A nice Free Wifi Access map from the Londonist, locating free public wifi sites, moderated at the moment pehaps it would be more useful if it allowed users to maintain the database.
Still a long way from the original consume the net database.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
I have just returned from the beautiful town of Girona in Spain, where I was speaking at the AGILE 2008 Conference, a meeting of the key Geographic Information research laboratories in Europe, which was expertly organised by SIGTE the GIS Lab at the University of Girona.
As is increasingly the case at conferences I attend, researchers are using both Google Maps and Google Earth as mechanisms to communicate their results in an appealing way. I hope to be able to highlight some interesting examples over the next few days, but there seems to be a clear pattern emerging where spatial analysis may be carried out using programs developed by researchers or by using powerful analytic tool sets like ArcGIS or ArcGIS Server, but presented using Google Earth.
The products of the research are often rendered via KML for display, but what is perhaps still missing in some cases is for the results to be really published, i.e. for the KML files to be posted on a web server somewhere along with details of the research for others to discover.
Interestingly there was very little discussion of the neo/paleo-geography debate, which is great, I hope we have moved onto to a position where the users of “professional” high end tools such as those produced by ESRI see a natural final publishing step of creating KML output of their work, certainly with the tools now available in the next version of ArcGIS and the OGC adoption of KML this should be simple one.
Of course as you would expect there are limitations with the current generation of virtual globes, Google Earth included, for some aspects of GI Science. Notably in more complex handling of temporal and sub surface features, and in cartographic output more functionality is needed.
Some of these limitations reflect the largely mass-market focus of Google Earth, but such feedback is always useful to hear, todays research requirement could well be tomorrows mass-market standard feature, and it is wise never to underestimate how sophisticated users may become.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
.. for Londoners to elect Boris Johnson as their new Mayor. His acceptance speech today was unbelievable, he will be one of the most powerful politicians in the UK as of Monday!!
If he can get elected to this office, maybe anybody can; indeed perhaps there is a new career for some people I used to work with…
Still at least he will bring back the Routemaster Bus!
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
Good News, the wonderful BBC iPlayer is coming to users of Virgin Media’s cable TV service, let’s hope the flaky infrastructure of Virgin Media can cope with the demand.
This poses an interesting question does it not, on one hand the ISP’s like Virgin Media are upset that applications like the iplayer are hogging broadband capacity, while on the other hand the same content delivered to set top boxes using the same fundamental network is OK.
Maybe Virgin Media is behind Net Neutrality after-all…
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
GeoWeb 2008 Conference registration open
GeoWeb, one of the highest quality GIS GI conferences held every year in beautiful Vancouver is open for Registration
Apple Store staff become Star Trek cast members
According to ifoapplestore.com, Apple Store staff are to wear colour coded shirts denoting their expertise with slogans specifc to their jobs, Specialists in light blue with “I can talk about this stuff for hours”, Creative experts in dark blue “No pain, no gain”.
I just feel sorry for the security guys in red “I’ll be dead 10 minutes into the episode”
Help where am I
Interesting story many of us can relate to on when technology does not work as it should. In this case the answer is in the comments.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
Last Week saw TomTom announce a large drop in quarterly earnings , with sales of their iconic PND becoming more difficult, needing price reductions to keep sales moving.
Many are suggesting this is the natural evolution of the market, with saturation at a particular price point on one hand, while on the other, mobile phones with GPS are taking market share. I’m not sure I buy the mobile phone argument yet, for sure in the medium term converged mobile devices may make personal navigation devices obsolete, but I don’t think the current generation of mobile devices such as the N95 are there yet.
TomTom has a strong brand name and produce well designed products, (The Apple of GPS ?), maybe the issue is the more familar one of techncology adoption, are we seeing the chasm where early adopters have the devices, but mass-market users have not moved.
If your were to read some newspapers in the UK, you would believe that following the instructions of a “sat-nav” would a best lead you into a field, or at worse onto a railway line in front of a speeding express train.
These reports must have an impact on the buying behaviours of many mass-market consumers, but do they explain Tom Toms recent problem, or are there a group of potential consumers who still find the whole business too complicated and expensive for their needs ?
Is the PND yet to cross the chasm ?
Unlike my friend at lost in spatial, I don’t think this is related to an alien plot (Dr. Who viewers only reference).
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
We say Goodbye to the great Humphrey Lyttelton who died yesterday, Jazz Musician and host of the I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue radio show, one of the Great British institutions, and something which during my time in Southampton made by commute just about bearable.
Humph was a great institution in himself, with a wicked sense of humour in addition to his skills with the trumpet, I was lucky to see him play at the Bull Head in Barnes a few years ago which was quite brilliant.
But it is for ISIHAC which Humph will be best remembered, some of my favourite lines (remember this went out at 6.30 pm on national radio);
“Samantha’s going out now for an ice cream with her new Italian gentleman friend. She says she’s looking forward to licking the nuts off a large Neapolitan.”
“Dear Mrs McCartney: My, what a terrible mess. You must be kicking yourself.”
And of course Lionel Blair, may now sleep soundly without nightmares of Sound Charades, for which his expertise was rightly famous..
“…miming the titles…against a strict time limit. The most highly skilled of all was Lionel Blair — but how the tears of frustration welled up in his eyes during their Italian tour at not being allowed the use of his mouth to finish off Two Gentlemen of Verona?”.
..And so, ladies and gentlemen, as the 4×4 of destiny on the level crossing of fate stalls in the path of the speeding freight train of doom, and the signalman of time rushes to fetch his camera… we say farewell and thanks for the memories Humph
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
From the Wired blog a demo of Enkin; still a work in progress, but potentially this is the LBS interface of the future..
Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.
Milliways: Play the legendary game
Once upon a time, I used to love playing infocoms classic interpretation of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the brilliant waxy.org, brings news of the unfinished sequel Milliways, which has been found, and is playable !!
Location aware twitter comes to the iPhone
I just don’t see the point of twitter, but it’s now location aware with the soon to be released Twinkle application, location has the potential to add something to social networking for sure..
A Satnav that avoids Manchester
Ah.. the old sterotypes… Still a Satnav, that plugs into crime data is under development by Honda in Japan, traffic data and weather were the obvious first steps in integrating other GI data onto these devices, soon perhaps we will see the whole range of geodemographics available as we drive around.
Walking Hotspot
Sometime you come across an application that is just cool, like walkinghotspot, an application to turn your 3G wifi phone into a mobile wifi hotspot.
Written and submitted from Vancouver Airport, BC, using its free public 802.11 network
On of the most asked for features when talking to “professional” users of Google Earth, is the most basic piece of metadata, image acquisition date.
Well, one of the least remarked features in the 4.3 version of Google Earth which was released last week is the ability to at least discover the year the image you are looking at was acquired. This is unfortunately not available everywhere as we don’t have the data for all imagery, but from now on we will be making this available if we have it.
Just click on the little blue circle in the status bar, to see the year of acquisition for the imagery you are looking at..
But understandably much of the attention around this release has been on the improved visualisation capabilities, including the new atmospheric effects, improved 3D modelling and display and embedded street view imagery. Stefan has an excellent post discussing the relative values of these and the behind the scenes changes in this release, Brains & Beauty as he defines them.
Part of the value in the “Beauty” functionality, is the ability to provide the type of information traditional cartography and GIS systems which have automated cartography techniques have largely failed to do – provide a sense of place.
Regular readers will know of my interest in “sense of place” i.e. providing the information that better represents what a place in actually like.
Let me provide an example..
From the map abstract below, can you tell what type of neighbourhood you are looking at..
If you know this city you might recognise the street names, if you are a geographer you might make an assumption about the street pattern, and the type of city which would have a grid based system like this. If we add aerial imagery, perhaps you can now recognise a little more about architecture and building styles, the amount of green spaces, trees etc.
But even with aerial imagery it is still hard to interpret, and to get a feeling what the place would be like to visit.
However if better quality 3D visualisations or even better terrestrial imagery is available, you can actually get a very good sense of what the city is like and even perhaps recognise the city itself.
3D Views of the city provide a great overview of a neighbourhood, while street view images represent the world from a familiar perspective.
The informational value of being able to view buildings, street furniture, parked cars, shop fronts etc., is actually massive because it requires very little interpretation, it is something we are all familiar with and can therefore relate to.
We still have a long way to go of course, as Stefan points out it would be great to know for an individual building, its address, or a shops opening hours, that is clearly something for the future, but lets not under estimate the importance and the emotional impact of seeing the world represented in a way we are all more used to..
Written and submitted from the Executive House Hotel, Victoria, BC , using its free wired network