Category: Blog

Blog posts

Categories
Apple

Would you join the line for an iPhone

Well clearly a rhetorical question if you don’t live in the US, but I might for the experience.

What do I mean, well you meet a different type of person than in your average supermarket line, case in point Robert Scoble reports on meeting Bill Atkinson in the line outside the Palo Alto Apple Store.

Bill was one of the original Mac team and created MacPaint and Hypercard. I absolutely loved Hypercard, and could spend weeks developing stacks, embedding tiny 160×80 quicktime movies and sounds. Before web tools, Hypercard established the principles of hypertext and multimedia applications we are now so familiar with.

I even used Hypercard as one of the main tools of the PhD I did not get round to finishing…

It would be worth joining the line just to meet Bill !

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

Categories
Google Earth neogeography Thoughts

Plazes in Google Earth

Despite a few hiccups with the latest Plazer client, I’m sticking with my experiment of using Plazes to track my presence and location. I’m glad I have because, the very interested data behind plazes has now been exposed in the form of a plazes KML file. This is really neat, by logging in you can view your own locations, without logging in, you can view the global plazes database and see a real time feed of the latest plazes registered by users. Credit to Tim at Plazes for a really nice use of KML !!

Plazes in Earth

Like the recent twittermap, in can be almost hypnotic watching the geeks of the world posting their locations, and the experience is all the more interesting in Google Earth.

The plazes KML is available for download at www.plazes.com/kml

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, Zurich.

Categories
Data Policy Google Earth opensource

The next step in Open Geodata ?

Projects like OpenStreetMap have proved that it is possible to replicate professional ground survey using low cost consumer grade GPS to create vector data sets that have the potential to complete with commercial datasets. Today I came across a website which describes a technology that could do the same for aerial imagery. Pict’Earth describe combining low cost devices which many of us already have to develop a very low cost real time aerial surveillance platform.

Using a Nokia N95, Imagery and positional information is captured and sent to the ground live during flight on a low cost model aircraft and displayed in Google Earth in near real-time. This imagery can be shared via the web with any internet connected google earth client, anywhere in the world.

Alternatively the same information can be post-processed to produce geo-referenced photo mosaics.

This is just amazing !! Ok so its not orthophotography, but then for most applications that’s not needed, key other than some good software, is the use of the N95, a 5 megapixel camera, a commuincation device and a GPS is a small cheap package – and you thought it was a phone !

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

Categories
GIS

Spatial Law blog

Increasingly a topic of discussion in both the neogeography and mainstream GI communties are the legal aspects of what we do, from privacy to liability this is becoming the hot topic of the year. So its great to see Kevin Pomfret, well known from a number of conferences presentations starting his Spatial Law blog which has gone to must read status on my blogroll.

Spatial law blog

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

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Categories
Apple LBS Thoughts

Even Macheads talk LBS now

Macbreak weeklyHappy listening to the Macbreak Weekly podcast today, and was surprised to hear a really good discussion on the potential of LBS, PND’s and the rumour that Apple may be developing a standalone GPS device – unlikely methinks.

Still it was not so long ago that if you used a mac you were geographically challenged and lonely in the geospatial community.

Now… well, I’d say around 50% of the audience of the recent Where 2.0 conference were using MacBooks.

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

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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