Author: Ed Parsons

Categories
opensource Thoughts

OpenStreetMap and the Rabbit Phone problem..

This week the innovative guys as Nestroia have launched an experimental version of their great real estate aggregation site using OpenStreetMap mapping as an alternative to the usual Google Map Tiles. This is great vote of confidence for OpenstreetMap, but it also highlights some of the problems creating geodata from the cloud.

Where OSM data is comprehenive the map tiles are often more detailed than those Google supply which are based on commerical available datasets. For example this section of tiles covering my childhood neighbourhood in London is truely beatiful, in many ways a better map than the commerical websites.

Chelsea

However the problem is that the coverage for OSM data is not yet complete, and where there is incomplete coverage, for this type of application, its use is a problem. Look at these examples from Wokingham, West of London and part of the UK’s silicon valley.

The Google maps tiles using Tele Atlas data are pretty much complete..

teleatlas

However the OSM version has a lot of missing detail..

OSM

Mapping data really does need to offer complete coverage for it to be really useful, some may remember in the UK in the early days of mobile phones there was an alterative system based on local hotspots called Rabbit. This failed becasue you had to be within 100m or so of a hot spot, unlike the wider coverage of the early analogue mobile systems.

Mapping data needs to be as comprehensive, with no coverage gaps, what is great about Nestoria’s early exposure of the data in a real application is to highlight where more volunteer work needs to be done to complete the work.. If this is achieved by the OSM community, the critic’s of open source geodata will be silenced.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Categories
AGI Apple Thoughts

Eyes down for Macworld..

The annual Applegeek fest known as MacWorld is coming up next week, and I’m all ready to play “keynote bingo” crossing off the expected phases as Steve says them.

Keynote Bingo

Me I’m prediciting as with everybody else, some sort of sub-notebook device related more to the iphone than a macbook, with a docking station for power, keyboard etc.. lots of talk about the iPhone SDK and more media coming to iTunes/Apple TV.

I like the bingo idea, perhaps I will put one together for this years AGI conference in the UK, anyone like to suggest the key phases beyond “Master-Map of the Nation” ?

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Data Policy

Power of Information BarCamp

barcamp logoThe Power of Information Report continues to have its impact around Whitehall, following the hell frezzing release of OS Openspace (alpha) just before the deadline of December last year, the Office of Public Sector Informtion (OPSI) has announced plans to run a barcamp a week on Saturday (12th January).

The BarCampPOIR8 will have as it’s subject the creation of web-based channel to support requests for the publication of specific public information datasets. This was recommendation 8 of the report hence POIR8 !

It’s rather short notice, but great to see Government bodies reaching out to the information policy and developement community in this way.

For those not familiar with the tradtion, this article explains what a barcamp is 🙂

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Categories
GIS

Here comes 2008 !

So roll on 2008, it’s a great time to be involved with geospatial technology in all it forms, and for its great to be part of an industry that is touching so many more peoples lives…

Part of the excitment I feel is due to the fact that the industry is changing to finally better suit the needs of a wider community of users rather than just the professional GIS users. Some indication of this rate of change can be seen in a simple analysis of the search terms used in our favourite serach engine and how these have changed over the last few years.

Using the Google Trends tool it is possible to track how often a term is searched for, and to compare this over time.

OS Trends
Search for “Ordnance Survey”

For example it is interesting to compare the decreasing trend for “Ordnance Survey” with the increasing trend for “Tele Atlas” and “Navteq”.

navteq_graph.png
Search for “Navteq”

The change reflected here I would suggest is the change is focus of users away from local data provders to international suppliers and of course the move away from paper mapping to electronic mapping for many consumers.

Of course it’s easy to read too much into these trends, but as a measure of interest or attention amongst internet users these trends are interesting, I’ll leave it up to you to stop other geospatial search term trends, but look forward for another 12 months of upheaval as the structure and focus of the industry concerned with geographic information continues to change and broaden its appeal beyond the professional (paleogeography) market.

Happy New Year !!

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Categories
Ordnance Survey Thoughts

Dr Vanessa V Lawrence CB

In this years New Years Honours my old boss at the OS has been made a Companion of the Order of the Bath, a honour bestowed upon senior members of the civil service within the UK and a true badge of the establishment.

Congratulations Vanessa, this is well deserved (I’m sure getting OpenSpace out of the door helped 🙂 ), btw can you get me an introduction with Kylie ?

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Categories
Technology Thoughts

Someday all hotel rooms will come with an iMac

City Inn with iMac

This week I ended up unexpectedly staying a night in Manchester and chose the City Inn Hotel close to the station (No drunk Manchester Utd players is always a plus point in my mind), anyway I was amazed to see rather than the usual hotel room TV, a iMac sitting on the desk.

It was running a highly customerised version of Front Row which allowed me to watch TV, but it also gave me full user access to MacOS, so i could surf, email, charge my iphone etc.

Very neat !

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
GPS

The Knowledge beats Sat-Nav even South of the River..

An excellent BBC Click Online show which puts a sat-nav equiped car up against a London Taxi Driver to navigate around London. As you would expect the Cabbie wins, but it’s an excellent explanation of how satnav works warts and all.

Satnav challenge

At the end of the day like many other applications of Geospatial technology, it the data that makes all the difference.

Although this show is a lot better than many others I have seen, comparing a satnav to local knowledge is always unfair, local knowledge will always win, a better comparison is between satnav and a road atlas, or even asking people directions.

My Advice re choosing a GPS, never waste money on a factory fitted system, they are too expensive and are often a year or two behind the capabilities of modern Tom-Tom or Garmin system, however I just love the Ozzy Osbourne instructions driving instructions !

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Categories
neogeography Ordnance Survey Thoughts

OS OpenSpace at last !!

OS Openspace

The OS OpenSpace API has finally launched, just weeks before the deadline imposed by the Cabinet Office, with a alpha test phase with the system finally opening up early next year..

I’d love to see comments from anyone who is part of the alpha, but I guess they are under pretty strict NDA at the moment. [UPDATE 15/12 – There is no NDA, so I’m not sure why there are no examples]

One observation is the limit on the number of maps tiles which may be rendered for an API key, this is not something I have seen elsewhere, but I can understand it as a defence against accusations from commercial users of the data of unfairness.

Still is great to see something I put so much effort into during my time at the OS finally reaching the public.

Written and Submitted from the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Manama, Bahrain, using its wifi broadband network.

Categories
Thoughts web 2.0

Auntie does mash-ups too now!

BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is often seen as a pillar of the establishment in the UK, although I don’t think it has even justified the label, is was on Radio 4 after-all that Andrew Gilligan made he famous acquisition that the Government were spinning information to make the case for the Second Gulf War.

One of their shows iPM has gone all web2.0 and relies heavily on user contributed material submitted via email and blogs, and are now in the process of building a Mash-up of their listeners.

A nice simple idea and a great way to illustrate the value of mapping api sites to a different audience, seems a long time since the UK Mash-up day and OS Openspace which if you remember a year ago was seen as rather too radical !!

Written and Submitted from the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Manama, Bahrain, using its wired broadband network.

Categories
Thoughts

The next generation of Geographers

No.. this is not about neo – paleo geography..

Like you is have been both funny and down right scary to watch this years collection of ‘Stupid People who know nothing about the world” videos, the two most popular I include below.

Where is my Map

Europe – is that a Country ?

Although both these examples are American, this is not just a problem in the United States, similar levels of ignorance are reported on this side of the Atlantic also..

What can be done, should we worry, well on one level the “Capes and Bays” fact based Geography which taught you the major rivers of each country and their capital cities has not been taught since the days of flip-top desks and ink bottles, and perhaps we should not worry too much about this. Although underlying the funny videos is a general lack of this type of knowledge.

The bigger concern is that Geography and the understanding and explaining the patterns in the world around us is just not seen as cool.. and this is a time when the change to the environment around us is seen as our biggest threat to continued happiness.

The Geography teacher is always the butt of jokes about corduroy jackets with leather elbow patches..

Perhaps technology can help here, can using GPS, Mobile phones that know your location and tools like Google Earth make Geography a cool subject.. well maybe at least they can help. Google in the UK this week announced a set of resources for use by teachers and many of them make use of Maps and Google Earth. These resources include lesson plans and links to additional resources which are really useful for Teachers, and potentially something you as a geospatial professional could offer to help out with at your children’s school.

Google Lesson

Last year I spent a happy lunchtime helping my Daughters class map their playground in Google Earth using a few GPS devices.. if your worry about the state of Geography Teaching and Knowledge, get out there and help change things…

Written and Submitted from the La Palma Hotel, Stresa, Italy, using its wifi network.