Between the Poles

New US Federal IT Dashboard

The new Federal IT Dash board is available.  This is one of the first initatives of Vivek Kundra the new Federal CIO.

ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model Released by NASA and METI

NASA and the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) have released the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) global digital elevation model (DEM), which covers about 99% of the Earth's surface. The global DEM was built from 1.5 million individual scene-based ASTER DEMs. The global DEM is in GeoTIFF format with lat/long coordinates and a 1 arc-second (30 m) grid.  It is referenced to the WGS84/EGM96 geoid. Accuracy is estimated to be 20 meters for elevations and 30 meters for horizontal data.  

The ASTER GDEM covers land surfaces between 83°N and 83°S and is comprised of 22,600 1°-by-1° tiles. Tiles that contain at least 0.01% land area are included. 

The ASTER global DEM is available at no charge to users from the Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center (ERSDAC) of Japan and from LP DAAC.

FDO Toolbox v0.7.7 Released

The FDO Toolbox is a multi-purpose .Net geospatial tool to manage spatial data. It is written in C# and uses the Feature Data Objects (FDO) API.

A new version of the FDO Toolbox has been released.  This version includes custom file drag and drop handler support and supports FDO 3.4.0.   Jackie Ng recommends that you get this release if you use the bulk copy feature, as this release fixes some major defects.

Updated Tool Released for Migrating MapGuide 6.5 to MapGuide Enterprise

A new version of the MapGuide 6.5 Data Migration Tool including documentation has been released by Autodesk. The tool now supports MapGuide Enterprise 2008, 2009 and 2010.  You can use the Autodesk MapGuide Data Migration Tool to migrate your MapGuide 6.5 data files including MWF, MWX, UDL, MLF, and SMB (Symbol Library) to Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise.  You can find the tool and documentation here.

US House of Representatives Passes American Clean Energy and Security Bill

The American Clean Energy and Security (Waxman-Markey) bill was passed by the US House of Representatives.  The bill aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 17% by 2020 and over 80% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels.  A limited number of pollution permits would be issued.  Most of the permits would initially be given away free to utilities, manufacturers, state governments and others.  The permits could then be traded or sold.

The major features of the bill are

• Requires electric utilities to meet 20% of their electricity demand through renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 2020.
• Invests $190 billion in new clean energy technologies and energy efficiency, including energy efficiency and renewable energy ($90 billion in new investments by 2025), carbon capture and sequestration ($60 billion), electric and other advanced technology vehicles ($20 billion), and basic scientific research and development ($20 billion).
• Mandates new energy-saving standards for buildings, appliances, and industry.
• Reduces carbon emissions from major U.S. sources by 17% by 2020 and over 80% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels.
• Protects consumers from energy price increases.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that if passed by the Senate  the bill would cost an average of $175 a year per household.  As I blogged about recently, according to a recent survey of 2,164 Americans conducted  by researchers at George Mason and Yale Universities, a large majorities of Americans support policies for addressing climate change and renewable energy.  And they are willing to put their money where their mouth is.   Most of the respondents said that they were prepared to pay more to support renewable energy policies.  For example, 72 percent supported a renewable portfolio standard that would require electric utilities to produce at least 20 percent of their electricity from wind, solar, or other renewable energy sources, even if it cost the average household an extra $100 a year.

Scottish Parliament Passes Bill Targeting 42% Reduction in Emissions by 2020

The Scottish Parliament has passed a bill with very aggressive goals for green house gas emission reduction.  The long term objective is to reduce emissions by 82% by 2050. The bill includes a shorter term objective of 42% emissions reduction by 2020.  The government has released a delivery plan that oulines how these reductions will be achieved.

• Increased power generation using renewables
• Carbon sequestration (CCS)
• Low-carbon vehicles
• Electrification of the rail network
• Low-carbon heating through reduced demand, better energy efficiency and more use of renewable and low-carbon heating system
• Reduced emissions from agriculture
• More woodland planting.

High Line Park in New York

Absolutely amazing.  High Line Park in the Lower West Side in Manhattan was opened by Mayor Bloomberg, Diane von Furstenberg, and others.  It is 30 feet (10 meters) above street level and is a converted old West Side Line railway viaduct.  

This is the latest in the grand tradition of "brownfield park development" in New York. New York was pretty unique in the world in 1853 when 700 acres of populated land was acquired for what become Central park. (Interestingly, Central Park was decrepit when Mayor Laguardia was elected in 1934 and gave Robert Moses the job of cleaning it up which he did using funds from President Roosevelt's New Deal as well as private donations.)

High Line Park has been 10 years in the making and was funded by a combination government agencies and private contributions including $10 million donated by Diane von Furstenberg.

An enterprising apartment dweller has taken advantage of her proximity to the very popular park to present High Line Park Renegade Cabaret, written up in the New York Times (Image from the New York Times).  

There is a series of videos about High Line Park and how it was developed on www.sundancechannel.com.

I blogged about the new (green) Street Design Manual that the New York DOT recently released. The green revolution really seems to be beginning to reverse the legacy of Robert Moses' Triborough Commission and to transform New York into a nicer place for human beings, rather than cars, to live.

Future of IT in US Federal Government is Cloud Computing

President Obama was remarkably effective in applying IT during his presidential campaign and he continues to focus on IT since becoming President.

His FY10 Budget is focussed on using IT to make government

• More transparent through web 2.0 technologies;
• More effective
• More secure against natural and malicious threats;
• Less costly by promoting sharing of data and applications

Government 2.0

Legislation over the past 30 years has made IT an increasingly important Federal responsibility

• Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996 (Clinger-Cohen Act) created Federal department and agency chief information officers
• Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980
• Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA)
• E-Government Act of 2002
• Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (FFATA)

Recently the President appointed a new Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  Also Recovery.gov and Data.gov have been launched.

Web 2.0

Continuing his use of Web 2.0 technologies, the FY2010 budget explicitly refers to Web 2.0 technologies such as syndicated web feeds, video-sharing, podcasts, social networking and bookmarking, widgets, virtual worlds, and micro-blogs to increase transparency and citizen participation.  These technologoies wil enable individuals to collaborate on web content and to create, organize, edit or comment, combine, and share information.

Cloud Computing

The President's FY2010 budget plans extend the administration's focus on Web 2.0 to cloud computing, by which is meant an "on-demand model for network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction."  

Cloud computing is expected to help in sharing data and applications to improve innovation, efficiency, and effectiveness in Federal IT.  The objective is to define departmental and agency architectures to enable enterprise-wide common services and solutions to eliminate duplicate operations at the agency level.

There are some who believe that the FY2010 IT plans are going to make it possible for smaller, more agile firms to win a bigger slice of the Federal IT pie as opposed to the IBMs, HPs, EMCs, and other large firms who have won a lion's share of this work in the past.

AutoCAD Map 3D Documentation Now on the Web

There is now a Web-based version of AutoCAD Map 3D Help which is available on the Autodesk Web site.  This means that users who use Google to search for answers will now find results from the AutoCAD Map 3D Web help.

In addition to the User’s Guide and Reference Guide, users also get Web access to the Getting Started Guide, Tutorials, Workflow Guide, and GIS Skills for Engineers, including all animations.

Net Neutrality in Canada

There's a very interesting article about two bills recently introduced by the Conservative government, the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act and the Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act, which would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to install expensive tracking technology, force them to disclose subscriber information such as name, address and email address without a court order, as well as grant police broad new powers to obtain Internet transmission data.

The New Democratic party (NDP) has supported net neutrality for some time and introduced a private member's net neutrality bill at the end of May.

Last week, seemingly in direct response to the bills introduced by the government, the Liberal Party announced support for net neutrality, just weeks before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is scheduled to begin hearings July 6 on network management practices.

Net neutrality is a contentious issue in Canada.  In a rather notorious case in 2005 Telus blocked a community web site supported by a striking union.

The Green Party also supports net neutrality, while the position of the Bloc Québecois on the issue is uncertain.