It’s obvious to anyone in the geospatial industry that Google Maps brought a wind of fresh air. They were not the first ones (e.g. OGC’s WMS standard exists since 1999) and MapQuest was popular at the time, but Google successfully increased global access to interactive maps thanks to Google Maps and Google Earth. Google Maps turned 10 years old and ...

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 ...

Here’s the last batch-mode edition, covering most of December. Might interest some of you, Slashgeo’s posts are now mirrored on Google+. Have an excellent holiday break. On the open source / open data front: More support for the standard, GDAL GeoPackage raster support Reading, The Book of OpenLayers 3, completed And another one announced, 2nd edition ...

Here’s the recent geonews in batch mode. On the open source / open data front: This is a must see, full instructions to Creating 3D terrains with Cesium Via O’Reilly, I became aware of Google’s open Material Design Icons on GitHub that can certainly be used for maps, reminiscent of the Maki and WorldWeatherSymbols amongst a few New lab, University ...

Here’s the recent Google-related geonews in batch mode. From official sources: Launched in, there’s a new Google My Maps available, Make your own way with the new My Maps, along with a My Maps Android app. This version allows users to “add images, descriptions, custom icons, and place details along the way” and user maps can be added to Google’s ...

Starting to catch up the numerous geonews of the past weeks covering our Summer break. Here’s the recent Google-related geonews. From official sources: A new ‘explore’ feature, Spend more time exploring with Google Maps 36 new University campuses in Street View, Take a college road trip with Street View From the official Google Geo Developers Blog, Recap of Google Maps ...

Catching up this month’s geonews after launching our new site yesterday, here’s the first in a series of ‘batch mode’ posts, this one focusing on Google-related geonews. From official sources: The Google I/O conference, here’s the official entry about Maps at I/O’14 with a list of geo-related sessions Football/Soccer? See the stadiums with Get a front row seat to ...

The shortage of public facilities for funerary service and the traditional social custom in Taiwan inevitably cause the NIMBY (not in my backyard) confliction when locating funerary facilities such as funeral home, memorial pagoda, and cemeteries, which might bring sustainability issues for landscaping, air pollution by crematorium, and noise pollution of traffic.

The existing funerary areas in Pingtung, Taiwan have caused loss of residential property value, a stagnant population growth and emigration, and pollution problems. To assist the local government in facilitating the economic development, Pingtung Senior High School adopted a GIS-based approach combined with the environmental concept of Feng-shui to deal with the location problem of crematorium and funeral home, environmental issues, etc.

In addition to overcoming possible objections by local residents and environmentalists, GIS allows Pingtung City Government, Taiwan to indentify the best location with in-depth GIS analyses to build crematory and consequently share the analyzed data with relevant government sectors for better town and country planning.

In this project, SuperGIS Desktop 3.1a, SuperGIS Network Analyst, and Address Locator enable the officials and the students to display, edit, manage, and query geospatial data, overlap the feature layers and satellite images of Pingtung county and city, as well as carry out buffer analysis for landscape planning. Besides, Google Earth was also used to explain the relevant topographic features, terrain, and land utilization types in the research area.

With Address Locator and Network Analyst, the officials can explore the relationship between land prices and other relevant factors. Not only helping the officials to find the best sites for crematorium and examine the differences between ideal locations and proper locations, SuperGIS Network Analyst also performs network analysis for supporting various kinds of applications such as transportation planning, logistic, pipe-line maintenance, and determination of retail potential.

After analyzing the six main factors, including water resources and watersheds, schools and hospitals, population densities of the districts, gas stations, transit access, as well as wind conditions, the result shows that the ideal locations for funerary facilities are different from the current ones chosen by the local government.

With GIS technologies, the government now can make wise decisions with more informed data on re-allocating funerary facilities and benefit from reducing huge costs in the maintenance of existing facilities.

Here's the recent Google-related geonews.

From official sources:

• The big news is certainly the Introduction of Google Maps Engine Pro: Helping businesses create, visualize and share their data on a map, from the announcement: "By importing data like addresses, names, office locations and sales leads from various file formats onto a map, businesses can edit, analyze and share their information in a simple format. Google Maps Engine Pro can be as easy to use as creating a document and it gives businesses an added productivity tool to help make decisions, organize information, and plan operations using Google Maps."
  • You can ask for an introductory account to test it for your business. And GeoAwesomeness shares a short entry about it providing some complementary details.
  • Google's Kurt led me to Google Maps Engine Connector for QGIS provided by Google themselves on GitHub, and there's the Google Maps Engine Connector for ArcGIS too, along with a Safe Software connector for FME announced for January
  • DM also shares a related entry named What is the Google Maps Engine Public Data Program?
• Google+ Hangouts now supports location sharing, ie sharing your current location
• Google tells the story of an Indian boy lost in 1986 who used Google Earth to finally find is home town decades later

From other sources:

• Unsurprisingly, Drive With Google Glass: Get a Ticket
• More competition is good, Patent Filing Reveals Samsung's Designs For Google Glass Competitor
• What about Using Google Earth to teach math (targetting 5-10th grade students)
• Cube Cities have an entry on Rent Rolls in Google Earth
• The GEB reports there's New 3D Imagery in Detroit, Salt Lake City, and likely other cities and there was the usual New Google Earth Imagery on October 21

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode. With FOSS4G next week, I expect exciting news soon!

On the open source / open data front:

• OpenStreetMap's State of the Map ended, here's an outsider overview, keywords: growing and healthy
• It's been a while since we mentioned that one, New MapProxy 1.6.0 released, a reminder, "It caches, accelerates and transforms data from existing map services and serves any desktop or web GIS client"
• GeoMoose is now officially an OSGeo project, reminder, it's an "Open Source Web Client JavaScript Framework for displaying distributed GIS data"
• Paul shows us Census Mapping Made Easy with open software

On the Esri front:

• Esri added Landscape Layers to ArcGIS, "over 60 layers are available at your fingertips as input to geoprocessing models and for the creation of beautiful and informative interactive web maps"
• Here's for next Tuesday, Check Out What’s Coming in ArcGIS Online
• Esri also introduced GeoEnrichment for JavaScript developers, which helps you "create a web app that’s full of interactive demographic, consumer spending, and lifestyle data for the viewers of your map"

On the Google front:

• The GEB shares More great Google Earth resources for teachers
• Google invites us to Explore the Galapagos’ biodiversity with Street View, and why not boats, Kurt shares the R/V Falkor in Street View and still on the same topic, Updated Street View imagery of tsunami-affected areas of northeastern Japan, including the exclusion zone
• Same old story still making the news, Court Declares Google Must Face Wiretap Charges For Wi-Fi Snooping when collecting data for StreetView
• In the trivia category, Court Orders Retrial In Google Maps-Related Murder Case
• Nice to look at, Tri-bridges around the world, three-way bridges

In the everything-else category:

• Bing Maps got a major imagery update, 13 Million Square Kilometers of Imagery, or 315.92 terabytes
• Here's a beautiful 4-minutes video on the last 50 years of the satellite industry made by DigitalGlobe
• Amazon improves its geo offerings with a New Geo Library for Amazon DynamoDB, allowing a basic set of spatial queries
• Another way Apple Maps will improve, Apple Working to Leverage New 'M7' Motion-Sensing Chip for Mapping Improvements
• Wired reviews the book The Lost Art of Finding Our Way by Harvard's John Edward Huth
• An OGC entry named Smart Cities Depend on Smart Location Communication
• Efforts mentioned before, 3 million data points collected by Safecast to warn Japan about radiation
• Yes, the NSA knows where you've been, NSA Can Spy On Data From Smart Phones, Including Blackberry
• Geoff has an entry on the successful use of satellite imagery to reduce illegal deforestation in Brazil
• On GhettoTracker and segregation through geospatial knowledge, Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'?
• When geospatial apps goes too far, New Smartphone Tech To Alert Pedestrians: 'You Are About To Be Hit By a Car', this other app might be more useful: Dangerous Neighbourhood? Kovert App Will Navigate With Vibration From Your Pocket
• In the maps category, Wired offers links and maps on The Geography of American Agriculture