Microsoft Single View merging Business Data and Maps

It looks like even Microsoft is picking up on the current momentum of Neogeography.  This product seems to be pretty similar to its already existing MapPoint software, which is targeted at marketing and business uses, as well as some low-end GIS uses.  Microsoft’s Single View Platform is targeted more to goverment applications.  Microsoft has partnered with IDV Solutions to make this application, so I expect some decent results.

According to a write-up about the Single View session, SVP is designed to provide users with “a single, geographic view of complex information and data sets across multiple roles, locations, and user interfaces.”

I’m curious to see how this affects the government GIS applications market.
Maps + business data = Microsoft Single View. (via zdnet microsoft blog)

 

Carbon Dioxide Emissions on Google Earth

The Vulcan project brings us a map of the US and the amount of pollution that can be found.  The Vulcan project is a collaboration of a few universities, NASA, and the US D.O.E.  Check out their site for more information, they do a lot of good work.

They have released a CO2 emissions map that looks like a pretty interesting application.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the right plugin for Firefox on my MacBook Pro to run this, but it looks like it is very well done, and I hope to get it up and running on windows at some point soon.  Please comment on this if you are able to get it to work.

Google Earth maps carbon dioxide emissions (via LATimes.com)

UPDATE:

I reinstalled The Google Earth Plugin, and now this works!  I think the problem was that I reinstalled Firefox since the last time I updated Google Earth.  Anyway, it works now, and the information is very impressive.  This is a screenshot from my local area.  Carbon County is one of the worst polluters, and it’s all from industrial uses.  So Carbon county is still aply named even after all these years!  (This is Pennsylvania’s Coal region, as well as the Slate Belt, and home to many Cement Factories.)

Gurney, K.R., D. Mendoza, Y. Zhou, B. Seib, M Fischer, S. de la Rue du Can, S. Geethakumar, C. Miller (2009) “The Vulcan Project: High resolution fossil fuel combustion CO₂ emissions fluxes for the United States”, http://www.purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/research.html.

 

Pennsylvania wants to consolidate School Districts

Rendell wants to eliminate 400 of Pennsylvania’s 501 school districts in an effort to reduce costs.

Ed Rendell believes that in today’s economy, we can no longer afford to support 501 school districts.

This wouldn’t be the first time Pennsylvania forced consolidation of its school districts.  Before 1962, Pennsylvania had almost 2,000 school districts.

This decision comes after a Standard & Poor’s report (pdf) stating that “average spending tends to decrease as districts grow in size from about 250 students to about 2,500 students. But spending tends to go back up
again as district enrollments exceed 3,000 students”.

According to the report, there are 312 districts in Pennsylvania with less than 3000 students

It probably won’t have much of an effect on the Philadelphia School District, as the school district already encompasses the entire county, and is the largest (by enrollment) in the state.

Most of the school districts already work together for Career and Technology Centers.  The report uses this as an example of the schools working together effectively.  There are currently about 75 of these Career and Technology Centers, so I expect the new proposed school district map should look something like the current Vocational School map, which can be found here.

• Rendell wants to consolidate 400 PA school districts (via philly.com)
• State Budget Calls for Elimination of Most School Districts (via mcall.com)

For those of you with Google Earth, and interested in the current PA school districts, I have created a map of all the PA school districts for your enjoyment! It’s in KML format, because it’s too large for GeoRSS to support.

Download the Pennsylvania School District Map for Google Earth

 

Ocean Floor to be added to Google Earth

Google Earth Fills Its Watery Gaps (via nytimes.com)
Google Earth, Google Ocean: mysteries of the seafloor are mapped for the first time (via guardian.co.uk)

This is big news to all the Google Earth users out there!

Google Earth is a great tool for anyone who has any need for maps on land, and now, you can find maps of the ocean too. This is great for anyone looking at boating channels or looking to SCUBA dive somewhere. This isn’t a small undertaking either, considering roughly 2/3 of the earth is covered by ocean.

There is also some talk about incorporating global warming trends into Google Earth.  I could understand how some simulations of it could be very cool to watch.

Al Gore is going to be headlining the debut of this new software, so expect some talk about Global Warming.

And of all the songs named “Ocean”, this was the first that popped into my head.  So enjoy listening to this as you read the linked article.

Sebadoh – Ocean

In very related news, I am currently working on a program to convert ESRI shape files to GeoRSS and KML documents, which will open in Google Earth.  I already have the code working, and am working on the UI now, so if anyone out there wants to be a beta tester, please contact me.

 

The roads are still crumbling!

ASCE‘s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure:

Aviation: D
Bridges: C
Dams;     D
Drinking Water:     D-
Energy:     D+
Hazardous Waste: D
Inland Waterways: D-
Levees:     D-
Public Parks & Recreation: C-
Rail:     C-
Roads:     D-
School:     D
Solid Waste: C+
Transit: D
Wastewater D-

If this were my college transcript, I would have lost all of my scholarships!

I wonder how the extra $3B added to the transit stimulus will address these issues.  I guess only time will tell.

• 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure Reveals a Grade of D (gisuser.com)
• Engineers Give U.S. Infrastructure A ‘D’ (wbbm780.com)
• Advocates: Stimulus shortchanges mass transit (philly.com)
• Sinkhole Swallows Philadelphia Water Dept Truck (shameless plug)

 

Election 2008: Can Google Trends tell us anything?

I know everyone LOVES politics, right?

First off, today isn’t JUST Super Tuesday, it’s also IHOP’S “National Pancake Day“…  as well as Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Shove Tuesday, Fasnacht Day, and other holidays of excess.  After unsuccessfully requesting a few states to move their primaries (unreliable source), IHOP has been so nice to move their pancake day to 2/12/08.

Back to Political thought.. Who’s going to win the election?

I used some awesome methods to determine who’s the most popular candidate, and have a result for the public!

Google Trends!

This pretty much just ranks searches.  I have used it to compare the 5 most searched for candidates for the 2008 election.  Apologies to Mike Gravel,  Mike Huckabee, and Alan Keyes, the Google search crowd has not been kind to you! I’ve only looked up results in the USA, because people who are using Google in the US are more likely to be eligible to vote in the US. You can click around if you are interested in other results.

My Awesome Google Trends Search!!

First thing that you’ll notice is Ron Paul.  He really is quite the internet sensation!  He may be the Snakes on a Plane of candidates, but will he fail to perform just like Snakes on a Plane?  Maybe?

It should be noted that when you do the search using campaign names, rather than full names, the results are quite different.  I doubt anyone expects to get decent results on Ron Paul by using just “Ron” or “Paul”.  It’s also interesting to note that using “Obama” vs “Hillary” (Hillary seems to be using her first name as her campaign name) will give you a strong Obama preference.. Where “Clinton” vs “Obama” has strikingly different results.

It’s also interesting that McCain and Romney seem to have a small percentage of the overall  search results.  Although they seem more competitive against Ron Paul when using their campaign names (Ron Paul seems to be using his full name for previously mentioned reasons).  Google Trends Republican Campaign names.

I also would like to note the detail that Google goes into with its trends.  They split it up by state, and even city.  It shouldn’t be too shocking that Ron Paul is popular in Austin, TX, and McCain is still holding onto Arizona, although Arkansas seems to like him more.  Huckabee is still holding onto Arkansas’ internet searches.

In any case, this is only based on internet searches, and is probably more closely aligned to which candidate is most interesting, and not which candidate is likely to win.  It does seem apparent that more Google users are interested in the Democratic Candidates than the Republican Candidates.

I guess we will see tonight how things turn out!  Luckily for me, I can’t vote until April 22, so I have plenty of time to decide.  If you’re in PA, and you still haven’t registered as Democrat or Republican, you have until March 24th to do it!  If you need more info, Rock the Vote seems to have compiled the information in a somewhat meaningful way.