MapBrief™

Geography · Economics · Visualization

Category: Geospatial

JS.Geo: Web Mapping at a Crossroads, and the Crossroads is in Philadelphia on October 8th

Web maps are too important to be left to the mapping industry. Google figured this out before anyone else. Uber’s recent purchase of Microsoft’s Bing Maps assets and the sale of Nokia HERE geo assets to an automobile consortium signal next-level dynamism in the industry. Simply put, the old web mapping portal paradigm of GIS-in-the-browser […]

Open—Wide Open—in Portland: A FOSS4G Review

  Having been to previous FOSS4G conferences—2007 in Victoria, 2011 in Denver—I was eager to circle back to this year’s iteration in Oregon to assess what’s changed, what’s new, and what I can adapt for everyday use in my consulting business. I. Sprawl With up to eight tracks running simultaneously, everyone’s conference was going to […]

Geospatial Contractors Cynically Attempt to Take Over US Federal Mapping

The party is over. During the 1990s anything related to IT was expensive and fat profit margins were easily procured. Post-9/11 was very good for geospatial contracting with both the escalation of defense spending to support three wars as well as the mushrooming requirements of the Department of Homeland Security. But now sequestration–and its impacts […]