GIS User reports that the USGS have stopped collecting imagery from the 27 year old Landsat 5 satellite, due to a rapidly degrading electronic component.
BBC News has a piece outlining new location-based smartphone app that tracks the social networks to provide real-time updates on outbreaks of influenza, helping the user avoid hot spots. It once again highlights the value of timely information over authoritative.
IT News recently ran a story talking about Google’s displeasure with state and Territory governments' reluctance to make public data available for use in the web giant’s tools.
Spatial Sustain talks of a program in Baltimore that is using a smartphone app to anonymously track and monitor addicts on the methadone program, to better understand the factors behind a relapse, including environmental conditions, to create new treatments.
LiDAR News has a post that outlines some of the new features of the LAS 1.4 specification for LiDAR. Best of all, it’s fully backward compatible. The blog post also contains a link to the full spec document, if you want all the grisly details.
Google Maps Mania points us to three interesting Google Maps, including one that can tell you what street any location would lie on if the New York City grid system of roads were to extend across the globe. For instance, the Eiffel Tower would lie on the corner of 64,857 St and 12,770 Ave. The post also talks of a ‘Living with Murder’ map that shows the locations of the 3,184 murders that occurred in Detroit between 2003 and June 2011. And, on a less macabre note, GapVis and mapFast are maps that tie locations to references in history books, including searching for books on a particular location.
To round up this week’s Best of Blogs, GIS User have a post giving some tips on how to find spatial jobs in the social media age. It’s US-based, but most of the information is pertinent anywhere.
