One of the big players in commercial (as opposed to government) satellite imagery is DigitalGlobe of Longmont, CO. They provide images to Google, Bing, and many other companies. They also provide images to the government and military.

In an extremely interesting 7.5 minute (we wish it was longer) audio interview, Joshua-Michéle Ross from O’Reilly Radar talks with Dr. Walter Scott, Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of DigitalGlobe.

Some of the topics discussed include:

+ Uncommon uses of DigitalGlobe satellite imagery
+ Competitive advantages in the satellite imagery business
+ Tools to get imagery in the hands of users
+ Augmented reality

Source: O’Reilly Radar

See Also: A Small Sample of DigitalGlobe Images

See Also: Primer on the Satellite Imaging Industry (via DigitalGlobe)

See Also: Imagery Search Using DigitalGlobe’s ImageFinder
This material is for sale but you usually see a preview image online. It’s also a good example of a deep/invisible web database.

From the Article:

A novel navigation system under development at Microsoft aims to tweak users’ visual memory with carefully chosen video clips of a route. Developed with researchers from the University of Konstanz in Germany, the software creates video using 360-degree panoramic images of the street that are strung together. Such images have already been gathered by several different mapping companies for many roads around the world. The navigation system, called Videomap, adjusts the speed of the video and the picture to highlight key areas along the route.

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Videomap still provides written directions and a map with a highlighted route. But unlike existing software, such as Google Maps or MapQuest, the system also allows users to watch a video of their drive.

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When given Videomap directions, drivers made the correct turn 80 percent of the time. With a map and text directions, the drivers made the correct turn only 60 percent of the time.

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Arzu Coltekin, a senior researcher at the University of Zurich who works in the Geographic Information Visualization and Analysis Division, finds the work interesting. Some might say that a system such as Videomap isn’t necessary because of the proliferation of GPS receivers in cars, but Coltekin notes that it would still be useful for those who bike or walk, which “is quite common in Europe. And when you are walking or biking, often you don’t have a GPS.” But she says the team needs to come up with a way to automatically identify landmarks.

[Billy] Chen, [a researcher in the MSN Advanced Engineering group], says that Microsoft could use a list of landmarks that is already in its geospatial database, or such a list could perhaps be compiled by users.

Access the Complete Article

Source: Technology Review

See Also: Learn More and Watch a Video About Videomap

See Also: Billy Chen’s Home Page

A very interesting read. The article focuses on a company named Tele Atlas.

From the Article:

Meet the people at Tele Atlas, the company that provides so-called “base maps” to such high-profile clients as Google, MapQuest and RIM, the maker of the BlackBerry. Tele Atlas also provides digital-mapping services for its corporate owner, the portable-navigation company TomTom.

It goes on…

Images collected by the vans’ cameras don’t make it to the public because Tele Atlas doesn’t have an application like Google Street View. But it soon may have something that’s arguably even better.

That brings us to the vans’ side-sweeping lasers. As the vans drive, their lasers constantly scan the road and everything around it, recording information that Tele Atlas calls the “first reflective surface.” This includes the width, height and contours of every building the van passes.

This data, when combined with the images captured by the cameras, will help Tele Atlas create a 3-D world.

Three-dimensional digital maps already are common in Japan and Western Europe. But 3-D maps are still in their primitive stages in the U.S., where their quality depends on the type of device they’re displayed on.

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Within 18 months, Tele Atlas hopes to develop a powerful navigation system whose images will look almost identical to the surroundings through which we travel.

Source: CNN

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