got geoint?

Welcome once again to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post from got geoint? We hope everyone in the mid-Atlantic region was able to enjoy their hibernation brought on by the massive snow storm that hit this past weekend. Many of you may actually be working from home today because of road conditions. Either way, we hope you are maximizing your WiFi connections and have time to check out this week’s MMNKO post. This week, we have a mixture of stories to share: from extended coverage of last week’s Select Committee on Intelligence hearing to news of Apple rejecting any applications using GPS for location-aware ads and more. Fire up that second cup of coffee and read on!

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According to a recent study by Daratech, a market research firm specializing in GIS, the overall government sector will remain remain strong consumers of geographic information systems (GIS) and geospatial hardware, software, services and data. In 2009, the public sector will account for 40 percent of the $5.3 billion worldwide market for GIS and geospatial products. The most prevalent product categories include data, geo-enabled engineering, global positioning systems, photogrammetric and remote sensing. Daratech also estimated that the total public sector spending worldwide in 2009 should exceed $2.1 billion, with national/federal governments accounting for just less than half of the spending. State/regional governments will spend $654 million, while local governments will spend about $465 million on GIS/geospatial products.

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We hope everyone had a restful weekend. To kick off our work week, we have a number of stories that are what we call “actionable,” meaning news news you can use. Friday’s Food for Thought is the space for all things strange, interesting and somewhat sublime. Monday morning, it’s all about business. And business time it is. Well, perhaps there is one story at the end of this post that may be more of a fit for Friday’s post. Happy Monday!

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We hope everyone had a relaxing weekend. We decided to kick off the week with a post covering “news from the weekend.” Yes, lots happens over the weekend. As such, we hope you find this post informative and that it offers the right mix of news to jump start your work week. Oh, and perhaps we did add in one entertaining (kind of) item at the end. As always, please share your thoughts and insights.

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USGIF member, GeoCommons, launched a very cool application called the “Obamameter” that allows you to track a number of economic attributes including stimulus spending, job creation and foreclosures. A prime example of how mapping tools can track the most important challenge facing our nation: the economy. We recommend you check out the application here.

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There is a big difference in running on a “change” ticket and actually having to implement “change” in the complex political landscape that is our great nation. President Obama is feeling this right now in full effect. While he pledged to stop the CIA’s involvement in secret defense and torture, a Justice Department official said today that the new administration would continue to invoke the existing Bush policies. The ACLU is fired up about it — as expected:

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Hope everyone had a relaxing weekend. Before we post our upcoming Podcast with Jack Pellicci of Intergraph, we wanted to do a quick roundup of noteworthy news to get the week started. As always, we welcome your thoughts and opinions. Last week were received a number of very cogent comments from many folks surrounding Panetta’s qualifications and Google Latitude. Thank you all for that!

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Forrester Research just issued a report on President Obama’s Cybersecurity plan, which could present tremendous opportunities for security vendors to win contracts supporting these efforts. Below is an article from Network World on the report and the impact this effort will have on industry:

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Barack Obama is officially the 44th President of the United States of America. As the new Commander in Chief has taken office, we think it is important to know as much as we can about our new leader. As such, we have provided this primer about Obama — a Fact Sheet provided by Reuters.

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As we are writing this post, the thundering masses are gathering on the Mall in Washington, DC. Despite the cold weather, those attending seem energized and inspired by the changes happening to our great nation. During this time of transition, and as President Bush only has a few more hours in office, we wanted to pull together some recent editorials assessing his performance — especially when it comes to national security.

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