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GIS News Snippets

Alaska and Kansas to Map High-Speed Internet Coverag
Web application supported by ESRI technology and Connected Nation

www.esri.com

The states of Alaska and Kansas were recently awarded grants of $1.9 million and $2 million, respectively, to map statewide broadband Internet coverage. The maps will be made available to the public on BroadbandStat, a Web-based interactive application developed by ESRI and Connected Nation, using ESRI’ s geographic information system (GIS) technology.

The Department of Commerce’ s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awarded the grants to fund broadband mapping and planning activities under the State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program, which is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Both state projects will provide data to support the creation of a nationwide map that identifies broadband service needs and supports efforts to expand high-speed Internet service to unserved and underserved U.S. communities.

BroadbandStat will be used to produce the maps by combining street-level maps and demographics information with service provider data collected with the help of Connected Nation, a nonprofit corporation and leader in broadband issues. BroadbandStat can also be used to analyze and identify which unserved or underserved areas have optimum potential for broadband infrastructure development at the household, street, and census block levels. In addition, the application uses ESRI’ s Web-enabled ArcGIS Server software to make the results available as interactive maps on the Internet. This provides states with a public forum for consumers, service providers, and businesses to explore and comment on the mapped results and input information about their own broadband access at a specific address.

Garmin Granted FAA's STC for GTS Series, TAS and TCAS I Traffic Systems

www.garmin.com

Garmin International Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd., a global leader in satellite navigation, announced that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted an approved model list supplemental type certificate (AML-STC) for the Garmin’s TAS and TCAS I traffic systems, the GTS 800, GTS 820 and GTS 850. The initial AML-STC includes approximately 580 different aircraft makes and models and Garmin expects to add additional aircraft to the AML-STC in 2010. This announcement follows the technical standards order (TSO) authorization that Garmin received in November.

The GTS 800 traffic series combines active and passive surveillance data to pinpoint specific traffic threats. The systems use Garmin’s patent-pending CLEAR CAS™ technology and correlates automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) with radar targets to provide pilots with the most accurate picture of the sky.

“The GTS traffic series is one of several aviation products designed to be compatible with the NextGen system. It can track up to 60 targets at a time, identify the flight path of specific aircraft, and give spoken audio alerts in an ATC-like format so that pilots are able to react immediately to their surrounding traffic situation,” said Gary Kelley, Garmin’s vice president of marketing.

MAGELLAN® LAUNCHES PREMIUM CAR KIT FOR IPHONE AND IPOD TOUCH
New Cradle Provides Complete Hands-Free Navigation Solution

www.magellangps.com

Magellan, one of the leading GPS brands, announced an innovative new vehicle mount for the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and second generation iPod touch. With a built-in GPS receiver for improved navigation accuracy, the Premium Car Kit features an amplified speaker for crystal clear directions and enhanced Bluetooth hands-free calling and clear turn-by-turn directions. º“Building on the ease of the Magellan RoadMate app, we are proud to introduce a cutting-edge Premium Car Kit that gives our consumers the entire in-car navigation experience from their iPhone or iPod touch,” said Peggy Fong, chief operating officer for Magellan. Features of the Premium Car Kit include the following:

• Secure vehicle mounting for iPhone or iPod touch
• Accommodates most silicon skins and hard shell cases
• Adjustable mount securely rotates iPhone to either portrait or landscape mode for optimal positioning and widescreen route display
• Recharges battery via the vehicle power outlet
• Amplified speaker with volume control for loud and clear phone calls and directions
• Noise canceling microphone for full duplex speakerphone operation
• Auxiliary audio output (for connection to your car stereo)
• Works with all navigation applications (including the Magellan RoadMate for iPhone application)
• Bluetooth enables hands-free calling

RPGMapMaker - 5.5.0
Draw maps with polygonal grids.

fmteau.perso.neuf.fr/rpgmapmaker/rpgmapmaker.htm

RPGMapMaker is a tool for drawing maps with polygonal grids. In addition to having most of the capabilities of a real painting program (multi-documents, lines, rectangles, ..., drawing with color and pattern, text, rubber, etc.), RPGMapMaker has also unique features that greatly simplify the building of RPG maps:

• hexes or squares or lozenges Grids.
• Ten layers static map. One layer for the grid, three pre allocated layers (one for color and drawing, one for terrain tiles and one for text and lines) and six extra layers.
• Interactive maps. Static maps can be linked between each others like in a hyper text document.
• Various dimension units: cm or m, km, ft, ya or mi.
• Grid polygon color filling.
• Predefined terrains tiles.
• Terrains editor. Allows you modifying the terrain tiles.
• Terrain Organizer. Allows you quickly reorganizing a terrain library and transferring tiles between libraries.
• Random terrain generator. Allows you generating random terrains made of up to four different "regions".
• Random maze generator. Allows you generating random mazes, caverns and dungeons.
• Fractal terrain generator. Allows you generating realistic terrains.
• Line with arrows of various shapes. Also, you can add a distance between the ends of a line.
• Drawing contexts. You can memorize up to 40 foreground colors, background colors and patterns for further use.
• Textures. Allows you using textures instead of Drawing Contexts.
• Selective drag or clear. Allows you specifying which map layer(s) you want to drag or clear.
• Intelligent copy and paste. Allows you specifying which layer will interact with the clipboard contents.
• Intelligent external drop. You can choose the portion of an external drop to insert into the chosen layer.
• Multiple levels of Undo.
• Models. Using a special script, you can create maps with a predefined appearance for the grid layer. In addition, you can further modify the script to alter the grid layer appearance.
• Layer Scripts. You can attach a script to a layer. This script contains directives that allow you drawing into the layer as if you were using drawing tools.
• Text Styles.

USGIF Selected to Coalition of Geospatial Organizations

The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) announced it was unanimously voted into the full membership of the Coalition of Geospatial Organizations (COGO) during a meeting at the ASPRS/MAPPS 2009 Conference.

“To be voted into COGO by our peer national geospatial organizations is not only a great recognition for our organization, but is also a great way for USGIF to accomplish its mission of bringing together geospatial intelligence stakeholders,” said USGIF President Keith Masback. “With this partnership, we hope to bring more awareness to the GEOINT Community as a whole.”

COGO is a recently formed coalition of 16 national professional societies, trade associations and membership organizations in the geospatial field, representing more than 30,000 individual producers and users of geospatial data and technology.

The purpose of COGO is to provide a forum for organizations concerned with national geospatial issues that will improve communications among member organizations and others; provide educational information on relevant issues for their respective memberships; align and strengthen their respective policy agendas; and facilitate development of strategies to address national issues.

“We are excited to welcome USGIF as a new member organization of COGO. We believe the inclusion of USGIF greatly strengthens our ability to influence national geospatial policy in a direction that will benefit the entire geospatial community,” said Cy Smith, COGO Chair. “Geospatial intelligence is rapidly becoming recognized at the highest policy levels across the country as vitally important to the health, safety and welfare, security and prosperity of the nation.”

Vertical Mapper™ 3.7 for Faster, Easier Location-Based Decisions: Webinar

www.pbinsight.com

Join Moshe Binyamin, Global Product Manager, as he demonstrates key enhancements available in this new Vertical Mapper™ spatial information system release. Working seamlessly within our MapInfo Professional® solution, the Vertical Mapper™ system helps you display, manage and interpret grid-based continuous spatial information.

If you want answers from location-based data, our system will help you find them—by creating grids or continuous surfaces of information from point data by estimating values between known points.

Find out how this new release can turn your data investment into more compelling, meaningful information and give your business the upper hand. Register here