Trans – Siberian – Google Virtual train

It now seems that Google has once more stricken. On a partnership with the Russian Railways, Google’s Virtual Train spans the entire 150 hour journey and users can pass the time listening to audio books of Russian classics – such as Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace or Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls.

Few years ago I had the chance to travel on the Tran-Siberian train from Moscow to Irkutsk, and onto the Baikal Lake. At over 5,600 miles it is the world’s longest railway, crossing seven time zones, 12 regions and passing through 87 towns and cities before arriving in distant Vladivostok.

Over 80 hours of train, this was a truly memorable train journey! At the time, I was advised to travel to east Siberia by train, as this allowed discovering the country and slowly get accounted with the jet lag.

Every few hours the train was stopping, a chance to stretch legs on the platform and taste some of the local delicacies (pancakes, smoked fishes, etc.).

Here are few pictures from that trip along the Baikal lake and Irkutsk.

[Show as slideshow]

One Step closer to ArcGIS 10

Following the DeveloperHub Conference, ESRI (UK) has released the material from the presentation. These are available on their site. This conference was an opportunity to get the latest news in for the most awaited ArcGIS 10. The following presentation gives the latest news.

There seems to be a lot of exiting news feature forecasted with ArcGIS 10. Here is a quick non exhaustive summary of the presentation.

ArcGIS Desktop:

-          Dynamic TOC

-          Integrated Search

-          ArcCatalog now integrated in ArcMap, for easier access to the data

-          Better graphs and reports

-          Performance improvement:

• Fast map display
  • New Basemap layer
  • Easy to create and manage
• Fast map navigation
  • Continuous pan and zoom
  • Mouse or keyboard control
• Fast high quality
  • Map ServicesMaplex
  • Cartographic Representations

-          Improved Editing

• EasyDataEntry2Dand3D
• SymbolBasedEditing
• Pre-attributedFeatures

-          Map Generation improvement

• Easier creation of multiple map scale, with the use of generalisation

ArcGIS Server

-          More flexibility in the install process

• Separate GIS Services Setup and Web Applications Setup.
• Install the Web services endpoints on their own
• Services portion of Manager is an optional installation
• Applications portion of Manager for creating and administering Web applications is a third optional piece.

-          Increased monitoring of SOC processes

• ArcSOCMon.exe, runs on each server object container (SOC) machine, monitoring the state of the SOC processes

-          Logging offloaded to SOCs

-          New feature service:

• REST, Stateless and fast, simple view of the Geodatabase
• Exposes access to vector feature geometries and attributes.
• Supports feature editing through JavaScript, Flex, and Silverlight applications. This includes new widget for data editing.
• Works with ArcGIS Feature Templates
• New AMF output support

Best Street in the UK

As reported by the http://www.thisisbath.co.uk news paper, Google has just launched a new award scheme to vote for the best street in the UK. Google will work with the winning streets to create a bespoke Google Street View tour, created to highlight the key retailers and points of interest, allowing the world to find out more about the nation’s final choices.

In all, 50 streets in 25 different cities have been shortlisted, and the public can use Google Street View to decide on their favourites and vote.

Google judges have selected a shortlist of best streets in three categories, and now we need your vote:

Britain’s Best Foodie Street

The winning street should offer a unique mix of mouth-watering options which could include fine dining, cafés, market stalls and delicatessens, all covering a diverse mix of food types and price points.

Britain’s Best Fashion Street

The winning street should offer an eclectic mix of boutique and high street, designer and high street for all clothing tastes and ages. The winning street should satisfy both bargain-hunters and label-lovers.

Britain’s Most Picturesque Street

The winning street should be uniquely British and visually charming. It could be vibrant, full of character, diverse, walker-friendly or architecturally interesting.

FOSS4G 2010 – Call for papers

FOSS4G is “the conference” for Open Source Geospatial Software and in year 2010 will meet in Barcelona, Spain.

FOSS4G is heralded as the international “gathering of tribes” of open source geospatial communities, where developers and users show off their latest software and projects.

The spatial industry is undergoing rapid innovations and the open source spatial community is one of the forces driving the change. The FOSS4G conference is more than a melting pot of great ideas it is a catalyst and opportunity to unite behind the many successful geospatial products, standards and protocols.

Call for papers and presentations is now open. Three type of presentations  or papers are available:

About Presentations

FOSS4G presentations are 25 minute talks, with a 5 minute question and answer session at the end. Presentations cover aspects of the use or development of open source geospatial software. Anyone can can submit a presentation proposal and take part in the conference as a speaker.
Learn more…

Poster Session

There will be a poster session at FOSS4G, providing space for 4′ by 4′ posters and a time slot for attendees to circulate among the posters and ask the presenters questions.
Learn more…

Accademic Track

The academic track is the right forum to highlight the most important research challenges and trends in the domain, and let them became the basis for an informal OSGeo research agenda.
Learn more…