January 2005 GIS News
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Coverage in the general news media of GIS and GIS issues, with an emphasis on U.S. news and novel GIS uses elsewhere.

[ February 2005 headlines ]

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• "Federal GIS users want better GPS fit," Government Computer News 28 Jan.: "[Trimble] will demonstrate an ArcGIS add-on called GPS Analyst... [ESRI] plans to release Version 9.5 of ArcGIS in May."
• "Local 911 commission continues to map parish," Bogulusa, La. Daily News 28 Jan. article
• "Earth Observers Map Out Weather Early Warning System," Information Week 27 Jan.: "For [the Global Earth Observation System of Systems] to work properly, participating countries must transfer data freely across borders."

• "Gray earns Eagle Scout," Westborough, Mass. News 28 Jan.: "For his Eagle project, Gray led a team of volunteers in gathering the coordinates [and other information on] Westborough's 50 newest fire hydrants ... verified similar descriptive information for Westborough's other 690 existing hydrants [and then] all of this data was entered into the town's new GIS system."
• "SW Fla. tests storm software," Fort Myers, Fla. News-Press 27 Jan.: "The information is more 'intense' because it overlays city street and land parcel maps."
• "Council receives update on GIS," Bangor, Me. Daily News 26 Jan.: "Corson speculated that [Houlton] would not spend any more money to update the GIS tax maps than is spent now to update the maps on paper."
• "Teens ask board for GIS class," York, Penn. Dispatch 25 Jan.: "It offers an opportunity to get a job right out of high school."—student
• "Streetlights, camera, action!," Australian IT 25 Jan.: "Cutting-edge digital imaging technology helped get streetlights working after severe storms in the US last year."
• "Local professor to plunge students in water research," Clarksville, Tenn. Leaf-Chronicle 24 Jan.: "The students will collect the organisms and produce inventories that will be entered into a Geographic Information Systems, or online GIS maps."

• "Street renaming continuing to move forward," Sayre, Penn. Morning Times 22 Jan.: "Bradford County's E-911 street renaming and re-addressing project is continuing to move forward within Ridgebury Township, according to County GIS Coordinator Steve Polzella."
• "Conservation ponders parcels to protect," Kent, Conn. Dispatch 21 Jan.: "Most of the properties considered at its meeting Wednesday night were identified on copies of geographic information system (GIS) maps produced by Kirk Sinclair of the Housatonic Valley Association."

• "B'ville GIS Web site allows citizens access to local information," Bartlesville, Okla. Examiner-Enterprise 21 Jan.: "A Web site containing information based on the city of Bartlesville's Geographical Information System is up and running."
• "Where the boughs are," Watertown, Mass. TAB 21 Jan.: "By gathering information on trees and placing it in the GIS maps, Loughlin said, town planners can get a better picture of what trees need treatment or replacing."
• "Reflectors show hydrant locations during nighttime," Cohasset, Mass. Mariner 20 Jan.: "[A] laptop computer programmed with a GIS map ... can be operated from any truck, and can map the location of all fire hydrants within 600 feet of an incident address."
• "GJ adopts utility-line oversight," Grand Jct., Colo. Sentinel 20 Jan.: "The city of Grand Junction will have greater oversight of the placement of utility lines underground under [a new ordinance] which calls for utility companies [to] provide models of their lines [to] be incorporated into a geographic information system that will identify the location of all buried utilities."
• "County investigates digital mapping," Guthrie Center, Iowa Times 20 Jan.: "Guthrie County has been examining the possibility of updating its antiquated mapping system... Over 50 percent of the counties in Iowa have gone to a GIS system, according to Guthrie County assessor Barry Stetzel."

• "Columbia discusses new county mapping system," Jackson, Mich. Citizen Patriot 18 Jan.: "Former map images were taken looking straight down, and Ambs said the new system offered new choices of imagery: a 'community three-way,' taken from an altitude of 5,000 feet; and a 'neighborhood five-way,' which is the same area at 2,000 feet."
• "Global MapAid seeks clearer disaster maps," San Francisco, Calif. Chronicle 17 Jan.: "With a combination of handheld computers, satellite phones and innovative software, the organization can quickly draft and update maps."
• "Navy to chart ocean floor after tsunami," Stars and Stripes 16 Jan.: "Officials from the U.S. Geological Survey said most non-sailors won't notice the changes ... [but the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency] has received one unconfirmed report from a commercial ship in the region that the ocean floor rose nearly 1,000 feet in an international shipping lane."
• "Artist's touch," Salt Lake, Utah Tribune 15 Jan.: "Clarkson also has worked on state road maps since pre-digital days [and] is excited about the improved look that will result from Utah Department of Transportation cartographer Kelli Bacon's acquisition of new software and typographical fonts."

• "SIDCO completes regional mapping project," Shamokin, Penn. News Item 16 Jan.: "Susquehanna Industrial Development Corporation (SIDCO) has completed a set of maps of zoning and infrastructure in Montour, Northumberland, Snyder and Union counties."
• "Houlton's GIS project on track," Bangor, Me. Daily News 15 Jan.: "[The] $82,000 undertaking should be finished and ready for implementation by June... When Sewall representatives attended a council meeting last April to talk about GIS, they encountered a fierce debate over the merits of the project... Houlton will be the second Aroostook County town to use a GIS [after Fort Fairfield]."
• "Officials present budget plans," Council Bluffs, Iowa Daily Nonpareil 15 Jan.: "The county's GIS Department presented a budget proposal of $304,712, a decrease of 1 percent from this year's budget of $307,980... Mike Schonlau, GIS director for the county, asked for increases in salaries."
• "Two Area Schools Each Get 10 Computers," Moriarty, N.M. Mountain View Telegraph 13 Jan.: "One important upgrade provided by the new computers will be the ability to use Geographic Information System software. The GIS program allow students to 'explore the environment and view and create different types of maps.' "
• "Dutchess County talks GIS to its municipalities," Hudson Valley, N.Y. News 12 Jan.: "Dutchess County officials yesterday taught municipal officials the 'hows' and 'whys' of Geographic Information Systems ... to promote a more effective use of GIS among the [27] municipalities."

• "Digital mapping to help find tsumani survivors," Computer Weekly 13 Jan.: "Digital mapping charity MapAction has been helping aid workers in Sri Lanka... Using geographic information systems (GIS) software from supplier UK ESRI [it] is providing maps that are updated hourly to non-government agencies on the ground."
• "Microsoft Opens Bangalore Lab," TechWeb 13 Jan.: "Plans for the India lab include research into such areas of geographic information systems (GIS), emerging market technologies, multilingual systems, and sensor networks."
• "Offices to have layers of information at their fingertips," Morris, Ill. Daily Herald 12 Jan.: The "Grundy County Board accepted a three-year contract ... to conduct professional GIS mapping [paid] from a designated GIS Fund [that] has been growing over the past several years with the assessment of a $10 fee on every property transaction conducted within the county."

• "Interactive map part of 6-year plan," Gillette, Wyo. News-Record 11 Jan.: "Updating technology and preparing systems for the Geographical Information System (GIS) — an enhanced interactive map of Gillette — is one focus for the City of Gillette's capital improvement plan for six years."
• "Polling areas up in air for March issue," Nogales, Texas International and The Bulletin 10 Jan.: "When the issue was raised a few months ago, it was discovered that the school district boundary maps did not match the county's. Assessor Felipe Fuentes has recently collected the districts' official boundary definitions and had county maps redrawn using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology."

• "Amanda Kiser-Harris Honored for Scholarly Works," My Wise County, Va. 10 Jan.: "the Wise County Board of Supervisors gave a standing ovation to Amanda Kiser Harris of Sandy Ridge for her four years work as a DEVELOP Scholar and deputy clerk of court... [Among her accomplishments] Harris helped her peer scholars in Wise with the creation of the nearly 100-layer Wise County Geographic Information System."

• "Dare County to launch new and improved website," Outer Banks Sentinel, Nags Head, N.C. 9 Jan.: "The site is about to become even more helpful and user-friendly with an easy-to-navigate design, GIS (Geographic Information Systems) 'Smart Map' technology and a web cam located at Mirlo Beach ... where overwash is frequent during storms... Besides easier navigation and eye-pleasing standardization, the new website also has fewer graphics... 'Plug-ins are no longer required.' "
• "Area property information now just mouse-click away," Syracuse, N.Y. Post-Standard 7 Jan.: "A new Web site developed jointly by the city of Syracuse and Onondaga County offers the public the chance to view a variety of data on every parcel in the county."
• "What about the tiny communities?," Newport, Ore. News-Times 7 Jan.: "According to the Geographical Information System created by Lincoln County's Planning and Development Department, several populated coastal areas would likely be inundated by a tsunami."

• "Bevis Lake or Butthead Lake — or Brinkly Lake?," AP wire story at Seattle Times 7 Jan.: "To the Washington state Department of Natural Resources, it's Bevis Lake. In Census Bureau records, it's Butthead Lake."
• "Emergency preparedness plan developing in Danvers," Danvers, Mass. Herald 6 Jan.: "'We can't plan for all emergencies,' Mirandi said. 'We can only make sure we have all of the information that we need to make decisions when we need to make them.' Software such as the GIS, he said, helps make this possible."
• "New system helps officials map county," Jackson, Mich. Citizen Patriot 6 Jan.: "The information explosion is the result of the Jackson Community Geographic Information System."
• "Satellite images boosting Asian tsunami aid efforts," AFP wire story at SpaceDaily 4 Jan.

• "County names McLaughlin new assessor," Longview, Wash. Daily News 5 Jan.: "Terry McLaughlin, the manager of the county's Geographic Information System, was appointed as the new county assessor Tuesday afternoon... he eventually would like to have the GIS department integrated into the assessor's office."
• "Pepperell Springs, 40B top issues facing town in '05," Pepperell, Mass. Free Press 5 Jan.: "Some towns have internal GIS departments and some have spent huge money for consultants. Pepperell has been doing the work with volunteers and with real assistance from the Northern Middlesex Council of Governments."
• "UCSC geophysicist creates computer simulation of Indian Ocean tsunami," U.C. Santa Cruz Currents 4 Jan.: About Steven Ward, who has also modeled tsunami simulations from a potential Canary Islands volcano collapse, a distantly-predicted possible asteroid impact, and other scenarios.
• "Did Tsunami Redraw Map of India Islands?," AP wire story at ABC News 5 Jan.: "Cartographers on Wednesday began studying whether the tsunami redrew India's southern archipelago breaking, tilting or even sinking the islands."
• "Iran gloats over National Geographic revising its atlas," AP wire story 4 Jan. at Khaleej Times, UAE
• "National Geographic Updates Map in the Wake of Iranian Protests," Payvand, Iran 2 Jan.

• "Houlton's GIS project two-thirds completed," Bangor, Me. Daily News 4 Jan.: "It won't be long before municipal employees and residents can reap the rewards of the town's new geographic information system... The project has been a controversial one for the town, with the public divided over whether the $82,000 system was necessary."
• "City hires new 911 coordinator," Montrose, Colo. Daily Press 4 Jan.: "Mecham said sometimes it's necessary to have someone go to the address in the database to verify if it's correct or not. The database that Goetsch is updating is called the master street address guide (MSAG) and he'll use the city's geographic information systems (GIS) and a regional GIS system to update the database."

• "U.S. Forest Service: Celebration, criticism mark centennial fest," Hamilton, Mont. Ravalli Republic 3 Jan.: "Greenpeace released a report titled 'America's Keystone Forests: Mapping the Next 100 Years of Forest Protection'... The keystone forests were designated by looking at the best of the forested land in the nation, said Bill Haskins, GIS Manager of the Big Sky Conservation Institute in Missoula, who put together the maps."

• "Trash Terrorists Beware: Man w/Technology Is On the Hunt," My Wise County, Va. 2 Jan.: "GIS mapping and satellite GPS technologies are helping make progress against the 'War on Trash' in Wise County... Taking GIS into the field will increase productivity and save fuel... The [Dona Ana County] New Mexico experience clearly demonstrates that mobile GIS streamlines data collection in the field."
• "Stallard Gains Enriched Learning Through Application of GIS Skills," My Wise County, Va. 2 Jan.: College student Jared Stallard "is working with the Wise County Geographic Information Science to update the nearly 40,000 parcel digital map of Wise County on a daily basis whilst learning the nuances of GIS and real estate conveyances."
• "Information Visualization for Business — Past & Future," DM Review Magazine Jan.: Not directly GIS related, explains with some nice examples how desktop interactive 3D graphics have become "effective at solving specific business needs in monitoring, analysis and reporting" and can focus "attention on data issues in a way that is impossible to achieve with PowerPoint."

• 20 Jan. 2005 – "AGI publishes 10th edition of GeoRef Thesaurus"
• 19 Jan. 2005 – "Ricoh Introduces the World's First GPS-Ready Digital Camera"
• 19 Jan. 2005 – "New NASA Imagery Sheds Additional Perspectives On Tsunami" – NASA JPL news release, see images here
• 18 Jan. 2005 – "AGI and USGS provide unique tsunami disaster relief" – American Geological Inst. news release: "It's relatively low resolution, but it's far better than any huge atlas you have on your shelf."
• 18 Jan. 2005 – "Putting science before inspiration, UCI professor creates formula for designing landscapes best suited for people's well-being" – Univ. of Calif. at Irvine news release: "UC Irvine social ecologist Oladele Ogunseitan ... has created a method to measure the relationship between a person's environment and his or her mental well-being."
• 13 Jan. 2005 – "January-February GSA Bulletin media highlights" – Describes an article on "GIS as an aid to visualizing and mapping geology and rock properties in regions of subtle topography."
• 13 Jan. 2005 31Kb PDF – "Vector Compression and Streaming in ArcGIS with RaveGeo"
• 11 Jan. 2005 – "PlanGraphics awarded $1.75 million New York State Cyber Security Project" – "The New York State Office of Cyber Security & Critical Infrastructure Coordination ... is the single point of contact regarding GIS in State-declared emergencies."
• 11 Jan. 2005 – "ESRI's ArcGIS 9.0.1 Now Shipping" – "ESRI extends the supported platforms for ArcGIS Server, ArcGIS Engine, and ArcIMS ArcMap Server from Windows-based operating systems to the Linux and Solaris platforms."
• 11 Jan. 2005 – "GIS system to monitor how clean Europe's coasts are" – European Union Information Society Technologies (IST) news release
• 11 Jan. 2005 – "Tadpole-Cartesia Adds to Its ESRI Enterprise Field Systems Suite With Release of GO! Sync for ArcPad 9.0 Software"
• 10 Jan. 2005 – "uOttawa helps create Tsunami Disaster Mapping Portal" – joint Univ. of Ottawa & DMSG news release, announcing "the release of the Tsunami Disaster Mapping Portal (DMapP) — a Website to help aid workers coordinate their work during the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Indian Ocean Basin."
• 10 Jan. 2005 – "ER Mapper Releases Free ECW and JPEG 2000 Compression Software"
• 10 Jan. 2005 – "LizardTech Launches GeoExpress 5.0 with MrSID"
• 7 Jan. 2005 – "Gorillas in the midst of extinction" – NASA EOS Project Science Office news release at EurekAlert: "Satellite imagery allows park managers to update park property boundaries, map forest habitat, and look at encroachment of the park by comparing images from two different dates."
• 6 Jan. 2005 – "Penn School of Engineering Joins Forces with Penn Museum, External Collaborators to Develop New Prototype Data Retrieval Systems for Archaeological Sites" – Univ. of Penn. Museum news release: "archaeologists working at the renowned ancient site of Tiwanaku in Bolivia ... have joined forces with a team of engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists and anthropologists ... to begin a large-scale, subsurface surveying project using equipment and techniques that may one day serve as a model for future archaeological efforts worldwide."
• 6 Jan. 2005 – "NASA Goes 'Down Under' for Shuttle Mapping Mission Finale" – NASA news release: "Culminating more than four years of processing data, NASA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) have completed Earth's most extensive global topographic map. The data ... was gathered during the Space Shuttle Endeavour Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) in February 2000."
• 5 Jan. 2005 – "WSU geologist uses satellite imagery to study surface water quality within Ohio River watershed" – Wright State University (Dayton, Ohio) news release
• 5 Jan. 2005 – "American Geophysical Union Journal highlights" at EurekAlert, includes: "Time to improve GPS accuracy," about how "The researchers examined, for example, a GPS dataset from the well-observed 2003 San Simeon earthquake and found that high-precision (1 Hertz) GPS data needed to be corrected by nine seconds" (abstract).
• 4 Jan. 2005 – "Natural Hazard Mitigation Can Decrease Disaster Risk — International Standard Suggested" – Erlingsson news release at PR Web
• 3 Jan. 2005 – "Orbimage Increases Image Collection of Tsunami Areas"
• 3 Jan. 2005 – "Indian Ocean Disaster" – ESRI statement: "ESRI is actively assisting government agencies and official disaster relief organizations that need help in responding to the recent devastating earthquake and following tsunamis in South Asia. Temporary keycodes, technical support, and other assistance is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This assistance is available to any organization with GIS needs regardless of its GIS platform."
• 3 Jan. 2005 – "Satellite images of Asian disaster" – European Space Agency news release: "Since the disaster struck, three authorised users of the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters have requested its support from the on-duty operator at ESA/ESRIN."
• 3 Jan. 2005 – "DigitalGlobe Supplies Satellite Imagery for Clinton Presidential Library Opening"
• 3 Jan. 2005 – "Etowah County Adds Pictometry's Digital Imaging and Software System for Public Safety, EMA, and Planning Applications"

[ December 2004 announcement archive ]