Slashgeo

Here's several interesting recent articles and reprints from Directions Magazine. First is Adena's geospatial industry top ten of 2007, unsurprisingly generic but interesting nonetheless. There's a brief article from Microsoft's Bill Gail on public vs private remote sensing data: "The success of privately funded systems can be evaluated by spreadsheet, while that of publicly funded systems must somehow be related to diffuse concepts such as the value of a human life or animal habitat, scientific progress, and national prosperity/security." Then there's an article named creating an extensible GIS using SOA and web services, it's generic but pertinent: "An SOA [service-oriented architecture] approach can expand the benefits of proper communication by allowing more streamlined communications between systems, as well as people and processes." There's a note on the U.S. NGA support for Afghan Mapping Initiative: "As part of the initiative, NGA will install a nationwide geodetic network, procure and install a basic map production system, provide training and conduct joint AGCHO-NGA projects." There's an article on the future of mobile devices. There's an article named geography lessons for online retailers: "Knowing where and how Web visitors are accessing the Internet is fundamental to preventing online fraud and complying with regulations." Then there's an article on GIS integration in the transportation sector: "In some instances, a general shortage of knowledge regarding GIS capabilities makes the task of integration seem more complex and can unfairly outweigh the immense value, usefulness and functionality available." There's an interesting article from OGC's Sam Bacharach on geospatial standards and technology convergence: "Knowing what data to share and what data not to share is a balancing act, but in business and research, the game is clearly moving in the direction of openness. In both domains, of course, security, access, liability and intellectual property rights - implemented in automated service chains - are becoming very important policy and technical requirements." And the last one, a 2007 stock performance analysis of geospatial companies: "Stock market investing is never for the faint of heart, but clearly the location technology market sector is hot." Please allow this unusually long Slashgeo story, I'm still catching up geonews from the last four weeks.