I read recently that thieves are looking for cars with GPS units not so much to steal the GPS device, but to see if your address is listed in the “Home” saved location. Most GPS devices have a “Home” option where you can store and easily retrieve your home address without having to retype it every time. I guess the hoodlums figure if they find it far enough away from your home, then you’re away from home too, making it all the better reason to visit. Kill two birds with one stone.
So here’s a solution. instead of adding your address to Home, add it to favorites with a random name, but that still points you to your home. Then for HOME you could put the address of your local police station.
Invasion of Privacy! claims a Pennsylvania couple after filing a 10 page lawsuit with the Search Engine Giant. The couple claims their privacy was invaded when the Google “Streetview” vehicle took a picture, up their long driveway, while there was a posted “Private Road” sign at the end of the driveway. Google’s defense, they have a method for the public users to request images be taken off the site. Do you think Google is at fault? What are your thoughts on this?
The Borings say the images of their home on the Google site had to be taken from their long driveway, labeled “Private Road,” and that violated their privacy.
“There’s no merit to this action,” Google spokesman Larry Yu said. “It is unfortunate litigation was chosen to address the concern because we have visible tools, such as a YouTube video, to help people learn about imagery removal and an easy-to-use process to facilitate image removal.”
You can read the entire article by Click Here. Thanks FoxNews for breaking the story.
The TN Geographic Information Council (TNGIC) Conference was a huge success last week in beautiful downtown Chattanooga, TN. We would like to thank everyone that participated this year and throw out a “special thank you” to everyone involved in organizing the event. I think everyone would agree that this year’s Conference Committees did an outstanding job.
Richard Duncan and Cliff Hoeffner, with GEO-Jobe GIS, enjoyed planning and sponsoring the GEOcaching event at this year’s conference. Richard and Cliff both planned the event thoroughly while hiding the cache’s and donating GPS units loaded with Map Data of the downtown Chattanooga area. This year there were 3 teams, made up of 13 total TNGIC members, competing for “bragging rights” and Starbucks Gift Cards. The teams set out across downtown Chattanooga armed with GPS Units and a list of Waypoints representing the cache’s to be found. Once the cache was located, using GPS Units, the teams either had to describe the cache in great detail or retrieve their teams tokens and turn them in at the end of the event. The tokens were then used for scoring the teams and determining the winners. The results of the GEOcaching event are as follows:
First Place – Tie
NetGIS – Ann Howland, Katharine Bennett, Mike Street, David Light,
Jason Light, Randal Hale, & guest
TWRA – Tracy Jackson, Stacey McDaniel, Lynn Barrett
Second Place
Chattanooga WooHoos! – Michael Jones, Susan Finger, Art Finger
If anyone has any more pictures of the event, please send them to us. Thanks
This year begins a new flying program for the much heralded and first-in-the-nation Basemap program in TN (TNBMP). As I write this, TDOT is capturing western TN counties on a county-by-county regional (~25% of the state per year) coverage area at 1″=200′ scale county-wide. Next year (’09) we’ll see many middle TN Counties receiving the imagery.
Did you know that the deliverable, a 1″=200′ scale product, is going to be a lower resolution than you are used to in urban/suburban areas (your 1″=100′ scale tile areas). The original TNBMP specs called for counties to receive 6″ pixel resolution imagery in urban areas and 2′ pixel resolution in the rural areas. The new program splits the difference by providing 1′ pixel resolution county wide. Though it will be in color, it will not have the detail and clarity where you really need it. This is one of the trade-offs for getting free imagery from the state at the local level. One image resolution is cost effective and covers the widest area. However, it won’t meet the needs of all local users.
In the picture above, the top half is a 6″ pixel product and the bottom half is a 1′ pixel product. This is a representative sample of what the relative differences will be from what you are used to and what you will be getting for those urban/suburban areas. For many of you this will be OK. Others may find it difficult to perform some traditional tasks that require the quality of the higher resolution images.
As a provider of photogrammetry services, GEO-Jobe can provide custom pricing for your higher resolution image area that follows your 100 scale tiling or even your urban growth boundaries. These would be delivered in accordance with the TNBMP standard with TIF and Generation 2 and/or 3 MrSID deliverables. We also provide ancillary products like updated contours and planimetrics based on the TNBMP standards. And of course we use local TN partners so you’ll keep it “Made In Tennessee”. Got questions? Call us at 615-883-0085.
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