Category: Google Maps

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GIS Google Maps opensource

If Dr Who needed a mash-up…

One of the topics which most often comes up in conversation when talking about creating new maps, is how historic information is recorded and displayed. Spatio-Temporal data modelling is a big and scary topic which has occupied the GI Research community for a number of years, and will do for a many more.

Today a simple and pragmatic approach to the problem has been introduced with the launch of the Time Space, which links a wiki database of historical events to their locations. This is not the first example of this type of web application, but the first in my knowledge to really exploit the potential of the community at a global level to contribute.

Timespace map

It will be interesting to see how this added dimension to user generated geodata develops, I can think of many potential applications, and it will be interesting to see how social history is represented compared to the big historical events.

Written and submitted from the Googleplex , Mountain View.

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Google Maps

There are hills in them there maps…

Without much fuss we added an extra button to Google Maps todays and brought relief to cartography fans everywhere… sorry that is the worst pun I could come up with.

The terrain view is offers another perspective of our world and for some users, like those interested in outdoors recreation for example, is really vital.Terrain

Written and submitted from the Malmaison Hotel, Birmingham, using it’s free wired broadband network.

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Google Maps Thoughts

Our Dumb World : Who needs the CIA World factbook now..

Our dumb world

The Onion a great news magazine and website from over the pond brings us their version of the World Fact Book in the form on a new Google Maps mash-up Our Dumb World – The worlds countries summarised into simple info bubbles, you need look no further for a comprehensive world view.

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Apple Google Maps

A Live “My Map” view of buying the iPhone


View Larger Map

Click on the markers for near real time updates !

Written and submitted from the area around the Regents Street Apple Store using my Three 3G wireless modem.

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Google Maps opensource

OSM on the iPhone.. not in Dubai !!

I have just returned home from a well earned family vacation in Dubai, a destination that is a cross between SimCity and Disneyland as my wife describes it.

Of course I took my laptop along to keep up with email and stuff, and was thus quite impressed to see Mikel’s post about getting OSM onto the maps application on the iPhone !

Now in my mind this is one of those things that is cool that is can be done but actually nobody would do for real unless maybe they lived on the Isle of Wight, and whats wrong with Google maps anyway 🙂

However the reason for my story is that actually I could only imagine what OSM looked like on the iphone as my access to Mikel’s blog or to be precise the images on mikel’s blog was restricted.

brain Off

So all I got was broken graphics icon, and if I clicked on these to force the images to be displayed I got this..

blocked

So what does the government of the UAE have against OSM on the iphone..

Nothing, actually the web filter was rejecting the images because they were served from flickr and well there are all sorts of images there that may be inconsistent with the religious, cultural and moral values of the UAE !

So I had to wait to get back home to see Mikel’s hard work, although for a few seconds I did think dark forces were at work !!

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

Categories
Google Maps Technology Thoughts Transport

When the Propellor heads play with public transport..

Last week I was in Norway attending the annual InformNorden Conference, which is an event which covers the issues and impacts of ICT on Public Transport in Northern Europe. To some extent you might imagine this represents a culture clash between largely conservative public sector organisations administrating transport networks and technology providers.

Bus Stop

This is actually not the case, and in the Nordic region in particular, public transport makes excellent use of technology; from journey planning to card based payment systems like London’s Oyster. In most cities it is common to see electronic displays with arrival times of buses/trams subway trains etc.

This has, in most cities, had a noticeable impact on the use of public transport, with increased passenger numbers following the introduction of the technology.

My interest in the conference was in talking to these public transport operators to get access to their schedule information to include in Google Transit, a project to bring routing using public transport to users of Google applications, like Google Maps and Google Maps for Mobile.

This complements the operators own web-sites by providing schedule information alongside other points of interest data and imagery, users can always click through to the operators own web-sites for real time information and service updates.

Technology like this really can make a big difference in terms of making public transport a more acceptable solution for many, knowing a bus will be at you local bus stop in 6 minutes might just stop you jumping in the car to make the same journey. Or knowing that there is a tram stop 1 minute away from the cinema and that there is a tram arriving there 15 minutes before the movie.

Imagine your commute to work downloading tunes to your new iPod Touch via wifi using the pilot system running in Helsinki at the moment. This system which by providing broadband internet access on a proportion of the bus and tram fleet in Helsinki, means that it is possible to track these buses and trams in real time using a Google Maps application – very cool.

Realtime Bus map

Following along with the transport technology theme, this post was submitted from the 13:00 London-Edinburgh GNER train service somewhere outside Peterborough, using the onboard wifi service.

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
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.

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Google Earth Google Maps neogeography opensource

Google Developer Day – BBC leads the mash-ups revolution..

As a follow up to the Google Developer Day event last week , Silicon.com has a great article on the adoption of mash-up culture at the BBC and their brilliant backstage project.

GDD PinFor other content owning organisations BBC Backstage sets a great example highlighting the way that forward thinking licensing of information can really aid the innovation process and develop truly useful new content driven sites.

During my time at the OS we made no secret of the fact that Backstage was an inspiration to the OpenSpace project.

Just imagine the mashups which could be created if other content owners in the public sector were as open.. indeed in just this last week, we are beginning to see a more innovative approach to publishing content with the reporting of Brents use of google maps and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency decision to publish some of it’s charts in KML.

A point I made during last weeks London Keynote (about 30 mins in, but its well worth listening to the great Chris di Bona) is that there are still huge amounts of geographic information still to be liberated from existing corporate silos, in addition to the user generated content we are beginning to provide the tools to create.

When you think about it, this is less a technology issue that it has even been – this is now really about information policy..

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Google Maps neogeography where 2.0

Where 2.0 and “Sense of Place”

I’m flying back to the UK to present at the Google Developer Day in London, so my comments on this years Where 2.0 are rather brief. What stood out for me was the recognition of the importance of “sense of place” information, geospatial data that is not traditional cartography, but which is really useful and meaningful to people because it is not as abstract as mapping.

StreetView

In StreetView we are attempting to represent the world from the perspective of someone in it, i.e. from a perspective of a viewer 2m high not 1500m in the air. High resolution terrestrial imagery is actually very useful, as John demonstrated in today’s presentation, fro example being able to read street signs is a source of attribute information not available else where. This type of imagery especially when navigable in such a simple way, makes exploring the virtual environment easy and really does provide a sense of what in the case above San Francisco is like to visit.
The power of imagery to provide this “sense of place” was also a major part of Quakr some fellow Brits who are developing a site to put geotagged images in their correct perspective location on an interactive map, so that in effect you walk through the photos..

Combine imagery with the environmental sound-scenes developed by inside 30proof for Wild Sanctuary and you are beginning to see what I think used to be called ‘hypermedia” starting to have an impact in communicating geospatial information.

Written and submitted from the British Airways Lounge, at SFO airport using the free broadband network