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Thanks! I've been looking for this for a while! See http://slashgeo.org/2011/06/07/Whats-best-iOS-App-contributing-OpenStreetMap

I agree. In addition to OpenStreetMap and Geonames, a few other ones poped up in the geospatial community. OpenAddresses.org - with already 11+ addresses stored while it was launched less than a month ago, OpenAerialMap.org - which "rebooted" late last year, and OpenTopography.org too. There's other similar projects out there - the point being: there are several good starting points.

Also interesting is this OpenStreetMap VS Google MapMaker wrap-up - licensing terms being, once again, an information sharing showstopper.

I agree. In addition to OpenStreetMap and Geonames, a few other ones poped up in the geospatial community. OpenAddresses.org - with already 11+ addresses stored while it was launched less than a month ago, OpenAerialMap.org - which "rebooted" late last year, and OpenTopography.org too. There's other similar projects out there - the point being: there are several good starting points.

Also interesting is this OpenStreetMap VS Google MapMaker wrap-up - licensing terms being, once again, an information sharing showstopper.

I agree. In addition to OpenStreetMap and Geonames, a few other ones poped up in the geospatial community. OpenAddresses.org - with already 11+ addresses stored while it was launched less than a month ago, OpenAerialMap.org - which "rebooted" late last year, and OpenTopography.org too. There's other similar projects out there - the point being: there are several good starting points.

Also interesting is this OpenStreetMap VS Google MapMaker wrap-up - licensing terms being, once again, an information sharing showstopper.

I agree. In addition to OpenStreetMap and Geonames, a few other ones poped up in the geospatial community. OpenAddresses.org - with already 11+ addresses stored while it was launched less than a month ago, OpenAerialMap.org - which "rebooted" late last year, and OpenTopography.org too. There's other similar projects out there - the point being: there are several good starting points.

Also interesting is this OpenStreetMap VS Google MapMaker wrap-up - licensing terms being, once again, an information sharing showstopper.

Google for GeoTIFF and spend some time here

I'm an OSM enthusiast and wanted to share this: Canada, one of the 'poor countries' of OSM, is on the verge of seeing *all* roads added to OSM. No kidding.

Here's an excellent OSM introduction webcast on fosslc.org.

If you want to learn more about OSM, here's my shameless (really) plug, hell, even the White House uses OpenStreetMap! With projects like OpenRouteService, one will be able to replicate many of the important services provided by Google Maps, MS Virtual Earth, Yahoo! Maps, MapQuest, etc.

I'm an OSM enthusiast and wanted to share this: Canada, one of the 'poor countries' of OSM, is on the verge of seeing *all* roads added to OSM. No kidding.

Here's an excellent OSM introduction webcast on fosslc.org.

If you want to learn more about OSM, here's my shameless (really) plug, hell, even the White House uses OpenStreetMap! With projects like OpenRouteService, one will be able to replicate many of the important services provided by Google Maps, MS Virtual Earth, Yahoo! Maps, MapQuest, etc.

Two other very related open source SAR/radar tools: RAT, from the project's website: "Our motivation to start the development of RAT is that modern remote sensing software like Erdas Image or ENVI include only some basic SAR functionality. Advanced algorithms in SAR polarimetry (PolSAR), interferometry (InSAR) and polarimetric interferometry (PolInSAR) have to be implemented by oneself. So we descided to start the development of RAT. RAT should bring modern SAR algorithms to a wider user-base by simplifying in particular the data handling and processing of complex SAR data." ... and Optiks: From the article: "Opticks is used by scientists and analysts within the Department of Defense Intelligence Community to analyze remote sensing data and produce actionable intelligence. Opticks supports Imagery, Motion Imagery, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), and multispectral and hyperspectral remote sensing data." From the OSGeo post: "A couple of observations: 1. The Contributors Agreement (click on the Contributors Agreement link on the left side of the page) is likely rather intimidating for the average open source contributor. 2. It doesn't use GDAL (although it does have OSSIM as a dependency)."

Two other very related open source SAR/radar tools: RAT, from the project's website: "Our motivation to start the development of RAT is that modern remote sensing software like Erdas Image or ENVI include only some basic SAR functionality. Advanced algorithms in SAR polarimetry (PolSAR), interferometry (InSAR) and polarimetric interferometry (PolInSAR) have to be implemented by oneself. So we descided to start the development of RAT. RAT should bring modern SAR algorithms to a wider user-base by simplifying in particular the data handling and processing of complex SAR data." ... and Optiks: From the article: "Opticks is used by scientists and analysts within the Department of Defense Intelligence Community to analyze remote sensing data and produce actionable intelligence. Opticks supports Imagery, Motion Imagery, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), and multispectral and hyperspectral remote sensing data." From the OSGeo post: "A couple of observations: 1. The Contributors Agreement (click on the Contributors Agreement link on the left side of the page) is likely rather intimidating for the average open source contributor. 2. It doesn't use GDAL (although it does have OSSIM as a dependency)."

Shameless (really) plug, many users interested in OpenStreetMap and the iPhone location awareness applications will be interested by the site in my sig. Happy Christmas!

Shameless (really) plug, many users interested in OpenStreetMap and the iPhone location awareness applications will be interested by the site in my sig. Happy Christmas!

Well. Isn't that spatial.

Nope, it's VerySpatial! ;-)

Joking aside, Microsoft is *very serious* about the geospatial involvement. Here's a list of their recent geospatial products and services. But more to the point, this week, Microsoft launched Virtual Earth 6.2. Make no mistake, it's a huge improvement and offers elements Google Earth and virtual globes competitors (such as the open source NASA World Wind) don't yet.

Just take a look at the new 3D clouds in Virtual Earth which are real-time weather based, this is impressive.

Learn more here, and my summary:
"Microsoft just released Virtual Earth 6.2 and Virtual Earth Web Services 1.0. The quantity of new features is huge and are worth taking a look at, here's the highlights but follow the link for the details: " # Maps for Mobile Devices. # Birdâ(TM)s Eye Views and Birdâ(TM)s Eye Hybrid. # Aerial Imagery. # 3D Imagery. # Geocoding and Reverse Geocoding. # International Geocoding. # Localized Directions. # Localized Maps. # Extended International Parsing Capabilities. # Expanded Number of Rooftop Views. # Near-Matching Capabilities. # Imagery Metadata. # New Virtual Earth Web Services. # One-Click Directions. # Shapes and Shape Layers. # Pushpin Clustering. # Landmark-Based Routing. # Driving Directions with Traffic-Based Routing. # Walking Directions. # Multipoint Routing. # Traffic Reports. # GeoRSS Feeds. " I expect geoblog reactions in the coming days and will share them with our users. See also related stories below, Microsoft has been very busy lately with their geoservices."

Well. Isn't that spatial.

Nope, it's VerySpatial! ;-)

Joking aside, Microsoft is *very serious* about the geospatial involvement. Here's a list of their recent geospatial products and services. But more to the point, this week, Microsoft launched Virtual Earth 6.2. Make no mistake, it's a huge improvement and offers elements Google Earth and virtual globes competitors (such as the open source NASA World Wind) don't yet.

Just take a look at the new 3D clouds in Virtual Earth which are real-time weather based, this is impressive.

Learn more here, and my summary:
"Microsoft just released Virtual Earth 6.2 and Virtual Earth Web Services 1.0. The quantity of new features is huge and are worth taking a look at, here's the highlights but follow the link for the details: " # Maps for Mobile Devices. # Birdâ(TM)s Eye Views and Birdâ(TM)s Eye Hybrid. # Aerial Imagery. # 3D Imagery. # Geocoding and Reverse Geocoding. # International Geocoding. # Localized Directions. # Localized Maps. # Extended International Parsing Capabilities. # Expanded Number of Rooftop Views. # Near-Matching Capabilities. # Imagery Metadata. # New Virtual Earth Web Services. # One-Click Directions. # Shapes and Shape Layers. # Pushpin Clustering. # Landmark-Based Routing. # Driving Directions with Traffic-Based Routing. # Walking Directions. # Multipoint Routing. # Traffic Reports. # GeoRSS Feeds. " I expect geoblog reactions in the coming days and will share them with our users. See also related stories below, Microsoft has been very busy lately with their geoservices."

I keep hoping that Google will start releaseing some of their data into the public domain/GPL/Creative Commons.
That Google spy van must be gathering data like speed limits, which streets are one way. Maybe even which are paved and not.

You're right for StreetView (you can still use Google's StreetView data in OpenLayers.org for example), otherwise, Google Maps/Earth licenses data from others (Tele Atlas/NAVTEQ/DigitalGlobe/GeoEye/etc), so they are not the ultimate geodata owner (yet? ;-).

One place missing GPL application is a really good navigation system.

Yes but... do you really need this? When you'll buy your GPS-enabled navigation system (e.g. from Garmin, Magellan, TomTom, etc), you'll be given appropriate software that works with the hardware you just purchased (even the iPhone has (in dev) it's turn by turn nav syst software). You don't "need" to install an open source nav syst.

That said, I agree, a solid open source nav syst would be nice. Roadnav is an example, but I think it's not as mature as commercial offers. The data for such an open source software project already exists on OpenStreetMap.org.

Some precisions on my summary. DigitalGlobe is obviously not the only other remote sensing data provider, but it's GeoEye main competitor in civil high-resolution multispectral remote sensing. GeoEye is itself the merging of two other previous major players on the same playing field, OrbImage and Space Imaging.

As for my claim of an agreement between DigitalGlobe and Google, see this two years old entry. The original archive for the DG message is here (the link on /geo does not work anymore).

One of the obvious questions that comes to mind is to which extent these exclusivity deals have negative impacts on other remote sensing imagery customers, small or big.

Another question is; does Google really needs such a deal to provide the best webmapping and virtual globes-related tools?

Some precisions on my summary. DigitalGlobe is obviously not the only other remote sensing data provider, but it's GeoEye main competitor in civil high-resolution multispectral remote sensing. GeoEye is itself the merging of two other previous major players on the same playing field, OrbImage and Space Imaging.

As for my claim of an agreement between DigitalGlobe and Google, see this two years old entry. The original archive for the DG message is here (the link on /geo does not work anymore).

One of the obvious questions that comes to mind is to which extent these exclusivity deals have negative impacts on other remote sensing imagery customers, small or big.

Another question is; does Google really needs such a deal to provide the best webmapping and virtual globes-related tools?

The second link explains how the main contractor, EADS, just bought their smaller rival SSTL (a much smaller company that succeeded in lanunching the forst Galileo sat years earlier than the parallel-developed EADS one).
I like how EADS monopoly is described: "continental aerospace behemoth"...
they are also described in a recent post on slashgeo, http://technology.slashgeo.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/24/1328256&from=rss

Ok, I'm late on that one. But really worth is the GEB 6-minutes video demonstration of the new features.

Here's more info, well, a copy of my post of the site from my sig:
Mentioned earlier this week, here's the official announcement and a description of a new feature, 3D building swooping. The release provoked a lot of reactions and writings in the geoblogs. Here's the GEB entries on his first impressions [with screenshots], a video demonstration, well worth the 6 minutes (really), a short explanation of the new navigation widgets and some final thoughts on GE 4.3. Ogle Earth also shares his comments and discuss the differences between atlases and mirror worlds. Interesting to note that not everyone is pleased with some of the changes, with GE being dubbed the AOL of the Geoweb. APB also links to a IW article on the practical uses of Google StreetView.

For your curiosity, Google also has tentacules in touch screen technology through touchEarth. AFAIK, this is in Google's SoC and work is mostly open source related. (for the most interested in virtual globes touch screens, see this link)

Is here, strait from Steve lombardi, the Virtual Earth program manager. See also other pertinent answers here.

OpenStreetMap can be loaded on the iPhone and here's the State of the Map Conference wrap up, the OpenStreetMap conference.

And collaborative mapping is big deal. Google recently launched Google Our Maps, which is basically Google My Maps but with collaboration capabilities.

From my previous comment: There's NAVTEQ's MapReporter tool to submit updates to NAVTEQ's data by the casual user, [and also] Tele Atlas' Map Insight and TomTom's MapShare.

OpenStreetMap can be loaded on the iPhone and here's the State of the Map Conference wrap up, the OpenStreetMap conference.

And collaborative mapping is big deal. Google recently launched Google Our Maps, which is basically Google My Maps but with collaboration capabilities.

From my previous comment: There's NAVTEQ's MapReporter tool to submit updates to NAVTEQ's data by the casual user, [and also] Tele Atlas' Map Insight and TomTom's MapShare.

A few other very interesting features were released this week for Google Maps... and I'm sorry that this story is all we got on /. so far. Here's a copy from the site in my sig.

Google Maps Adds Terrain
Google Lat Lon Blog announces the addition of terrain to their free Google Maps site. In addition to adding the Terrain button, they've removed the Hybrid button. They explain, "You may notice in this screenshot that the handy "Hybrid" button, which shows satellite images overlaid with labels and roads, seems to have gone missing. Don't worry -- this view can now be accessed by clicking the "Satellite" button and checking the "Show labels" check box that will appear under the "Satellite" button."

New Google Maps Features Launched Including Collaborative Mapping
In addition to the important new terrain layer announced yesterday, Google Maps received a few significant updates, first, Google Maps searches are now providing a thumbnail of the related street view photo, second, the My Maps feature somehow becomes Our Maps, allowing to collaborate directly on someone else's My Maps, this has a lot of potential of getting big, and last, you can more easily share KML and KMZ files and GeoRSS feeds through My Maps. From the Our Maps announcement: "Just click the "Collaborate" link and enter the email addresses of the people you want to invite. They'll receive an email invitation with a link to the map. Once they open the map, they should be able to edit it, as long as they are signed into a Google Account that's associated with that email address. You can also open your map to the world so anyone can edit it by selecting the "Allow anyone to edit this map" checkbox."

NAVTEQ's MapReporter tool to submit updates to NAVTEQ's data by the casual user, Tele Atlas' Map Insight and TomTom's MapShare. But I won't lie, the best map crowdsourcing project is doubtlessly OpenStreetMap.org

Really. Don't want to get stucked by one of the numerous webmap providers? Use OpenLayers.org. OpenLayers, open source, will legally allow you to connect to Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and other providers' data and switch between any without ever changin your code. No jokes, this is the best choice. Of course, it allows you to do *much* more. Want to learn more? Also, OpenLayers works perfectly with other widely used webmapping software, such as GeoServer.org and many others. See also the webmapping section over Slashgeo.org. (Yes I'm one of the founders, but it's really on-topic! :-) Why not read this entry on the webmapping APIs and data access.

Really. Don't want to get stucked by one of the numerous webmap providers? Use OpenLayers.org. OpenLayers, open source, will legally allow you to connect to Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and other providers' data and switch between any without ever changin your code. No jokes, this is the best choice. Of course, it allows you to do *much* more. Want to learn more? Also, OpenLayers works perfectly with other widely used webmapping software, such as GeoServer.org and many others. See also the webmapping section over Slashgeo.org. (Yes I'm one of the founders, but it's really on-topic! :-) Why not read this entry on the webmapping APIs and data access.

Really. Don't want to get stucked by one of the numerous webmap providers? Use OpenLayers.org. OpenLayers, open source, will legally allow you to connect to Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and other providers' data and switch between any without ever changin your code. No jokes, this is the best choice. Of course, it allows you to do *much* more. Want to learn more? Also, OpenLayers works perfectly with other widely used webmapping software, such as GeoServer.org and many others. See also the webmapping section over Slashgeo.org. (Yes I'm one of the founders, but it's really on-topic! :-) Why not read this entry on the webmapping APIs and data access.

Remember this /. story about RFID Passports Cloned Without Opening the Package? I'm not sure if RFID and security will ever get along at a satisfying level or if will be similar to the systematic breaking of DRM locks. Amongst other RFID stories, this "Security analysis report" paper [91 pages pdf, 967k] is most informative (via this blog).

You're right. Geospatial is already everywhere (pun intended) and will just become more and more omnipresent. This might interest you: http://slashgeo.org/

The site has thousands of daily readers but the user participation is rather low at the moment. It has even been closed the last two weeks after two years online, but we're reviving it no less than tomorrow.

And oh... Slashgeo added GeoRSS and OpenLayers/Google Maps support to slash... but the Slashdot team has not contributed to the development of this plugin... yet! ;-)

That would be great, no? Here's a previous /. discussion on GeoRSS. The GeoRSS plugin for Slash is almost complete, it already works, but some efforts are required to finalize it, and I bet the Slashdot team has way more resources than my small team! :-)

And hey, we even have OpenLayers with Google Maps maps within stories. Same story as GeoRSS for Slash, this Slash plugin works (example here (temporarily disabled)), and not much is required to make it fully complete!

That would be great, no? Here's a previous /. discussion on GeoRSS. The GeoRSS plugin for Slash is almost complete, it already works, but some efforts are required to finalize it, and I bet the Slashdot team has way more resources than my small team! :-)

And hey, we even have OpenLayers with Google Maps maps within stories. Same story as GeoRSS for Slash, this Slash plugin works (example here (temporarily disabled)), and not much is required to make it fully complete!

I'm surprised TFA does not mention the newly announced by Amnesty International "Eyes on Darfur" website. Oh, Beirut imagery has been updated to reflect the situation after the 2006 Lebanon War.

Here's a few stories in the same vein:
Documenting Humanitarian Crisis with Google Earth
New Google Earth Layers: Darfur and more
The Israel-Lebanon Conflict in Google Earth
Beirut Destruction Through Remote Sensing
Israel - Lebanon Conflict and Geospatial Data Access

I'm surprised TFA does not mention the newly announced by Amnesty International "Eyes on Darfur" website. Oh, Beirut imagery has been updated to reflect the situation after the 2006 Lebanon War.

Here's a few stories in the same vein:
Documenting Humanitarian Crisis with Google Earth
New Google Earth Layers: Darfur and more
The Israel-Lebanon Conflict in Google Earth
Beirut Destruction Through Remote Sensing
Israel - Lebanon Conflict and Geospatial Data Access

I'm surprised TFA does not mention the newly announced by Amnesty International "Eyes on Darfur" website. Oh, Beirut imagery has been updated to reflect the situation after the 2006 Lebanon War.

Here's a few stories in the same vein:
Documenting Humanitarian Crisis with Google Earth
New Google Earth Layers: Darfur and more
The Israel-Lebanon Conflict in Google Earth
Beirut Destruction Through Remote Sensing
Israel - Lebanon Conflict and Geospatial Data Access

I'm surprised TFA does not mention the newly announced by Amnesty International "Eyes on Darfur" website. Oh, Beirut imagery has been updated to reflect the situation after the 2006 Lebanon War.

Here's a few stories in the same vein:
Documenting Humanitarian Crisis with Google Earth
New Google Earth Layers: Darfur and more
The Israel-Lebanon Conflict in Google Earth
Beirut Destruction Through Remote Sensing
Israel - Lebanon Conflict and Geospatial Data Access

I'm surprised TFA does not mention the newly announced by Amnesty International "Eyes on Darfur" website. Oh, Beirut imagery has been updated to reflect the situation after the 2006 Lebanon War.

Here's a few stories in the same vein:
Documenting Humanitarian Crisis with Google Earth
New Google Earth Layers: Darfur and more
The Israel-Lebanon Conflict in Google Earth
Beirut Destruction Through Remote Sensing
Israel - Lebanon Conflict and Geospatial Data Access