MundoGEO Connect LatinAmerica 2012

Sao Paulo, March 16th – Don't forget: the biggest event in the geospacial area, in Latin America, the MundoGEO#Connect LatinAmerica 2012 (http://mundogeoconnect.com/2012/en), is going to happen from 29th through 31st, at Frei Caneca Convention Center, in São Paulo. See below the main information about the event:

 How did the event start? MundoGEO#Connect LatinAmerica came about from the perception of its founders on issues that resonate the most in the major social networks, in surveys on subscription magazines and visitors to the MundoGEO portal. Thus, one objective of the event is to connect, either in person or online, users, experts and decision makers in the area of geo, so there is an exchange of ideas on current issues of the geospatial industry in Brazil and Latin America.

 How is the workspace? The number of auditoriums for the activities of MundoGEO#Connect LatinAmerica 2012 was enlarged by 100% in relation to the 2011 event. Also, in this edition, the venues at the products expo and services were increased by 50%. Free access to the expo is granted for users and industry professionals.

 Who attends the MundoGEO # Connect LatinAmerica? The data collected in the 2011 edition showed that 32% of the participants are directors and 33% managers or coordinators, 50% are from the private sector and 36% in the public sector and the areas with higher percentages of interest are the environment, natural resources, utilities, infrastructure and land planning.

 How was the first edition of the event? In 2011, there were more than 100 speakers, including representatives of international companies such as Joel Campbell, the president of Erdas, Tarun Bhatnagar, director of corporate geo of Google for Latin America; Wolfgang Bidermann, executive of RapidEye; Dale Lutz, vice president of product development at Safe Software, and Mike Renslow, representative of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS).

 What's new in LatinAmerica MundoGEO # Connect 2012? According to Emerson Granemann, director and publisher of MundoGEO Group, the event will have several seminars, workshops and side events that will discuss trends in GIS, remote sensing, surveying, GPS and spatial data infrastructures in the areas of oil & gas, mining, government, agribusiness, environment, among others. "We have a lot of innovations in this second edition. The award ceremony was expanded to choose the best professionals, institutions, companies and brands, upon voting on the Internet throughout the geo community", says Emerson.

 How can I participate? Registrations for the event are already open. See in this link http://loja.mundogeo.com/loja/dept.asp?store=107630&template_id=6&partner_id=1004&dept_id=2  how to apply for course packages, seminars and forums of MundoGEO # Connect LatinAmerica 2012

The MundoGEO#Connect LatinAmerica 2012 has the following companies as strategic partners:
• Erdas
• RapidEye
• Leica Geosystems
• Sisgraph
• Trimble
• Google
• DigitalGlobe
• GeoEye
• Geomax
• Topcon
• TomTom

The MundoGEO#Connect LatinAmerica 2012 is supported by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), Embrapa Monitoramento por Satélite, Empresa Paulista de Planejamento Metropolitano (Emplasa), Prefeitura de São Paulo, Serviço Geológico Brasileiro (CPRM), Diretoria de Serviço Geográfico do Exército (DSG) and Comité Permanente para la Infraestructura de Datos Geoespaciales de las Américas (CP-IDEA) as well as support international Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) and the Association of Technology and Geospatial Information (Gita).

About MundoGEO#Connect LatinAmerica 2012

MundoGEO#Connect LatinAmerica 2012 is the largest annual event in the area of geomatics and geospatial solutions and will take place between May 29 and 31 at the Frei Caneca Convention Center in Sao Paulo (SP). With the theme "Sharing information for a better world", the expectation is to bring together 10,000 people in the field, between participants in the seminars, forums and courses, the expo visitors and people connected via webinar and social networks. The event is a creation of MundoGEO, with the support from IBGE, Emplasa, Sao Paulo City Hall, Embrapa Satellite Monitoring, Ministry of Defense of Geographical Service, among others. The event features several courses, seminars and forums, plus a marketplace with more than 70 global brands such as Google, Trimble, Hexagon, Erdas, DigitalGlobe, Leica, RapidEye, Astrium, GeoMax, Topcon, among others. Internationally, the event has the support of OGC, ISPRS, GITA, Directions Magazine, GIM International, V1 Magazine, Professional Surveyor and Geo Connexion. The first edition of MundoGEO#Connect took place between June 14 and 16 of 2011 in Sao Paulo (SP), bringing together over 7500 people.

About MundoGEO

MundoGEO, organizer of the MundoGEO#Connect LatinAmerica event, is a communication company that since its founding in 1998, has a mission to connect and integrate the community of geomatics and geospatial solutions in Latin America. For that, it uses MundoGEO magazine and the internet through social networks, webinars and MundoGEO web portal in Portuguese, Spanish and English. All these activities bring togethermore than 100 thousand professionals, positioning the company as a leader in Latin America and one of the world's leading companies in this sector.

AAA Adds EV Charging Station Locations to Digital Mapping Tools

To help early 1900s motorists plan their fuel stops, AAA marked gas station locations on early strip maps. Jump ahead a century and, today, AAA helps ease range anxiety for EV drivers by identifying charging station locations in its digital mapping tools.

With a choice of the TripTik® Travel Planner on AAA.com or the free AAA TripTik Mobile app for smartphones, finding places to recharge electric vehicles before they run out of energy just got easier. Using these tools, EV motorists can locate more than 2,000 publicly available electric vehicle charging stations across the United States, including independent stations and those that are part of a network. Data is supplied by the U.S. Department of Energy.

To find charging stations near an address or along a route, users select a green plug icon to display locations on a map in TripTik Travel Planner or the TripTik Mobile app. Clicking on an icon opens a listing that provides the station address, hours, charger levels and, where available, a telephone number. App users can dial the listed numbers in a single touch to check station availability status.

"From the original strip maps used for road travel to the comprehensive array of print, online and mobile travel planning tools offered today, AAA has been providing motorists with relevant and accurate travel information for more than a century," said Bill Wood, managing director, AAA Travel Publishing. "The addition of electric vehicle charging station locations to our digital mapping tools reinforces AAA's commitment to providing members the information they need in formats they want."

AAA's online and mobile mapping tools also display gas station locations, along with frequently updated gas prices, and points of interest, such as AAA Diamond Rated hotels and restaurants. They also offer turn-by-turn directions and location information for user-entered addresses and other points of interest including attractions, events, AAA offices and Approved Auto Repair shops. The app can recalculate routes and provide voice guidance for the next maneuver.

All travelers can access AAA's TripTik Travel Planner at AAA.com/travel. Smartphone users can download the free GPS-based AAA TripTik Mobile app from the iTunes Store or Android Market, or find more information at AAA.com/Mobile.

Additional GPS-based apps include AAA Discounts, which displays nearby member discount locations and AAA Roadside, which enables members who need roadside rescue to send AAA their location, vehicle description and breakdown details. The AAA Insurance app guides users on what to do immediately after a traffic collision, and AAA Auto Buying Tools helps prospective buyers build their ideal car and view pricing, ratings, AAA reviews and more.

As North America's largest motoring and leisure travel organization, AAA provides more than 53 million members with travel, insurance, financial and automotive-related services. Since its founding in 1902, the not-for-profit, fully tax-paying AAA has been a leader and advocate for the safety and security of all travelers. AAA clubs can be visited on the Internet at AAA.com.

GeoCue Adds Ladybug Camera Support to Mobile Mapping Workflow System

Huntsville, AL – GeoCue Corporation is pleased to announce the addition of support for Point Grey Research's Ladybug camera technology to the GeoCue Mobile Mapping System (MMS) CuePac®.  The Ladybug series is one of the most prevalent spherical camera systems for high performance mobile mapping applications.

GeoCue Corporation executed a licensing agreement with Point Grey Research in 2011 to integrate components of the Ladybug processing workflow into the GeoCue workflow management system.  This integration will provide exceptional value to customers who use this camera technology.

Among the new features supported in the MMS CuePac are:

Import of Ladybug "pgr" files with the original track correctly geocoded in the GeoCue Map view
Correction of the track to a Position and Orientation System (POS) trajectory (if POS data are available)
Thinning of camera stations to a user specified track spacing
High performance "Development" of the raw pgr-based images into spherical images for use in downstream processing applications.  This development can be performed on servers or distributed workstations using the GeoCue Command Dispatch System (requires the Departmental level GeoCue Server)
Direct viewing of Ladybug spherical images in a new integrated GeoCue Client viewer by simply selecting Ladybug camera stations in the GeoCue Map View
These new features allow GeoCue customers to manage very large MMS projects involving Ladybug spherical images.  Tens of thousands of images can now be systematically processed via the GeoCue distributed processing system with project files transparently managed in GeoCue.  Individual photos are immediately accessible to multiple users via the GeoCue Map View.  Since the GeoCue Map View includes integrated Web Mapping Services such as Google Earth®, Bing® and Open Street Map, there is no longer a need to separately manage Ladybug images in disconnected, external applications.

GeoCue will be previewing these new features at the 2012 ASPRS Conference in Sacramento, California during the week of March 19-23, 2012.

GeoCue Corporation (www.geocue.com) is a software development and consulting services company specializing in geospatial production management solutions and creating tools for improving geospatially organized processes. GeoCue Corporation is also North America’s leading provider of production solutions for airborne and mobile laser scanning. For more information please visit our website or contact us via email (info@geocue.com).

Point Grey Research, Inc. is a worldwide leader in the development of advanced digital camera technology products for machine vision, industrial imaging, traffic and surveillance, and computer vision applications. Based in Richmond, BC, Canada, Point Grey designs, manufactures and distributes IEEE- 1394 (FireWire), USB 2.0, USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet, and Camera Link cameras that are known for their excellent quality, performance, and ease of use. For more information please visit www.ptgrey.com.

GIS Technology Offers New Predictive Analysis to Business

Aurora, CO - It isn’t often that managers can look to law enforcement for clues on how to more effectively do their work. But police are delivering an important lesson on the use of geographic information systems (GIS) by utilizing geospatial predictive analysis to find meth labs before criminals establish them.

Researchers Max Lu and Jessica Burnum have described how methamphetamine labs in the city of Colorado Springs between 2002 and 2005 didn’t pop up in a random distribution. Rather, their positions are clustered “in neighborhoods with a young and predominantly white population, small household size and low education levels.”

What the researchers did was correlate socioeconomic data with the locations of seized labs and sites of toxic byproducts of the chemical processes that create meth. They used basic geospatial predictive modeling theory: Things don’t happen in random patterns in the world. Instead, various environmental factors come into place. Or they may be socioeconomic, like the data Lu and Burnum used and could also represent other factors, such as geography or various elements of infrastructure.

Law enforcement’s use of geospatial analytics has moved far beyond a couple of researchers or the fictional exploits of the television show Numb3rs.

A growing number of police departments around the country find that they can use the techniques to identify “discernable geospatial preferences associated with a perpetrator’s conscious and unconscious activities leading up to criminal behavior, a gang action, or a terrorist threat.”

It’s statistical prediction of the future based on associating relevant factors–sometimes thousands of types of measurement–with geography. Experts sift through past crimes and the characteristics of the places they occurred.

The result isn’t a giant arrow pointing to the guilty party. Rather, geospatial predictive analysis gives other locations where similar crimes might likely take place.

Geospatial Predictive Analysis Applied in Business
Applying geospatial predictive analysis to business uses the same fundamental concepts.

Instead of crimes and the people that commit them, a company looks for things relevant to its business strategy: customers, neighborhoods where marketing campaigns were particularly effective, areas that a competitor is relatively strong, locations for new retail outlets, parts of a supply chain that have problems that could disrupt the flow of goods.

Companies can use the techniques to identify situations that aren’t directly related to their businesses, but that could adversely affect them.

“GIS-skilled technicians are prepared to create, manipulate, edit and present representations of geospatial information to an often non-technical audience to solve problems and overcome business challenges,” says Devon Cancilla, Ph.D., dean, business and technology at American Sentinel University.

It takes little wondering to see how predicting areas that see terrorist activity, political instability, labor strikes, transportation disruptions and the like can help a company plan for potential disruptions.

“Geospatial predictive analysis is just another reason why managers should advance their knowledge of GIS and failing to do so might give a critical advantage to competitors who adopt it,” says Dr. Cancilla.

American Sentinel University’s GIS degree programs prepare students to analyze, interpret and effectively communicate spatially based data to a wide audience.

From the professional user of geospatial data to the common consumer of mainstream media, American Sentinel’s B.S. GIS program provides the tools necessary to prevent complex concepts as meaningful and useful information for business and consumer solutions.

American Sentinel’s GIS programs prepare students for entry into the GIS field and also provide training in information systems that benefit other business areas. Learn more about American Sentinel University’s GIS degrees at http://www.americansentinel.edu/online-degree/bachelor-degree-online/bachelor-gis-degree.php

American Sentinel University delivers the competitive advantages of accredited associate, bachelor's and master's online degree programs focused on the needs of high-growth sectors, including information technology, computer science, GIS, computer information systems and business intelligence degrees. The university is accredited by the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC), which is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a nationally recognized accrediting agency and is a recognized member of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

3-GIS to exhibit at the Esri Partner Conference

The Esri Partner Conference is a unique occasion to meet, collaborate with, and learn from Esri partners and distributors, who attend from all over the world. Attendees will meet firsthand with Esri staff and hear about Esri’s various internal strategies, such as new sales and marketing initiatives and upcoming product releases. They will get direct insights from Jack Dangermond, Esri’s president and a transformative voice in geospatial technology.

3-GIS will be exhibiting and demonstrating their company’s new solutions and business strategies as they continue to expand and develop new products for telecom and utility industries. New developments made by 3-GIS in the Android and Apple mobile markets show the remarkable speed in which the GIS is growing.

“I’ve been attending the Business Partner Conference, now the Esri Partner Conference for 15 years now. It is the hardest working, most valuable conference we attend as a company,” said 3-GIS President Tom Counts. He continued, “From business to business opportunities to meeting with Esri executives to the DevSummit, it is a huge event for us.”

About 3-GIS

3-GIS is a leading innovator of smart geospatial solutions and proud recipient of the 2011 Esri Partner’s Choice Award and the Esri Private Web Application Award. 3-GIS’ software for desktop and field use, takes complex GIS information and makes it simple to understand and fast to access from every level of the enterprise. Visit www.3-GIS.com.

OpenGeo Presentations at FOSS4G North America

New York, NY - OpenGeo, the open source technology leader behind the OpenGeo Suite, will have a strong showing at the inaugural 2012 FOSS4G North America conference. With Gold Sponsor status, and eleven sessions on the program, OpenGeo is sure to make an impact at the conference. The Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial - North America (FOSS4G-NA) conference will be hosted by OSGeo North America from April 10th to 12th, 2012 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Confirmed keynote speakers include Michael Byrne, CIO of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Keith Barber Director at the NGA, and Josh Berkus, CEO of PostgreSQL Experts Inc.

OpenGeo’s Paul Ramsey has volunteered to serve as conference chair, returning to the position after successfully chairing the FOSS4G 2007 conference in Victoria, Canada. To kick off FOSS4G Ramsey will be delivering a keynote the morning of Tuesday, April 10.

Eddie Pickle, OpenGeo CEO, was pleased with the strong representation from his organization "It’s fulfilling to see the community express interest in hearing from us. I’m proud of our staff's open source credentials and credibility.” He continued "OpenGeo has made supporting FOSS4G and OSGeo a top priority; I can't think of anyone more qualified than Paul Ramsey to serve as conference chair. With Paul at the helm FOSS4G North America is sure to succeed."

OpenGeo had twelve presentations accepted for the program, including:

OpenLayers: The Rebirth of Cool - Tim Schaub
Scripting GeoServer with GeoScript - Tim Schaub
What’s New in PostGIS 2.0 - Paul Ramsey
Introduction to PostGIS - Paul Ramsey
What’s new in GeoServer 2.2 - Justin Deoliveira
The State of Geoserver - Justin Deoliveira
What’s New in the JTS Topology Suite - Martin Davis
JEQL – A language for Spatial Processing - Martin Davis
Taking Control: How GeoNode automates GeoServer configuration - David Winslow
The State of the GeoNode Project - Jeff Johnson
GeoServer in Production - Juan Marin
ReadyGXP - Complex GeoExt Webapps Made Easy - Matt Priour

OpenGeo is a social enterprise working to build the best web-based geospatial technology. The company brings the best practices of open source software to geospatial organizations around the world by providing enterprises with supported, tested, and integrated open source solutions to build the Geospatial Web. OpenGeo also supports open source communities by employing key developers of PostGIS, GeoServer, and OpenLayers. Since 2002, the company has provided successful consulting services and products to clients like the World Bank, US Department of State, NYC DoITT, Ordnance Survey Great Britain, SFMTA, Portland TriMet, MassGIS, GeoScience Australia, NOAA and the Federal Communications Commission. OpenGeo is the geospatial division of OpenPlans, a New York-based 501(c)(3) non-profit that informs and engages communities through journalism and open source software. All of OpenGeo's revenue has been and will continue to be re-invested into innovative and useful software in support of the OpenPlans mission.