Links List 7.18.08

Going green is taking businesses and consumers by storm. Yet, what is the role of GIS and GPS in renewable energy development? When GIS and GPS partner, they are ‘uniquely positioned to analyze and monitor earth system processes to make certain that renewable power generation sites are optimally sited and that the power that is generated is delivered efficiently.’ Through the development and expansion of the renewable energy sector, GIS and GPS will be able to capture ‘maximal energy creation at the lowest cost for the widest and the most effective impact in a sustainable sense.’

ERDAS is offering geospatial tools to assist with response during the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season. The company helps organizations harness the information of the changing earth for greater advantage. The ERDAS TITAN GeoHubs will allow organizations to ‘rapidly share imagery and vector data to develop a real-time common operating picture by allowing emergency management planners and responders to dynamically publish and consume geospatial data in a permission-based, collaborative online network.’ ERDAS has even partnered with MCH GeoPoints for more capabilities with medical facilities during these emergencies.

The BBC shared their Olympics map that shows where the 2008 Games’s venues are located in Beijing, Qingdao and Hong Kong. The map was created using Microsoft’s Virtual Earth API and MapCruncher. There are over 37 Chinese Olympic venues.

With the rise of GIS’s popularity, it’s no wonder that Radiohead decided to use the concept of the system as basis of their new video House of Cards. Released this past Monday, the band shared ‘data that they used to created the video so people could make their own clips to upload to Radiohead’s YouTube group.’ Google Earth and ArcScene are two of the platforms used to create the video.

After the long awaited iPhone 2.0 was released, reviews about the phone’s GPS feature came pouring in. Since the first version of the iPhone lacked this feature and the trends for location based services grew, Apple added Google Maps to the mix. Good idea or not?