A tantalising blog post from Steve Coast in his new role at Microsoft. What if we could build vector datasets from a raster image? Well it’s been tried before, not least by my friend and colleague Bong Khin Fah, but Microsoft have stood up an experimental service specifically designed to capture roads from their BING imagery.
You can see a video of the new service from Microsoft in action below, or click here to try it out. Fingers crossed this is the tip of an iceberg of some pioneering R&D in Seattle.
Atanas Entchev spotted the TeleAtlas GPS vans in New Jersey yesterday; today the BBC have posted a small movie and article that gives further insight into the work of the ‘digital nomads’…
On the back of my trip to California for the Dev Summit, I took the opportunity for a holiday. A 2000 mile road trip taking in the best of The Golden State…Los Angeles, Mammoth, Napa, San Francisco, the Pacific Coast Highway back to LA and a stop over in NYC for good measure. Living in the UK, where we drive on the left, driving in the United States means lots of surprises…not least, turning right on a red light!
Waiting at Newark airport on the way home I flicked through a copy of Time magazine, specifically their list of 51 tips to save the planet. I was surprised to find GIS only managed a lowly 45th on the list, under the pseudonym…”Make One right turn after another”.
“In 2004, UPS announced that its drivers would avoid making left turns. The time spent idling while waiting to turn against oncoming traffic burns fuel and costs millions each year. A software program (Microsoft Word?) maps a customized route for every driver to minimize lefts.
In metro New York, UPS has reduced CO2 emissions by 1,000 metric tons since January. Today 83% of UPS facilities are heading in the right direction; within two years, the policy will be adopted nationwide.”
Ok, so no direct mention of GIS, but make no mistake, this is GIS in main stream media. But if the USA is serious about surviving climate change, maybe they should try a roundabout?.
Use ArcGIS Explorer to visualise geographic datasets. The latest build provides full access to Virtual Earth imagery and comprehensive support for several data formats including GeoRSS, KML and ArcGIS Layerfiles.
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