San Francisco State University will be offering a new Masters of Science degree in Geographic Information Science for fall 2010. The new program highlights the emerging field of study that combines aspects of geography, cartography, statistics, visualization, and custom programming. More details on the program can be found here.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has just launched an online Water Forum to collect public input on how it can best protect and improve America’s waters. Input is open to any interest — from planning, to scientific tools, to low impact development, to green infrastructure. The emphasis is on means to better use resources and improve outcomes.

The feedback received on the online forum will help lead the discussion at EPA’s water conference where they will engage more than 100 water executive and local water leads from around the country.

The “virtual fence” sensor web project along the Mexican border has been stripped of $50Million of federal stimulus funds by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano due to cost overruns and missed deadlines. The fence has been installed and is undergoing testing in two areas along the Arizona border, but there are no plans to extend it. Instead the funds are being diverted to personal tech for border guards, including laptops, radios, thermal imaging devices and cameras.

Read more in this story from the New York Times.

The Earth Engine is an idea that spun out of work that Google.org was doing with the Google Earth Outreach Program in Brazil with indigenous people and non-profit organizations focused on conservation. The scientists were happy with Google Earth, but expressed the need for a system that could not only map, but also monitor, deforestation in the Amazon.

I spoke with Rebecca Moore, the Engineering manager of Earth Engine and Google Earth Outreach, about the impetus and objectives of the Earth Engine project.

Here’s Moore on the design:

“The idea will be to ultimately provide for public benefit an online repository that brings together all of the Earth’s observation data (satellite imagery, terrain datasets, vector data such as roads, borders, population centers, soil information, climate information) into one large georeferenced data store. And then to provide, through an easy to use application programming framework, access to our computational resources for analyzing that data.

We see this as an unprecedented platform for data-mining meaningful information out of this treasure trove of historical, current and future earth observation data. Ultimately it will be many petabytes of earth observation information.”

Google expressly places this within their non-profit arm, with the plan to enable the storage and add the computing capacity, but not to create any algorithms or conduct any monitoring themselves. This new site will act as a tremendous enabler for the spread of remote sensing data and analysis, and can ultimately become the kind of c0-laboratory that was envisioned in Al Gore’s Digital Earth speech.

Read the full interview here.

There’s a growing (renewed?) interest in the Internet of Things around the benefits for a more instrumented and connected city. IBM organized a session at SXSW in Austin that took place this morning titled, “City as Platform.” The objectives of the session was to discuss the role of information architects, the interface of systems with the built world, the steps needed to transform the thinking of planners and builders toward viewing the city as a platform, and the role of citizens  in the design.

Participants include an impressive array of technologists, city advocates, and planners/designers. The session is certainly an important one for wider advocacy of this “system of systems” thinking. The makeup of the panel and the objectives of the session are fully outlined on this Blog post from the Smarter Planet blog, with promises for a recap post and podcast to follow.

The following video from IBM was posted today to YouTube, and it provides a great overview of IBM’s view of “The Internet of Things.”

It’s a shame to read that Canadian climate research will likely continue to go unfunded, meaning the demise of the decade-old Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. This research entity has been working on studies related to climate change such as the melting arctic, the consequence of permafrost thaw, and the pattern of drought in the praries. The Foundation has a mandate that runs through 2012, but it hasn’t received any funding since the Conservative government took charge in 2006. Without any funding, it will likely shutter its doors this year.

It’s concerning that science continues to be censored in areas of atmospheric research and global change. Assessing and understanding the trends and impacts of climate change should have no political bias, as the consequences affect everyone. Such a research network fosters larger science of an interdisciplinary and collaborative nature that follows no agenda and that cannot be swayed by politics. Perhaps it’s time for more of a global entity for research and science on this topic, taking advantage of the work of the Group on Earth Observations and facilitating coordinated global research efforts.

Researchers from Stanford and the University of California, Riverside are working to harness the power of accelerometers to build a seismic detecting network out of ordinary computers. Accelerometers detect movement and are increasingly being used in devices such as iPhones to flip from vertical to horizontal and Wii controllers. Many of today’s laptop computers already have accelerometers installed, and thanks to their high use they are a low-cost (under $50) item to add if the computer doesn’t have one.

The idea is to have a geographically distributed network of computers, and one or more computer in large buildings, that each send readings automatically to a central database. The amount of data that would be collected would far surpass what’s available today. The network is coming together now as the Quake Catchers Network, with more than a thousand computers already signed on.

Read more about this concept in this feature from the Los Angeles Times.

The photo sharing site Flickr is hosting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Documerica Project from the 1970s. The project ran from 1971-1977, with freelance photographers hired to take images related to environmental problems. There are more than 15,000 photos archived on the site.

This photo is one in a series from the ground and air that documented pre-pipeline conditions from Prudhoe Bay south to Valdez. This shot is of pattered ground as the result of massive ice formations north of Galbraith Lake. Photo by Dennis Cowals.

The U.S. State Department launched a new data visualization site called Opinion Space yesterday. The online data visualization tool gives you the means to gauge how your own opinions stack up to those of others around the world. The visualization isn’t aligned to geographic space, but instead maps opinion space by showcasing the consensus and moderate views. T opinion map aims to depolarize online comments while also allowing for a text-based sharing of “Ideas for Secretary of State Clinton.”

This innovative means to collect feedback is made possible through a partnership with the Berkeley Center for New Media. The idea to collect and map opinions over time will add a feedback mechanism and a sense of changing perceptions about the objectives of U.S. diplomacy and how these efforts are perceived both domestically and internationally.

High quality videos from the GeoDesign Summit are now online and free for viewing. There are some excellent presentations there from a variety of presenters. I’d like to point out the video of Michael Gallis as a good starting point. He delves into the definition of GeoDesign in the context of government decision making and points out the promise for a “truly meaningful” toolset with outcomes on policy. The tone and delivery are exhilarating as a rallying cry to speed the adoption.