Here’s the recent geonews in batch mode, covering most of September up to today. On the open source / open data front: It’s there now, announcing the release of The Book of OpenLayers 3 Be ready, within a year we’ll have all SRTM-DEM Level-2 (30m) data for the whole world, NGA Releases Hi-Res Elevation Data Here’s the Heron Mapping Client, ...

The geodatabase is the common data storage and management framework for ArcGIS. It combines “geo” (spatial data) with “database” (data repository) to create a central data repository for spatial data storage and management. It can be leveraged in desktop, server, or mobile environments and allows users to store GIS data in a central location for easy access and management. Learning ...

Here’s the latest geonews in batch mode. On the open source / open data front: Ready for FOSS4G, the geospatial open source software collection named OSGeo-Live 8.0 has been released Pictures tell you everything, OpenStreetMap contributions around the world Informative charts, The OpenStreetMap Contributor Activity Report – Edition We mentioned QGIS Cloud two years ago, here’s an entry ...

Here’s the recent geonews in batch mode. On the open source / open data front: A webinar Friday next week named Introducing the QGIS Academy Project Nice to see, Over 1 million New York City buildings and addresses imported to OpenStreetMap Because that’s the kind of maps we want to show our friends, Showing geotagged photos on a Leaflet map ...

This is an unusually long edition of the geonews in batch mode, covering all of our Summer break. On the Esri front: A nice summary, Twelve Things Worth Knowing from Esri User Conference Q&A More options is good, Introducing Esri’s World Elevation Services It’s not ‘beta’ anymore, ArcGIS Open Data production APB discuss the upcoming 64-bits friendly ArcGIS Pro ...

Completing the catching up of all the geonews for June. From the Esri front: Esri is Introducing GeoPlanner for ArcGIS “a new premium web app focused on meeting the needs of planning and design professionals across a wide range of industries” GeoAwesomeness discusses ESRI’s new GIS MOOC: Going Places with Spatial Analysis There’s New Landscape layers on ArcGIS Online and ...

This new software was announced last week. I waited for more information and reactions before sharing it with you, but I haven't found any solid analysis or reviews so far. Esri announced the ArcGIS Pro beta program.

From the announcement: "Esri is pleased to announce the beta release of ArcGIS Pro, which is a new ArcGIS for Desktop application that provides many exciting features. ArcGIS Pro is designed for GIS professionals who need to visualize, edit, and perform analysis—in both 2D and 3D. All current ArcGIS for Desktop customers are invited to download ArcGIS Pro and participate in its beta program. Your work in ArcGIS Pro is organized into projects, which bring together all the resources you need to complete your GIS tasks. You can store as many maps and layouts as you need in the same project, and you can open multiple maps at once and view them side by side. You can package your projects to collaborate with others, or share your work as web maps and web layers. ArcGIS Pro can use local data, as well as content from your ArcGIS Online or Portal for ArcGIS organization. ArcGIS Pro is a 64-bit, multi-threaded application with a modern user experience that runs on the Windows platform."

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode.

On the open source / open data front:

• We talked about the beta OpenAddresses in, now OpenAddresses has launched
• Here's thoughts from State of the Map US and Peter Batty's report of SofM US, including the new Vector Tiles for OpenStreetMap and discussion over licensing
• A new open source project, the missing CSW library for JavaScript: csw4js
• Using QGIS? Learn more about Composition styling in QGIS 2.2
• In software updates, GeoServer-Manager 1.6.0 released and GeoTools 10.6 Released

On the Esri front:

• Good news for standards, support for OGC GeoPackage specification in ArcGIS.
• A fourth Esri app for iPad and iPhones, Now Available: Explorer for ArcGIS on iPad and iPhone, "Explorer for ArcGIS gives you a first class experience for accessing your geospatial data on a mobile device."
• More openness at Esri, ArcGIS Solutions symbols now have a repo on GitHub, of course, don't forget about the open Maki geo-symbols
• There's an upcoming free  online seminar on Arc2Earth and Using Google Maps Inside Esri’s ArcGIS
• Esri has a New Ocean Basemap

On the Google front:

• We can now browse StreetView "historical" imagery, Go back in time with Street View
• The two are slowly merging, The long history of Google Earth in Google Maps
• Interesting, a book on The History of the World with Google Earth
• In the official Google blog, The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving, and Slashdot discusses Google Using Self-Driving Car Data To Make Cars Smarter
• Eyes in the sky, Google Buys Drone Maker Titan Aerospace
• Ogle Earth shares an entry named What does Crimea tell us about Google?
• As there frequently is, New Google Earth Imagery – May 1, and this one too, New Google Earth Imagery – April 16

In the miscellaneous category:

• Want to understand MapBox via educational guides? Introducing Mapbox Foundations and they also have two new products, Mapbox Launches Smart Directions and Introducing Mapbox Outdoors
• In Europe? The final Copernicus Regulation has been published, "Copernicus, previously known as GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), is the European Programme for the establishment of a European capacity for Earth Observation."
• Impacts of Ukraine, Russian sanctions have killed Canadian satellite launch
• Not the first we mention this, The Commoditization of the Earth Observation Satellite Business
• Google Glass? You can build your own, DIY Wearable Pi With Near-Eye Video Glasses
• O'Reilly has a long and informative entry on iBeacons, privacy, and security
• Also Apple-related, Apple acquired 24 companies in the past 18 months, including several mapping apps, including BroadMap, Embark, HopStop, Locationary, and WiFiSlam, along with other notable additions like 3D company PrimeSense
• And yes, Apple and Google can work together sometimes, Google's 'Project Tango' Smartphone Uses Apple's PrimeSense Technology
• MapQuest playing nice with popular open source libraries, Announcing MapQuest Plugins for Leaflet on Licensed and Open Data
• Remote sensing and mapping of citizens, Eyes Over Compton: How Police Spied On a Whole City
• If you haven't heard of 'Nearby Friends' yet, New Facebook Phone App Lets You Stalk Your Friends
• It's Facebook so it must matters? ;-) Facebook acquires activity-tracking app Moves
• A discussion regarding The Best Parking Apps You've Never Heard Of and Why You Haven't
• 3D coming to your phone? Amazon's Smartphone with 3D Capabilities Revealed in New Photos
• Based on where you live, UK Life Expectancy and Spatial Analysis

In the maps category:

• Via APB, a map of the Countries With The Worst Suicide Rates
• Wired published a story named 400 Years of Beautiful, Historical, and Powerful Globes
• Also from Wired, 18 Maps From When the World Thought California Was an Island
• An atlas, Global Renewable Energy Atlas
• TMR mentions two books about Art and Personal Mapmaking
• And if you're into poems, Map – poem by Wislawa Szymborska

Last Thursday Esri announced the launch of the 'ArcGIS Open Data' initiative in beta. Having this major player enhancing access, in their own way, to open geospatial data can only help.

From their announcement: "Starting today any ArcGIS Online organization can enable open data, specify open data groups and create and publicize their open data through a simple, hosted and best practices web application. [...] For you Data Providers, you can participate in open data in a few ways. Foremost you can specify open data groups and items in your organization. By doing so, you indicate to the community that this data is open to be shared, downloaded, and reused in other open data sites and applications. You don’t need to actually host your own site for your data to be valuable to others. [...] On the other side, Data Consumers such as citizens, businesses and developers can begin using their local open data sites to quickly access and download data in a variety of common formats: KML, Spreadsheet (CSV), Shapefile, GeoJSON and GeoServices. As the US Open Data Institute recently noted suggested the impact to opening government data if software had ‘Export as JSON’ by default. That’s what you now have. Users can also subscribe to the RSS feed of updates and comments about any dataset in order to keep up with new releases or relevant supporting information."

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode.

On the open source / open data front:

• Here's AmigoCloud's open source GDAL/OGR plugin for ArcGIS
• I learned about dat, an open source 'data management package' with revision control, with similarities (competing with?) with GeoGit, related, GeoGit for Python: Announcing geogit-py
• We already told you about GeoJSON over GitHub, but you can go further with GitSpatial, a spatial API for GitHub-hosted GeoJSON files
• MySQL trying to catch up PostGIS, MySQL 5.7 GIS building on Boost Geometry
• GeoA shares an entry on StoryMap JS: Tell your own story using the Open-Source Story Map tool
• Amongst recent software updates, MapTiler 0.5.3
• More editing ahead, 500,000 km2 Satellite Imagery Update for OpenStreetMap Tracing, meanwhile you can do it yourself; Drone Adventures Imagery for Tracing in OpenStreetMap: Fukushima + Lima

On the Esri front:

• 'Explorer for ArcGIS', yes, that's for this month on iOS, Explorer for ArcGIS is coming!
• Interoperability, Using OpenLayers to work with REST and OGC services from ArcGIS Server
• 2TB of new imagery, New DigitalGlobe content released in World Imagery basemap
• Updated, ArcGIS API for JavaScript Version 3.9 Released
• Becoming open, Esri ArcGIS Open Data Update

On the Google front:

• That's it, anyone in the U.S. can finally buy their own Google Glasses, but if you want one, you need to buy it on Tuesday April 15 or wait until it becomes really available to everyone, anytime, Anyone Can Buy Google Glass April 15 and directly over CNN, Google Glass available to anyone for one day only - and yes, quantities are limited
• A generic and informative article About Google Earth Imagery
• With the data layer, Build a map infographic with Google Maps & JavaScript
• Maps everywhere, USGS Maps in Google Maps Gallery
• Angkor Wat, Wander through Angkor’s thousand-year-old temples on Street View
• Another article on The obscured areas of Google Earth

Discussed over Slashdot:

• Thanks open licenses, New York Public Library Releases Over 20,000 Hi-Res Maps
• Another way to do 3D viz,  3D Display Uses Misted Water
• Taxi sharing, Taxis By Algorithm: Streamlining City Transport With Graph Theory
• Still possible in, Russian GLONASS Down For 12 Hours
• Crowdsourced traffic app, In Israel, Class-Action Plaintiff Requests Waze Source Code Under GPL
• Location privacy once again, London's Public Bike Data Can Tell Everyone Where You've Been
• A map of submarine cables, Oxford Internet Institute Creates Internet "Tube" Map
• Another kind of map, Physicists Produce Antineutrino Map of the World
• Thanks OpenStreetMap once again, Racing To Contain Ebola, the map on MapBox: Mapping an entire city in a day

In the everything else category:

• We never specifically addressed the TopoJSON format, which is topological GeoJSON, related, GeoJSON for linked data, The GeoJSON-LD project
• A post that clearly demonstrates why GML was never a good solution: GML madness, hope GeoPackage will be a better one
• We never really mentioned the Internet of Things yet, worth reading a bit about this current buzz word since it has obvious geolocation ties, related, The Internet of Things forecasted to include 26 billion intelligent devices by
• Another informative entry on what is geofencing, Geofencing And My Business
• An why not, Cloak – location-based anti-social app lets you avoid annoying friends and exes
• A Make article on DIY Satellites: Now and Near Future and another one named Your Own Satellite: 7 Things to Know Before You Go
• Here's why remote sensing is a profession, Earth observation data and revenue generation; the catch and guidelines and it's evolving fast, Earth observation satellite startups set to transform the EO imaging ecosystem
• Corporate privacy is dead too, monitor Saudi Arabia oil reserves from satellites, Monitoring Oil reserves from Space

In the maps category:

• GeoCurrents offers a series over Ukraine, Ukrainian Regionalism and the Federal Option, Energy Issues in the Ukrainian Crisis and Russian Envelopment? Ukraine’s Geopolitical Complexities, also related, How cartographers should map Crimea?
• In the UK? UK Air Pollution Forecast Map
• Maps is money, The interactive map of taxi trips in New York city
• And a map of companies and their worldwide presence OpenCorporates Maps by KILN
• Fiction maps, The Secrets and Clues of the Official Game of Thrones Maps and why not, The Geology of 'Game of Thrones'