Author: Ed Parsons

I was part of a panel today at the The Mobility Summit an event organised by the European Technology Forum and Cnet Networks. The panel discussed the emergence of more precisely the lack of emergence of Location Based Services as a section of the mobile data industry.

The point I argued, as I have before, is that as long as LBS applications are more difficult to access, and provide no more information, than asking a passer-by in the street they will fail to become mainstream. This is really disappointing as all the necessary components are in place to deliver really useful mobile portals customised to met the needs of the use based on their location.

Imagine switching on your mobile phone and been presented with, the local weather, traffic conditions, train departures from the closest station and your nearest ATM etc, all without having to click through many complex menus, pressing keys multiple times etc.

From the users perspective, the complexity of currently using LBS is a real issue, although as Sean Phelan from multimap.com pointed out, cost is a big problem… would multimap, streetmap, google maps etc have had the success they have had so far, if they users had been charged 25p a go !

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

Spent the weekend flicking through a very cool new book on GI and GIS technologies, “Mapping Hacks” a product of the people behind the mapping hacks website.

This is great stuff, it bites off all the basic principles of GeoData in small chunks, from the perspective of someone actually trying to build practical solutions. This would be a great alternative text book to the more academic standard texts used to teach on GIS Masters courses, at least it should develop some enthusiasm in students, I will certainly recommend this to the students on the Masters programme I’m external examiner for !

It’s just a shame it missed the google map hack phenomenon , but hey thats for the second edition !!

The movement towards Open Source geodata continues – there is still someway to go until we need to think about co-existence strategies with commerical geodata but that time will come.

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

Daniel H. Stienberg pens a review of the where 2.0 conference at O’Reilly Network: The How and Who of Where. A whole new sector of the GI market is emerging based on open IT standards, and collaborative development. The old guard of the established mapping agencies needs to take note, although their core business will remain unchanged, consumer mapping applications have changed forever.

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

As reported by O’Reilly Radar Google have released an official API to their google maps application at the Where 2.0 conference. Website developers can legitimately embed google maps in their application for no charge !! – Mapquest et al… the clock is ticking.

But you ask how can this work, google has to pay teleatlas, digitalglobe and others for the data.. well the answer is on the google maps API page –

“The Maps API is a free beta service, available for any web site that is free to consumers. Google retains the right to put advertising on the map in the future. Please see the terms of use for more information.”

Ah…

but hey this is GREAT at last some innovation.

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

This week sees the O’Reilly Where 2.0 conference take place in San Francisco, which I believe marks a turning point for the GeoData and GIS industries if they want to take it. Where 2.0 gives a pointer to the direction the geodata industry will go if the likes of Google and Microsoft in the form of MSN Virtual Earth are successful.

This direction is characterised by modern internet based applications built using industry wide web standards and exploiting established internet business models. – No talk of GML or the OGC here..

In his pre conference interview Tim O’Reilly identified the role of XML based API’s such as the “google hack” interface of google maps as allowing “mash up” applications to be created by website owners combining data from different sources in a way not possible in the previous generation of web mapping sites such as mapquest and in the UK multimap.

O’Reilly clearly sees data as the key to success in this new market.. resulting in my quote of the year so far

“There is a big concept that hit my radar…the idea that data is the INTEL inside.”

Time will tell to what extent this is true but it will be interesting to see the response of the traditional GIS industry as represented by Jack Dangermond of ESRI who is also speaking at the conference.

I personally think this is a big deal, I just wish my calendar allowed me to attend, the world of GeoData and location based applications is changing as the giants awake.

Written and submitted from the Holiday Inn Express Southampton, using the hotels 802.11 network

The BBC report that the rise of satnav spells the end of the map as an in-car navigation tool. I think there is some truth in this, although I still carry a half million scale map in case of system failure in my satnav equipped car.

A point which the article could have made more of is the complete reliance on the system, when as a user, to get used to having a calm voice telling you where to go next. What happens when “she” and it usally is “she” is not there anymore ? – blind panic.. cars stopping with lost drivers not knowing our to unfold their maps 🙂

Still its great to see geograhic information becoming more and more mainstream.

Written and submitted from the garden just before a thunderstorm, using my home 802.11 network

Spot the deliberate mistake ?

I am a huge fan of google maps a well designed application and great user expereice, however can you spot the problem on this map of Europe.. Look closely and you will see a error in the text placement routine which means that..

Belgium has swapped places with the Netherlands !

Listening to the Adam Curry podcast this morning, who described using google local on his mobile to give his cab driver directions to a hotel.. LBS is alive and well outside the network operators “walled gardens” it seems.