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We are happy to inform you that Slashgeo will be a proud media partner of the upcoming second edition of the FOSS4G (Free and Open Source Software For Geospatial) Europe Conference conference held at Politecnico di Milano – Como Campus, Italy, from July 14 through 17!

The conference will bring together some of the most fervent developers, users and promoters of FOSS4G from Europe and beyond; it will also foster closer interactions with and amongst European communities in order to share ideas for improving geodata, software and applications, openness, and availability of geographic information. FOSS4G Europe will be a high level conference, organized and chaired by a Committee of experts belonging to internationally acknowledged leading organizations in the fields of cartography, GIS and related domains (e.g. ICA, OSGeo, ISPRS, OGC, NASA).

The conference will start on July 14 with a fullday of workshops; scientific sessions will then take place on July 15, 16 and 17, while the code sprint will close the event on July 18. A day of workshops will precede the conference on 14th July, and a code sprint will close the event on 18th July. Detailed information about the conference is available on from the website: .

The Conference aims to bring together FOSS4G users and developers worldwide and foster closer interactions with and amongst European communities in order to share ideas for improving geodata, software and applications openess.

The gvSIG Association announces the publishing of the gvSIG 2.1 final version. This version, that is the first one based on the new architecture oriented to users, has a lot of new features as you can see now.

Besides the new functionalities and the correction of a great number of errors that have been detected thanks to the community collaboration, we want to highlight the availability of a distribution for Linux 64 bits and portable versions for Windows as well as for Linux. Together with the gvSIG 2.1 releasing we publish the new gvSIG website, that includes the old gvSIG Association website as well as the project one, and at the same time a knowledge portal about the gvSIG technology. Besides this new website will be to make the new products of the gvSIG catalog visible, like gvSIG Roads or gvNIX.

We want to take advantage of this announcement to thank all the people that have collaborated in making this new version reality, and all the entities that have counted on the gvSIG Association services to solve their needs on geomatics, helping to guarantee the sustainability of the project at this way. We hope you enjoy all the novelties of this version. We hope is a year with a lot of novelties, where gvSIG 2.1 and the new website are the first of them. Be aware of them!

Bloggage update: As I went solo in the new year, I collected my previous works also seen in the blog banner map gallery, and posted the Esri maps as a map story. I was inspired by the Smithsonian’s use of this vehicle, which Dawn Wright pointed out to me, after I published a feature on Map Stories in the Anthropocene Review. This follows Esri’s David di Biase’s take that the new text books will not be textbooks per Adena Schutzberg. So stay tuned for petroleum apps that blend my work in petroleum geoscience and volunteered geography.

From Adena’s article: “That makes the appearance of interactive maps in them most welcome. Not only do these new maps portend more engaged and spatial literacy, they also provide a window into the learning devices that may lie ahead. Students searching and zooming in on in-text interactive maps will get a taste of what self driven learning without boundaries might feel like.”

The aim of the Cátedra gvSIG is to create a meeting point for users interested in free space technologies. In order to foment an environment of shared knowledge and participating in the dissemination of free geomatics, the chair organizes this international contest to encourage all gvSIG users and free Geographic Information Systems users to share and give visibility to their work. Students and graduates in high school, professional training and university, as well as university professors and researchers from all countries can participate in this contest.

To enter to the competition you must meet the following requirements: Works must be done with free Geographic Information Systems and the subject of the work may address any area of knowledge. Works may have been made in or before, the papers may be presented collectively and individually and jobs may be sent in Spanish, Valencian or English. In the event the work is based on a new development done through free and open source GIS geospatial technologies, these papers must be subjected to GNU / GPL v3 license.

Among the selected works a prize of 500 euros will be awarded for each of the following categories:

1. Work produced by students of highschool or professional training
   
2. Final University’s Project (Bachelor, Degree or Master)
   
3. Doctoral thesis or research paper.

Submissions should be sent no later than November 1. Selected documents will be published in the repository of the Miguel Hernández University. The jury will evaluate the methodology, clarity and innovative nature of the work, assessing as well the relevance and applicability of the research. Winners will be announced in the next International gvSIG Conference [1].

The Google Earth Blog (independent from Google) found out that Google Earth Pro is now free, it was formerly $400 per year.

There hasn’t been an official announcement yet, but as pointed out by a GEB reader, “the Google Earth licence support page for languages other than English states that from January 20th, the licence is free.” The GEB lists some features available in the Pro version not available in the Free version: “Although many of the extra features found in Google Earth Pro will only be useful to GIS users, a few features that our readers have expressed interest in using are: the built in movie maker, area and perimeter measurements and the ability to turn off terrain completely.” You’ll find more details about what the Pro version has to offer on the Google Earth Pro official webpage. Wikipedia lists GIS data importation and advanced printing modules part of its features.