This past week, Google Maps and Tele Atlas agreed to a five-year partnership. The Dutch-based mapping company will provide Google with more maps and geographic data, allowing Google to disseminate the information to over 200 countries. The agreement broadens Google Maps and Google Earth, but also allows for a mobile platform – specifically for the much anticipated Google Android.

After the release of ArcGIS 9.3 last week, ESRI has now made web help available. The help documentation is apparently very easy to understand. A few of the help features include ArcGIS 9.3. shortcuts, PDF Support and nominal scaling.

As Bill Gates retired, we take a look back at his predictions on mapping. In 1995, Gates said, “You’ll be able to jump into a map so you can navigate down a street or through the rooms of a building.”

EveryBlock, a virtual map that keeps track of news for every city block in Chicago, New York and San Francisco, just added Charlotte and Philadelphia to the list.

Popularity: 12% [?]

With Monday’s unveiling of Google’s Map Maker, Google account holders now have the ability to edit and add to certain Google Maps. The Map Maker currently only allows for map editing in a select group of countries including Cyprus, Iceland, Pakistan, Vietnam and the Caribbean nations. Functions of the tool include custom map creations, borders and regions, places of interest and road networks.

ESRI released their downloadable application, ArcGIS Explorer 480, this week. The upgraded version still offers the same basic function of geoprocessing services, but with major improvements such as KML improvements and increase in performance.

Nokia acquired Plazes, an LBS social mapping network. Plazes provides updates of friends’ activities in a find me/follow me type of service. The social mapping application will take Nokia one step closer to “bringing people and places together” and also acknowledges the rise and demand of LBS.

Microsoft and Virtual Earth launched a program that allows state and local governments to share their imagery, called GoVE. All of the imagery from these governments, municipalities and aerial photographers gets sent to Microsoft, which in turn is published by Virtual Earth.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Jessica Wyland of Spatial Sustain and V1 Magazine discusses the role of GIS when measuring carbon footprints. Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) scientists are using GIS to measure ‘carbon-rich biomass in heavily wooded areas to indicate the effect that deforestation and land use have on rising carbon levels in our atmosphere.’ Through GIS, the researchers are able to study and review changes and use maps to model the effects of different future land-use and carbon-related decisions.

GIS Blog discusses the ability of people to recognize maps made with GIS and the improvements needed for the quality of maps. One of the problems was “users of the maps (be it clients, project managers, creators) don’t value cartography. The savings of quickly producing a map outweighs excellent cartography.”

GISuser reports that through the partnership of Reutech Radar Systems and 3D Laser Mapping, field mapping robots are able to make intelligent decisions in virtual real time. The advanced laser scanning system supplies the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa with research into intelligent field robotics for studies relating to perception, mobility and navigation.

Mapping is officially taking new heights in the health sector. According to the Mapufacture blog, an article, entitled The Great Health Mashup provides the benefits of combining and visualizing numerous geospatial data streams together to help with awareness and decision making. Other reports, such as HealthMap, provide a global disease alert map.

Popularity: 16% [?]

We had the opportunity to catch up with James Fee at Spatially Adjusted and Planet Geospatial to get his opinion on the current and future state of GIS and the GeoWeb. James is a certified GIS Professional (GISP) and GIS developer, analyst, and consultant and has spent the last decade implementing, developing and consulting on GIS projects. He has experience with almost all of the large players in the geospatial field such as ESRI, MapInfo, Manifold, OSGeo (MapServer, GDAL, QGIS, OpenLayers), MapDotNet, Oracle, Microsoft and Google.

FortiusOne: Where do you see GIS going in the next 10 years?

James Fee: I think data and collaboration will be huge in the next 10 years.  The explosion of Neogeography and projects such as OpenStreetMap have brought many new faces into GIS.  Not only are we seeing spatial data being pushed out to the public at large, but this data is beginning to be integrated into GIS workflows.  We’ll begin to see metadata and documentation of these datasets as well making them very valuable.  

While freely sharing data has been great, the next logical step is allowing companies to monetize their datasets, share as easily.  The ability to pay and use data services should revolutionize the industry.  The price of data hasn’t really been a limiting factor yet, but the difficulty of integrating these datasets into online mapping or even in desktop GIS has hurt adoption.  In addition the speed of geospatial data services has been poor so moving these services into the Cloud should improve performance and increase profitability given that there is no need for large overhead (such as servers, or bandwidth).

FortiusOne: Will there be convergence between GIS and the GeoWeb to the point that they become indistinguishable?

James Fee: Possibly, I think this have been the holy grail that everyone has been trying to attain.  GIS by its nature is complex and you generally need complex solutions to complex problems.  That said I think we’ll see many operations that were the domain of GIS begin to be part of the GeoWeb.  Basic geoprocessing over the web via an easy-to-use interface can satisfy a vast number of use cases of general users without hitting them over the head with a steep learning curve.  

Usually moving GIS to general uses has been by giving them the kitchen sink and expecting them to figure it out.  Simple solutions to their “simple” problems is how we’ll see GIS and the GeoWeb converge.  Over time more and more “complex” analysis will be available to use by just about anyone with a computer, but I’m not sure we’ll see that in the next 10 years.

FortiusOne: Do datasharing and crowdsourcing have a place in GIS?

James Fee: Yes, but the problem is how do you give GIS professionals the ability to use the data and make decisions about its accuracy.  I guess it brings up the question, do you trust a Biologist in the field with at GPS more than a hobbyist?  I’d guess most GIS professionals would pick the Biologist, but a degree in Biology doesn’t mean the data is necessarily good.  

Datasharing and crowdsourcing are great ideas but for GIS to use them, they need metadata, documentation, and possibly a rating system.  A “marketplace” should allow users to rate the quality and accuracy of the data which both helps others make decisions about the data and gives feedback to the creator on how they can improve their dataset.  OpenStreetMap has been a great example on how “experts” can help “novices” grow to be experts in data collection.

FortiusOne: Should there be a marketplace for online geodata?  

James Fee: Totally, I think there has to be.  First off, you need some place users can feel comfortable buying data.  Second you need a place where data can be rated and reviewed.  Third you need a place where data providers can put their information in the cloud for quick and easy access buy everyone.  If someone is investing time and energy into creating their data, I don’t see any reason they can’t be rewarded for this.  

I think some data will be available via micropayments and other data will be very expensive (or the ability to pay for read only data vs editable data).  Having some place where users can go to both sell and buy data, search for data, and review data is critical today.  Sure Google will index spatial data, but being able to go to a focused marketplace will put buyers and sellers together quickly.  And at least today, any site that sells data should be compatible with ESRI software.  Offering up data types that aren’t compatible with ESRI will limit any marketplace.

FortiusOne: What emerging technology trend will have the biggest impact on GIS?

James Fee: I think putting a GPS in so many “ordinary” things is going to impact GIS immensely.  Walking around with a GPS in your phone should give you access to many GIS applications, digital cameras and video cameras with GPS will spatially enable tons of datasets.  

FortiusOne: What is your reaction to the Google – ESRI announcement?

James Fee: We’ll have to see what impact this really has.   It isn’t revolutionary the idea that Google might index GIS servers, the hard part is getting all these traditional ESRI clients to open up their data is the challenge.  They’ll need to see the benefit to allowing users to view their data in any way they choose rather than the traditional hard to use ESRI web mapping front end.  

FortiusOne: What impact will Google have on GIS?

James Fee: Google has already had a huge impact on GIS.  At a minimal level, it has already allowed GIS users to search for data sets.  Google Maps has totally changed how web mapping is used and displayed on the internet, Google Earth has pushed 3D GIS to the mainstream and now their geo search 2.0 and geo sitemaps they pushing spatial searching.  Google has been really good about getting spatial data in front of everyone in a way everyone can use it.  GIS has learned much from this and the new tools coming out by ESRI, Autodesk, etc. all are very “Google-like”. 

Popularity: 28% [?]

Are paper maps no more? GIS Lounge reports that the cartography division of the California State Automobile Association is slowly being phased out. The cause for the demise is the widespread availability of online map directions and in-car navigation units which cut demand for the paper maps by 13% in 2007.

The Geospatial Semantic Web Blog shares some good news for the semantic web community. The U.S. Security and Exchange Commission recently proposed a timetable requiring 500 of the largest public companies to begin filling their financial data using XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language). This will create a mass amount of free and real-world data for research.

Speaking of data, Anand at DataWocky answers the question of why the world needs a new database system. He discusses high volumes of data that are not being utilized due to scalability. He points to the newly launched Aster Data which is a database system natively designed and architected from the ground up for a new hardware platform: commodity clusters.

Google Earth has a new browser plug-in, which continues its roll out of Google Map API for Flash and Google App Engine. Released with it is the very extensive Google Earth JavaScript API for writing 3D map applications. Moxie thinks that this has opened a new page for GeoWeb visualization.

Popularity: 21% [?]