In familiar Year end Top 10 fashion, the following are stories that stood out in my mind as making an impact on the GIS and geotech industry. These really are awesome stories and share some amazing success stories coming out of the community. Some of the topics that made an impact on the industry and made loads of headlines this past year include: The end of Landsat, OpenStreetMap, the crowd, mobile technology, OpenData and more. The following is Part 1 of the stories that jumped out at us and made a big impact on the GIS industry during the first half of 2013.
The end of an era…
Mission Accomplished for Landsat 5 – The U.S. Geological Survey announced that Landsat 5 will be decommissioned over the coming months, bringing to a close the longest-operating Earth observing satellite mission in history. By any measure, the Landsat 5 mission has been an extraordinary success, providing unprecedented contributions to the global record of land change – Jan 2013
Helping rebuild Jopli, MO…
JOMONOLA Bicycle Tour Looks to Help Rebuild Joplin, MO – This awesome story comes from Jerrod Hogan, a Land Surveyor in Joplin, MO and the co-founder and un-paid exec director of a nonprofit called Rebuild Joplin. Today we are on the ground in New York partnering with Tunnel 2 Towers, Friends of Rockaway and We Build New York. Together, hosted a bicycle tour fundraiser called JOMONOLA
Maps and Guns…
The Controversial Lohud Map: Where are the gun permits in your neighborhood? – An interesting map in the news recently reveals the locations of people who have applied for and received a gun permit. Naturally, as you can expect, the privacy implications of this latest mapping effort by lohud.com have many folks up in arms…
More Imagery for all…
NASA Launches New Earth Observation Satellite to Continue 40-Year Legacy – NASA’s Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) roared into space at 1:02 p.m. EST (10:02 a.m. PST) Monday aboard an Atlas V rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Farewell GITA…
File this one under the category of "OOPS"!! Rumors of GITA’s demise are much exaggerated! – A note from the GITA president, Talbot Brooks, as he discusses plans for moving forward as GITA transitions to an entirely volunteer run org – as Talbot says, "Rumors of GITA’s demise are much exaggerated!"
ArcGIS as a platform…
Dangermond Outlines GIS As A Platform at Federal User Conference #fedgis – Thanks to Esri for making the Esri Federal User Conference plenary from Esri President Jack Dangermond immediately available to all of us via the conference website – From Jack… Apps are becoming the language, more sensors resulting in Big Data — "The whole new world of apps is changing science, changing policy planning and more. The outcome is pervasive GIS knowledge everywhere. We have the technology that can make is pervasive on all devices – allowing new user experiences"
Mobile is king…
108 billion mobile applications will be downloaded in 2017 – Berg Insight forecasts app revenues to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17 percent to reach € 14.1 billion in 2017. Apple’s App Store is the clear leader in monetisation of mobile apps and will keep the number one position during the forecast period. Google Play and Windows Phone Store are anticipated to be number two and three respectively in 2017.
OpenGeo surges…
OpenGeo Completes $3 Million Series A Financing – OpenGeo, the creators of the OpenGeo Suite, the world’s leading open source geospatial software platform, announced a $3 million Series A investment from Vanedge Capital of Vancouver, British Columbia. Simultaneous with the funding event, the company has spun out from its incubator parent, OpenPlans, and is boosting OpenGeo’s product and customer-support initiatives. As we now know, the company would go on with even more investment capital and a name change / rebranding as Boundless
OpenData… Giddy up!
Province of B.C, Canada forges ahead with OpenData initiatives – This week a special Open Data Summit took place in Vancouver, B.C where about 120 government folk and stakeholders took part in the discussion around the topic of OpenGov and Open Data. In a report from the event, it was good to see that the topic of standards was quite important and discussed from the get go, also citing the success of the Google open transit feed data spec in helping to open and share data with the public. This was one example of many where a local / regional government made great strides in opening up.
The Crowd…
Citizen Feedback Drives More Efficiencies and a New Look for Maryland’s Official State Website – Governor Martin O’Malley recently unveiled the State of Maryland’s new and improved official website,www.Maryland.gov, introducing the most user-friendly and engaging portal yet. The new Maryland.gov design is based on industry best practices, the latest web and mobile technologies, and focus group feedback gathered from across the state to incorporate the preferences and expectations Marylanders have for their state government website
OSM gains momentum…
The 2013 OpenStreetMap (OSM) Report – over 1 million contributors! – Just in time for the 2013 SOTMUS event taking place June 8-9 in San Fran, The 2013 OpenStreetMap Data Report – some stunning and interactive data visualizations that show how active the OpenStreetMap community is, how fast it continues to grow, and how competitive the open data community is becoming.
DevMeetUps and networking…
Take Aways, ArcGIS and Mobile Developer tips, Photo Gallery and tricks from #DevMeetUp Colorado – A huge thanks to the EDN DevMeetup crew for hosting DevMeetUp in Fort Collins, Colorado (there was also an event in Tucson, AZ as well). About 100 of us GeoGeeks joined the EDN crew to socialize and talk geo, DevSummit, Javascript, mobile, and other related matters – DevMeetup is all about connecting and networking. These meets took place all over the country and helped to drive the social reach of the GeoGeek – kudos to Esri for continuing with these fine events.
STEM and employment…
Half of students with STEM degrees are unable to find STEM related employment – Recently, the Economic Policy Institute released a report that challenged conventional wisdom; the report says that over half of students with STEM degrees each year are unable to find STEM employment upon graduation. An interesting look at the new age of employment for students and the challenges many are facing in sTEM related careers.
Crowd sourcing the National Map…
USGS Want You to Help Update and Crowd Source the National Map – The agency is looking for crowd participants to help enhance the National Map and currently has some 18 States open for data editing, updates, and new features. Using an OSM style effort, volunteers will update the maps, add features and even adopt a quad of their own! Register for a free account and watch for more functionality and fun features to come. The Federal government has continued to open up and also take advantage of the crowd and crowd-sourcing – well done! Simple editing of OSM for all…
First Look – Editing OpenStreetMap (OSM) Just Got Easy, Really Easy! – I’m sure that many (if not most) of you have often wanted to mess around with OSM and add/edit some features but were a little lazy – I’m guilty! But now we have no excuse thanks to the new OpenStreetMap in-browser map editing tools available from the iD Editor – OSM is HUGE, there’s no doubt about that and so when OpenID rolled out it then became even easier for anyone to get involved in building the OpenStreetMap
