Category: GIS

Categories
AGI GIS Technology Thoughts

GI Innovation in the UK – you just need to look in the right place..

Yesterday was a series of interesting contrasts for me, the state of the “traditional” Government dominated GI industry was pretty well summed up by the Chorley Day review event organised by the AGI, key impression – “why after 20 years of trying does nobody listen to us”, while the very same evening brought a larger audience to the mashup* location themed event, key impression – “Hello we would really like to build application “x” using your platform is that OK..”

I was really pleased to see the WIDR guys at the event last night, some bright guys who used to work for me while I was at Ordnance Survey, who have developed a location determination platform, with an open API, based on wifi hotspots. Not a new idea I know, but the API element is really interesting as it offers the potential for developers to easily add location awareness to their own web based applications.

Widr

What would begin to close the gap between the two diverging GI communities, would be if these guys could develop they ideas during the day rather than in their spare time, and bring the benefit directly back to their organisation. The 20% time that Google engineers can use to develop their own ideas is well known, and really is a powerful tool for developing new products and services – would we ever see anything like that in Government ?

No.. I guess not.. but then the next generation of customers of Government services, as David Rhind so brilliantly called them yesterday the “myTube” generation have vastly different expectations of dealing with organisations based on experiences with eBay, Amazon, Facebook, Google etc all of which recognise the importance of innovation in keeping their customers happy.

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

Categories
GIS

Upcoming..

Some fascinating events coming up over the next couple of weeks, which quite well reflect the nature of the GI industry today..

Next week I will be on a panel at the mashup* event which is focusing on Location and the content goes with the title, on the same day I’m at the AGI’s Chorley Day event – a review of the progress or lack of it since the Government published it’s report on the “handling of Geographic Information” 20 year ago, and I’m sure there will be the obvious Sergeant Pepper references !!

For the first time in a number of years I will not be at the ESRI User Conference, read nothing into this other than I’m no longer a ESRI user!! ESRI continue to do great things and are building the tools which are helping to create large parts of the Geoweb. Peter I’m sure you will have a great time experiencing the force at first hand !!

I’m really excited to be delivering the Keynote at the first State of the Map Conference in Manchester next month, Steve Coast and the OpenStreetMap community are getting together for the first time ( amazing what you can do with a virtual community) and discussing the development of open geodata.
The European INSPIRE legislation has the potential to massively increase the amount of Geodata available and the 13th European Commission Workshop on Geographic Information and GIS in Portugal has INSPRE as its central theme.

Interesting times…

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

Categories
Data Policy GIS Ordnance Survey web 2.0

The Power of Information Report – connecting .gov.uk to the mashup generation

Ed Mayo and Tom Steinberg have completed, their important review of the potential value of Government generated information, when combined with citizen contributed information and tools.

Power of InformationThe Power of Information review commissioned by the cabinet office, is a very important report in my opinion – noting the value of Public Sector information, but also recognising that it is when this information is in the hands of the citizen, it becomes most valuable.

The report should be seen as a way for government to catch up with and serve the needs of the “mash-up” generation who will increasingly become a demanding group of citizens who understand the power of information.

It will be interesting to see the Governments response to the report, as is often the case we must remember that Government does not speak with a single voice, but the fact that the Cabinet office commissioned this independent report in the the first place is very positive.

If you are a UK reader I recommend downloading and reading this report, there is one recommendation that is close to my heart :-), and another that is just vital –

Recommendation 9. By Budget 2008, government should commission and publish an
independent review of the costs and benefits of the current trading fund charging model for the re-use of public sector information, including the role of the five largest trading funds, the balance of direct versus downstream economic revenue, and the impact on the quality of public sector information.

For too long the debate about cost recovery has been carried out in a vacuum without an authoritative economic justification of the statue quo – this recommendation would either prove the case for the OS so it would no longer have to defend itself, or prove the case of the free data lobby – and we could then get on with the important business of using geography to make the world a better place to live in.

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

Categories
GIS Google Maps

iPhone hype – How LBS became mainstream

Great posting at the TUAW detailing the Zaprudering of the iPhone commercials which are running in the states this week. Zaprudering for those not steeped is conspiracy theory is the process of analysing meaning in the detail of a film, and derives from the famous Zapruder film of the JFK assassination.

iphone

iPhone hype and excitement is a the level now where any information about the features of the phone is blogged within minutes to an excited world, and where misinformation can cost billions to the investors of Apple.

So it’s interesting that one of the key features demonstrated is the Maps application, powered by Google, and its a great demo of what makes geographic information so valuable.

The user interface of course is great making full use of the gesture support, the application appears fully integrated with the rest of the phones applications, and most important of all for an LBS application, even though the phone is not location aware, the information presented is actionable – the vital ingredient in any LBS application..

Find a restaurant in SF and then call to make the reservation, and as TUAW points out, the restaurant in the commercial is real and is getting many calls because of their instant fame – a pretty good test of data quality.

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

Categories
GIS Ordnance Survey

Land-Line the end is in sight !

With very little fanfare the retirement of Land-Line the Ordnance Survey’s most important cartographic product was announced yesterday, oddly the main story on the OS website is about a graduate training programme !

Some seven years after the introduction of OS MasterMap, the database focused feature dataset will become the primary product for most of the professional business customers of OS in September 2008.

This has been a long time in coming, but it is a major step forward for the industry in the UK. Thing in terms of moving from MS-DOS to Windows 95 and will appreciate the scope of the change.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

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Categories
GIS Thoughts

GeoTEC – GIS Conferences the Canadian way..

GeoTEc 2007

This week I’m in Calgary at the GeoTEC 2007 conference, where I was asked to deliver the Keynote and it is proving to be an interesting contrast with conferences back in the UK.

Outside of user conferences and a few academic conferences, it is unusual to find particularly technical presentations and workshop sessions – things that appeal to me and the “hands-on people” in GIS.

Well that is certainly not the case here, taken at random from the programme..

Advanced LIDAR processing;

Intercomparison of DEM Terrain and Watershed Attributes Derived from Three Independent Sources;

Google Earth adds a New Dimension: Dynamic Time based Data Display;

and The 1901 Census as a indication of the Spatial Existence of a Letis Homeland.

Matt Ball and his team have developed a strong technical programme which has attracted over 1000 people to Calgary, and most of those will have had to fly here, arrange accommodation etc.. In Canada at least there is a strong demand for such content – and this is the 21st GeoTEC conference.

I have often had the debate with people back in the UK why we don’t have such strong technical programmes at UK conferences, which end up often only with “Hello I’m from [organisation A] and I did this with my GIS, and here is [Vendor X] who helped me do it”, or lets bash the OS (easy target) and “Why does nobody listen to us”.

Answers on a postcard, or maybe I can convince Matt to come and run a conference in the UK.

Written and submitted from Hyatt Hotel, Calgary, using its in-room wired network.

Categories
GIS

The return of the NRSC

NRSC logoAs a youngster, OK MSc Student.. we all wanted to work for the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) an organisation based in Farnborough with loads of exciting technology – GEMS workstations, Prime mini computers, tens of megabytes of disk storage, and a national remit to evangelise and exploit Remote Sensing.
This week the BBC announced the launch of the ‘Green eye’ technology centre, just multiply the old NRSC by 100 and you have some idea of the progress made in Earth Observation in the last 20 years..

A who would have though we would have sub meter imagery of much of the world available to anyone on their home computer !!

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

Categories
GIS

KMS A model for Ordnance Survey ?

Today I presented a Keynote to the Partner Conference of Kort & Matrikelstyrelsens or KMS the Danish National Mapping Agency, and as a organisation it represents an interesting contrast to Ordnance Survey. There is in Denmark a clear separation between the capture and use of core geographic information for government use and the commercial exploitation of that data.

Within government agencies there is a free flow of information with little restriction to allow goverment activities to be carried out and services provided to the citizen. All commercial applications of geographic information are served by a group of partners of KMS who all have access to the national datasets via a range of web services implemented using OGC WxS services, including feature serving. Something the OS has been experimenting with for 5 years…
KMS have added to the standards to allow e-commerce tracking of usage and the correct licensing to take place.

Importantly KMS do not compete with their partners in serving these commercial markets.

Technically this is a great solution, which seems to be working both for the customers of KMS and its dynamic partner community and there is complete clarity as to the respective roles of each within the market.. it is nicely summarised by the following statement on the KMS website

“The National Survey and Cadastre creates and maintains geodata, which professional firms use to produce maps and mapping products.”

If nothing else, this should be food for thought for the OS with the government response to the OFT report expected any day now…

Written in the BA Lounge, Copenhagen Airport and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Categories
GIS

GI-Days 2007 – Young Researchers Forum announced

I was passed this “call for papers” this week for the GI-Days 2007 a GI Research Forum event in Germany aimed at Young Researchers. Sounds like a fantastic opportunity, I will try to attend myself !

GI-Days 2007
Young Researchers Forum
September 10-12, 2007

Münster, Germany
http://www.gi-days.de
——————————

TOPICS AND TARGET GROUP

GI-Days 2007 will provide a platform for young researchers worldwide to
present their work from all sectors of geographic information science.
The range of topics will be comparable to the well established series
of GIScience conferences, focusing on emerging topics and basic
research findings.

GI-Days 2007 will bring together young researchers from the field of
geographic information science. We encourage PhD and Master students
as well as post-docs to submit papers. Participants of GI-Days 2007
will learn about the diversity of currently ongoing research projects
and receive feedback on their research in a constructive and
international atmosphere.

Short papers (max 1000 words) can be submitted to present research
results, visionary ideas and work in progress. All papers will be
reviewed by at least three members of the program committee. Papers must
be written and presented in English. All accepted papers will be
published in the ifgiPrints series (with ISBN).

We invite you to be part of the up-and-coming generation of geographic
information scientists meeting at GI-Days 2007.

Possible topics include, but are not restricted to:

* Spatial data infrastructures
* Geospatial semantic web
* Geographic information in Web 2.0
* Geospatial web services
* Geospatial ontology engineering
* Semantic annotation of geospatial data sources
* Similarity and geospatial concept representation
* Sensor web services and sensor networks
* Location-based services, mobile and ubiquitous geo-computing
* Space time analysis and modelling
* Privacy in information management
* Algorithms and data structures
* Functional programming in geo-applications
* Self-organizing maps
* Map-algebra services
* Disaster and risk management
* Social aspects of geospatial information
* Dealing with uncertainty in geographic information
* Cognitive aspects of spatial knowledge

TUTORIALS

GI-Days 2007 will provide a platform for young researchers worldwide to
The paper presentations will be followed by a tutorial program tailored
to the interests of starting researchers:

* The In’s and Out’s of Writing a Thesis.
Dr. Francis Harvey, University of Leicester, UK
* Funding Acquisition.
Dr. Christoph Brox, University of Münster, Germany
* Utility of Logic and Formal Methods for the GIScientist.
James Hood, University of Exeter, UK.
* How Does Geoinformatics Business Work?
Dr. Adam Sliwinski, con terra GmbH Warsaw, Poland.

SHORT PAPER DEADLINES

Submission deadline May 21.
Notification June 24.
Camera-ready manuscripts July 19.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

* Pragya Agarwal University College London
* Fernando Bacao Universidade Nova de Lisboa
* John Bateman University of Bremen
* Jörg Baus Saarland University
* Kate Beard-Tisdale University of Maine
* Brandon Bennett University of Leeds
* Roderic Bera University College London
* Lars Bernard University of Dresden
* Susanne Boll University of Oldenburg
* Stefano Borgo Laboratory for Applied Ontology, Trento
* Boyan Brodaric Geological Survey of Canada
* Gilberto Camara INPE Brazil
* Christophe Claramunt Naval Academy Research Institute
* Max Craglia Joint Research Centre, Ispra
* Matt Duckham University of Melbourne
* Max Egenhofer University of Maine
* Sara Fabrikant University of Zurich
* Fred Fonseca Penn State University
* Andrew Frank Technical University of Vienna
* Christian Freksa University of Bremen
* Sven Fuhrmann Texas State University
* Mark Gahegan Penn State University
* Chris Gold University of Glamorgan
* Mike Goodchild University of California, Santa Barbara
* Francis Harvey University of Leicester
* Stephan Hirtle University of Pittsburgh
* Piotr Jankowski San Diego State University
* Marinos Kavouras National Technical University of Athens
* Alexander Klippel Pennsylvania State University
* Menno-Jan Kraak ITC, Enschede
* Antonio Krüger University of Münster
* Werner Kuhn University of Münster
* Lars Kulik University of Melbourne
* Patrick Laube University of Auckland
* Rob Lemmens ITC, Enschede
* Michael Lutz Joint Research Centre, Ispra
* Harvey Miller University oif Utah
* Daniel Montello University of California, Santa Barbara
* Marco Painho Universidade Nova de Lisboa
* Edzer Pebesma University of Utrecht
* Lutz Plümer University of Bonn
* Hardy Pundt Hochschule Harz
* Martin Raubal University of California, Santa Barbara
* Wolfgang Reinhardt Universität der Bundeswehr, Munich
* Femke Reitsma Edinburgh University
* Claus Rinner Ryerson University, Toronto
* Andrea Rodriguez Universidad de Concepción
* Monika Sester University of Hannover
* Takeshi Shirabe Technical University of Vienna
* Kathleen Stewart Hornsby University of Maine
* Ulrich Streit University of Münster
* Eleni Tomai University of Athens
* Ignacio Torres National Autonomous University of Mexico
* Ubbo Visser University of Bremen
* Agnes Voisard Fraunhofer ISST and FU Berlin
* Monica Wachowicz Wageningen University
* Stephan Winter University of Melbourne
* Mike Worboys University of Maine
* Andreas Wytzisk 52° North

CONFERENCE ORGANIZATION

General Chair Eva Klien
Program Chairs Florian Probst and Carsten Keßler
Tutorial Chair Jörg Müller
Local Chair Sven Schade

CONFERENCE FEES

Early registration until 6th July
Students: 60€
Regular: 160€

Late registration
Students: 90€
Regular: 190€

Tutorials: 15€

Conference fees include:
* Conference proceedings
* Coffee and lunches at conference
* 22 € conference dinner on Monday (drinks not included)
* Guided city tour on Tuesday

Tutorial fees include:
* Tutorial materials
* Coffee breaks

FURTHER INFORMATION

Check http://www.gi-days.de for further information. Please address all
correspondence to info@gi-days.de.

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

Categories
GIS neogeography OGC

Mass-market standards

This week finds me in Sunny Zürich one of Googles Global Engineering hubs, learning how  the Google machine works and trying to catch up on a weeks worth of email..

Last week while I sheltered from the storms lashing New York, (so much for spring as the best time to visit !!) with the family, the OGC held a TC/PC meeting in Ottawa and is appears that considerable progress has been made in beginning to adopt the new “mass market” standards KML and GeoRSS.

This is really great news and will help I believe to bring geographic information to a wider community of users and will allow the creation of a  community of spatial data developers, who will be is the position to easily publish their own information.

With this new user community in mind I think it is vital that we communicate clearly what are the most appropriate technologies to use and when, for example I can easily imagine some confusion in the minds of potential users as to the choice of GeoRSS , KML or simple GML as the format of choice to publish their simple geospatial information.

The relative benefits of these formats is clear in my mind (at least i think it is) I’d be interested in your views dear reader ?

Written and submitted from the Hilton Zurich Airport Hotel, using its wifi 802.11 network.