Points of Interest: September 15, 2004

Space Imaging to Sell Unit to Geo360. See if you follow this! Back in 2000 Space Imaging bought Pacific Meridian (also known as Cass Green's company). It became Space Imaging's Federal Civil/Commercial Solutions unit, employing 55 people in 10 offices around the country. The unit, which has done well under SI control and currently accounts for 1/5 of the company revenue, takes raw imagery and turns it into products for the commercial and government sectors. Space Imaging announced it had an agreement to sell the unit to Geo360, a geospatial consulting firm, which has been working on technology to extract information from satellite imagery and aerial photography. That is John Grizz Deal's company. He was president of LizardTech, then Chief Marketing Officer at Space Imaging.

More Storms, More Maps. I ran into two different Web mapping offerings tracking the hurricanes specifically using open standards. Tyler Mitchell updated his MapServer-based portal to include tracks of Ivan and Jennine. He explains how he did it here. Sonny Parafina at IONIC shared the URL to that company's real-time tracking of Ivan using data from USGS and Custom Weather among others. As more data becomes available via open standards and the tools to collect them into meaningful applications expand, we regular people will building these on the fly.

Gone to the Dogs. In what's basically a "call for partners" PetsMobility Networks, Inc. unveiled its product vision ni a press release. The company plans the PetsCell cellular telephone for pets. It will allow pet owners to talk to their pets as well as allowing owners to request assistance should they require help. If someone finds their pet wandering the streets, with a press of a button on the mobile device, the auto dial will dial the owner's home alerting the owner to retrieve their pet. The device will also be available with an optional GPS tracking chip and a fiber optic camera for search and rescue applications.

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Source: Material used herein is often supplied by external sources and used as is.