Author: Ed Parsons

Categories
Thoughts

The first CD meme..

Brothers in ArmsListened to the latest TWiT podcast on the tube this evening, which had a great segment “What was the first CD you bought”, as it is 25 years since Music CD’s were introduced by Phillips and Sony.

It seems i share the dubious honour of sharing Dire Straits, “Brothers in Arms” as my first purchase with John C. Dvorak.

Maybe I am just becoming a Cranky Geek and should just accept it, the music has dated, but as Dvorak says there is still no better way of showing off your Hifi system.

So share the pain, can you remember the first CD you bought ?

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

Categories
Google Earth Nokia N95 Technology

Put your pictures on the planet..

After the buzz has died down about the new sky feature in Earth, I personally think one of the most useful new features is the ability to place images in the landscape, matching the perspective of the location from which they where taken.

The new photooverlay element in KML 2.2 is used to great effect with the gigapxl images, which you just have to try out to really appreciate.

Gigapxl in Google Earth

You can just keep on zooming into these amazing images..

Gigapxl in Google Earth zoomed

And these are taken with a single exposure, so they are very useful for analysis of the images.

For me the most exciting development is the potential now for those millions of geotagged photos already online to be placed in the locations from where the pictures were taken, this would provide another great way of representing the “sense of place” of a location.

Phone pic in google earth

As a simple example, this is a picture of the Google Office in London, taken with the Camera in my Nokia N95. With its GPS, and the additional of a simple compass to provide the bearing of the shot, you have all your need.

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

Categories
Google Earth Technology Thoughts

Ogle Earth TV

Stefan Geens the man behind the fantastic Ogle Earth blog, has put together an amazing DIY TV show using Google Earth and Wirecast.

Everyday the tools that where once only in the hands of the professionals are now available to the professional-amateur, although I think Stefan may have another career on IPTV waiting for him! 

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Data Policy GIS Ordnance Survey

No comment – just grab a pint !

CheersI am not going to comment on this weeks Story in the Guardian, as I would never discuss the details of any potential commercial arrangement in public.

But I am personally very disappointed for the people at CASA at University College London who have developed a world class 3D city model which could potentially have been licensed to many organisations, not just Google.

Keep up the great work guys, it is vital for University departments to both move forward the science of GIS but also innovate in a commercial setting and develop products and techniques which have the potential to be used both by Industry and Government.

Have a few beers over the weekend, and enjoy the rest of your vacation !!

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

Categories
Apple Thoughts

AppleWorks the end at last..

I loved Appleworks ( previously know as Clarisworks) and it has been finally retired with the addition of the numbers spreadsheet to Apples iWork suite. Not sure where the MacDraw like drawing application replacement is but never mind.

ClarisworksThe long life of Claris/Applework is both a reflection on the perceived dominance of Microsoft Office and a focus on Apple else where, but it is also interesting to note that is was always a very popular application all the way to its end because it was very simple, fast and well integrated. I have only just managed to stop my wife using it exclusively and moved her onto to Pages/Word.

Few users of Office use more than 10% of the capabilty of their applications and while in a business seeting there is always someone who might use more, this is not the case for the vast major of home office, and personal users.

I’m sure there are lessons for GIS designers in recognising the demand for simple applications that offer 10% on the functionality of a tool kit desktop GIS system but to 99% of the users – there are still people hanging on to their copies of ArcView 3.x I’m sure?

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
GIS

It’s August.. time for a “people can’t read a map” story

This is actually quite funny, maybe I have discovered a method of telling the time of year from the stories in the press.

This time last year, I was sitting in the studio’s of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, about to do a piece about how terrible Satellite Navigation was, and how PND’s are a threat to the continued existence of western civilisation.

Sitting next to John Humphrys is a bit scary, but he is actually a nice chap, anyway the nation was saved my defence of SatNav by the “Map Supporter” of the debate, the editor of Walking  Magazine in the UK getting lost on the way to the Radio Studio !!

So this year we have this story in the Daily Mail, reporting on some research carried out by a car insurance company, which suggests people had difficulty recognising obscure map symbols on a OS Road Map.  

Map Symbols

So what is the concern here.. I doubt actually that people could ever recognise this symbols in the first place, PND’s and in-car SatNavs have not made people less map literate, they were never map literate in this way in the first place.

Most people use a map to plan routes, from place A to B not something you need and awareness of the fact that green shading represents mud! 

Fewer people carrying maps in their cars, is a result not only on the increased use of satellite navigation, but also the use of online route planning tools like Google maps, which are often more up to date that road atlases. People also no longer carry extensive tool kits and spare parts in their cars as they would have once done.

We must remember that SatNavs are not perfect, but in almost all cases, contain the same information as road atlases, but presented in a more useable way and with the massive advantage of knowing where you are !!.

Congratulations to the insurance company for recognising the opportunity of the August quite time for the news, they won’t be getting my custom I’m afraid, but lets look forward to next Augusts story. 

Written and submitted from the SAS Radisson Hotel, Stockholm, using the free hotel WiFi

Categories
GIS neogeography

Foot and Mouth – a Geographical Problem

Foot and Mouth

So once again we find ourselves facing an outbreak of Foot and Mouth, hopefully this time around the importance of the geographical information in fighting the spread of the disease will be recognised early on. Things look hopeful, Defra have already a map of the initial outbreak on their website, and of course today the tools to communicate this information are very different from the last outbreak in 2001.

I was able to create this KML file in 5 minutes from the details on the Defra website.

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

Categories
Thoughts

Mac iPlayer .. so the wait begins !

Today the BBC opened up its iPlayer service as a public beta, offering on-demand viewing of the BBC’s excellent programming to users of Microsoft Windows XP. If you don’t have XP, don’t want XP then you have to wait as this is all down to Digital Rights Management, protecting the content you have already paid for as television license payers.

Testcard

Imagine if you could only watch BBC 1 on Televisions made by Phillips, or only get TV listings from the Daily Mail.

Don’t think this is right.. then sign this Petition.

Categories
Google Maps neogeography Technology

Thames Valley Flood Map

A Great example of community mapping and the immediacy of tools like the My Maps feature of Google Maps is this map by Oliver Williams who is collating images, videos and reports relating to the current river floods in England.

When I looked this maps was less than a hour old !!

Flood Map

Not only is this a potentially powerful way of communicating up-to-date information quickly, it is also great at telling the human story of such events.

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Data Policy GIS LBS

Community Data Capture major part of Tom Tom Tele Atlas deal

Just listening to the conference call on the Tom Tom acquisition of Tele Atlas one of the major drivers behind the deal is the recognition of an ecosystem between PND’s capturing geospatial data and traditional “professional” GIS data capture techniques.

Without community generated content, in a online future if will not be possible to provide the expected level of currency of data – Strong stuff but hard to argue with.

If this is not a wake-up call for the traditional mapping organsiations I don’t know what else is !!

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.