Digital Mapping Duopoly

The O’Reilly Where 2.0 conference just wrapped up last week in Burlingame, CA. It is a big deal for developers, geographers, GIS developers, GPS equipment manufacturers and anyone else interested in location web services, GIS, mashups, and the so-called Geoweb. There were two presentations by some high profile players that may be of interest to the readers of GeoPrac.net. I have video versions of both after the break.

First, a presentation titled "State of the GeoWeb" given by Google Earth and Maps Director, John Hanke with some help from Jack Dangemond of ESRI. I think it gives you some interesting insights into the direction things are headed, particularly with some of the upcoming releases of ESRI GIS software and the interplay between location data that people have been producing for some time now and new ways of tapping into it using the web. Kind of a long presentation at around 30 minutes.

Second, Geoff Zeiss of Autodesk, Inc. (makers of AutoCad etc.) gives a presentation titled "Convergence of Architectural and Engineering Design and Location Technology". It deals with bridging the information created by different disciplines such as engineers, architects, trades and contractors into something more productive and usable using techniques such as 3D visualization and simulation. Length is approximately 15 minutes.

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