the GNU General Public License. Everyone in the developer community is invited to join. The source code and the binary executables for Windows and Linux can be downloaded at ogr2gui.ca

The development of OGR2GUI is connected to Inventis mission to promote data access and to deploy easy-to-use geospatial solutions. To date, hundreds of users in over 42 countries have adopted our application."

I haven't seen much headlines about this, however the Map Room Blog points to an article discussing some of the trouble. I personally have been tossed way off course on multiple occasions by Google Maps after the switch. It completely messed up my stored home location at one point, which put it in a different city. I think they need to seriously consider adding back the beta tag to the maps application. Visit the Map Room Blog for the link to the article, as it's a pretty interesting read.

Currently in discussion on slashdot : "MikeChino writes to mention that the European Space Agency has launched a pair of satellites, one that will pinpoint accurately the future location and intensity of floods and droughts, and the other aimed at testing new tech. Launched on a Russian rocket launcher from the Plesestk cosmodrome, the SMOS probe will measure soil moisture, plant growth, and ocean salt levels across the globe. The measurements gathered by the SMOS probe can be used to track ocean circulation patterns and soil moisture — data that can be used to predict quickly drought and flood risk in certain areas, as well as the intricacies of the planet's climate cycle. The other satellite, a smaller demonstration probe dubbed Proba 2, will test 17 new technologies ranging from a new wide-angle view camera to a xenon-fed resistojet thruster."

There is an article with video up on All Points Blog which has a UAV which can map a building, without requiring the use of a GPS. Here is the summary, be sure to check the article for the video : "Yes it comes from MIT -specifically, the Robust Robotics Group at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The mini buzzing quadcopter carries an array of sensors and scanners (including a camera and laser rangefinder) allowing it to explore and map without GPS or IMUs. It's smarter than a Roomba and the aerial version of PenBay's floor-based mappers."

Currently in discussion on slashdot : "Google Latitude has already made headlines for allowing phone users to locate their friends, and there are countless other iPhone and Android phone apps already designed to transmit your location — but could pets be the next big thing in GPS tracking? A number of device manufacturers are marketing GPS technology as a futuristic tool for tracking your cat or dog, and even discovering exactly where they've been. These devices are sold under a number of names and brands, including Sportdog, LoCATor, RoamEO, Petcell, Zoombak and Pettrack."

Found on the Engadget blog. Here is their summary : "There's certainly no shortage of impressive augmented reality games around these days, but it doesn't look like the folks behind the so-called Real Time Race will have any trouble turning a few heads with theirs, at least if they can actually deliver as promised. Their basic idea is to make use of some Google Street View-like technology to create a virtual reproduction of an actual race track, and pair it with some real-time data as the race is happening to let anyone that wants to take part in the race from the comfort of their home. While the current state of things still seemingly leaves a bit to be desired (check the video at the link below), the folks behind the game say they could be ready to hold their first race sometime next year -- assuming they're able to line up all the necessary rights and broadcast issues, that is. In the meantime, you can take the non-real time demo version for a spin."

A short note to let you know that geonews publication on the site will rely on other Slashgeo editors and should resume to full speed next week. Thank you for your patience.

That's the story discussed by Slashdot, Will Google and Android Kill Standalone GPS? Their summary: "xchg passes along a WiseAndroid piece on the drop in value of Garmin and TomTom shares following Google's announcement yesterday of Google Maps Navigation. "Shares of GPS device makers Garmin and TomTom plummeted... through a combination of their quarterly results and the launch of Google Maps Navigation. Following both low guidance for Garmin's next quarter as well as poor results from TomTom, shares for the two fell 16.4 percent and 20.8 percent respectively and remained low through the entire trading day after news of Google's free, turn-by-turn mapping service became public." Today Lauren Weinstein posted a number of reasons why standalone GPS won't go away any time soon." This topic was discussed previously, see previous stories below.

Here's an open source geospatial software that I just learned of its existence: Geopublisher allows you to quickly create digital multimedia atlases and publish them. From the What is Geopublisher? page: "Geopublisher is an atlas authoring system which allows easy publication of geo-data, documents, images, videos, and statistics in form of digital multimedia atlases. These atlases can be understood as minimal, pre-configured end-user GIS which offer selected functionality only where its meaningful. Geopublisher provides tools for quality assurance and multilingual meta-data management. No in-depth knowledge of HTML, SLD or XML is required to create an atlas. Atlases can be directly published on CD, DVD, memory stick, external hard-drive or the Internet. The software is platform-independent and Open-Source." Anyone has experience with it and would share impressions? Their website is well done.

A week ago High Earth Orbit shared an excellent entry on the need for clear data licenses for geospatial data. From the entry: "However, unlike the open source world, the legal and cultural frameworks in which to share data have not yet emerged. [...] In the media world, Creative Commons developed an ingenious mechanism of licenses with clear verbage and branding that makes it readily accessible by nearly anyone. [...] Instead, the current landscape of data licenses are all completely unique, incompatible, and difficult to understand. This situation is further complicated by the existing data business ecosystem that thrives on charging large amounts of money to write, verify, and mix unique data licenses and prescribe legal uses of multiple combined data sources. [...] However, even these two licenses have problems. CC0 is drastic in that it removes all copyright from the data, and so may not work with anything less than full, global release of data. Alternatively the ODbL is criticized for being “too left”, where there is an unclear potential that any utilization of data such as from OpenStreetMap would subsequently have to be released. This is similar to the GPL licenses, or “viral” licenses." Read the full entry and make sure you take a look at the comments. See previous stories below, we mentioned the ODbL (Open Database License) before.

A little over a week ago, Bjørn Sandvik of the Thematic Mapping blog and its open source engine shared his research paper named "Using KML for Thematic Mapping". From the blig entry: "My research paper, Using KML for Thematic Mapping, is now available for download (PDF, 2.3 MB). This is the first part of my MSc GIS thesis from University of Edinburgh. The second part of my thesis, describing the Thematic Mapping Engine, is already available on this page. The thesis was awarded with distinction and an invitation to Googleplex." See also previous thematic mapping stories below.

Geoweb Guru offers a book review of "Google Maps Mashups with Google Mapplets" by Michael Young. From the review: "This short book is an introduction to creating Google Mapplets - small web gadgets that are hosted by Google and use Google Maps. As well as introducing mapplets, the book builds a mashup application that uses scripts hosted on a separate website to poll and parse data for the mapplet. The book assumes some beginner-level knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Some knowledge of Google Maps and XML is probably also helpful. If you have a high level of expertise in these areas, then you can probably work out how to use mapplets effectively without the need for this book. However, the book could serve as a helpful get-you-started book for those with more limited knowledge. [...] So why would you want to buy this book and work with Mapplets instead of the more traditional Google Maps API? As well as the fact that Mapplets work as gadgets alongside Google Maps, they are hosted by Google. This takes care of a lot of the housekeeping chores - eg. having an API identifier, checking the browser is Google Maps compatible, etc. On the downside, Mapplets communicate with Google Maps asynchronously, and obtaining data from an external server (ie. the developer's) is more complicated." See also previous Mapplets stories below.