Blog posts
Silicon.com picks up on market rumours that Microsoft are viewing the Amsterdam based portable SatNav maker as an acquisition target…. If true, it would mean that Microsoft are really jumping into the consumer GI marketplace, are they after the great software platform or are they thinking of a new hardware business line ? Other than the Xbox MSFT don’t have a great track record with hardware…
Just a few weeks ago I blogged that the UK seems to have a blind-spot when is comes to thinking or debate about Spatial Data Infrastructures. So I was really please to see the AGI are running an UK SDI event tomorrow.
We must hope that there is a constructive debate, too often in the past old arguments have been rolled out at these events leading to wasteful mud slinging – the UK GI industry is too small to be effective if there is not a co-ordinated approach to dealing with what is really a policy / organisational issue.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
A thought provoking post by Steven on the Free Our Data blog, I’m sure many we share his opinions, but they are more difficult to implement than one might imagine :-(, but we are trying !
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
Thanks to Adena at allpoints for pointing out this press release from Navteq announcing their new “Sat Nav” Challenge website which allows users to find out if there is updated data for their navigation system.
Great I though.. I checked for my system, only to find that my system is not listed.., although my Nissan X-Trail has a factory fit navigation system, the data comes from Zenrin and is not compatible with either navteq or Tele Atlas data for that matter. Zenrin as you might guess don’t seem to offer updates..
My car is two years old, the data on the navigation DVD was published two years earlier so I am using at least four year old data – and I am unable to update.
In my view this is not an acceptable situation, once again a new technologies growth is been limited by a “walled garden’ approach to technology in the same way LBS will not take off until the applications are separated from the network providers, sat nav will stall unless there is an open data format for navigation systems.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
I spent yesterday attending the second day of the 12th European Commission workshop on Geographic Information and GIS. The major topic of discussion is the ongoing development of European SDI’s – Spatial Data Infrastructures.. In the UK it is a topic rarely discussed, so to paraphrase the Monty Python classic – What does a SDI do for us…
In some ways one can think of an SDI as a cross organisation / cross border enterprise GIS, so GIS tools working on a common view of shared data. It is more than just the technical solution to interoperability however, an SDI also requires all the organisational and operational processes and agreements to be in place so that the common shared view of data is truly dynamic and more than a data snapshot.
Across mainland Europe there are both regional and a few national SDI’s operating today, and there is continued debate in the United States about a National SDI, in the UK it seems that we have been quite good a developing vertically integrated data sharing applications like Magic, and clearly have excellent and consistant base data, but have not gone much further…
Why is this… why has then been so little progress towards a UK SDI ?, my own view is that this maybe because culturally we don’t really like sharing, and crucially there is no central organisation promoting the benefits and providing co-ordination. Perhaps this is something that todays meeting to discuss the formulation of a UK GI Strategy will address.
Because going back to that scene from “The Life of Brian”, as Reg said..
“All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”
Sounds like GIS to me…
Written and submitted from the Hotel Grauer Bär, in Innsbruck using the hotels broadband network.
Just on my way back from a whistle stop trip to Innsbruck – there are still a few places in Europe where it is still only just possible to visit in a day.. I was there to present to some of the team drafting the technical details that will make the Inspire directive to share environmental information in Europe work… well as soon at is passed in a form acceptable to all 🙂
My Journey was only just possible because i was trying out one of the new Tom Tom navigation systems, which came fully loaded with no only the full European road network but North American roads also.. This really is the ipod of navigation systems !
So a round trip of 450Km later I’m back at the airport in Munich and I did not get lost once !! – Now if only my flight was not delayed…
Written and submitted from the Delta Crown Room Lounge, at Munich Airport using the t-mobile wifi network.
If yesterdays conference focus was on innovation, (not just push-pin maps !!), today the second and last day of the conference focused on some of the enabling technologies of Where 2.0 – in other words, positioning technologies, GIS software tools and geospatial data.
The main story of the day I guess was the continued collective works of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation or OSGeo, which after a rather shaky start seems really to be pushing ahead, providing an environment to develop tools like MapServer, Mapbender, PostGIS etc. Indeed for me one of the unsung heroes of GIS today Frank Warmerdam, orchestrator of the GDAL toolkit used almost everywhere across the GIS industry, presented on the power of such open source libraries.
The big buzz in terms of positioning technology was Loki the consumer focused product of Skyhook, who have developed a tool that locates wifi enabled devices using the location of hotspots. To do this of course they need to know where the hotspots are and they are currently driving North America, Australia and South Africa to build their database – industrial warchalking !!!
As Nathan Torkington conference co-chair noted, much of what we see now presented at where 2.0 and on the geospatial web is dependent on the availability of data, the new community developed data as well as the more established base infrastructure datasets. I was rather disappointed with the ‘Future of the Data Industry” session, some big questions around quality, currency and general “fitness for purpose” of data were not really addressed – the future I don’t think is increasingly high resolution imagery as suggested by Microsoft, once you get to 10-15cm resolution imagery do you really need to go much higher.. what Where 3.0 applications will need is intelligent semantically rich datasets.
So my best of show along with many others I guess is MetaCarta’s geoparsing tool, which geocodes geographic terms in any web accessible document. Geoparsing is not new I remember how cool I thought it was when demonstrated to be at Edinburgh University a few years ago, but MetaCarta has built an API to their service to allow easy integration with other applications.
To demonstrate they have geoparsed a number of the texts available as part of the Gutenberg project, and produced maps of the locations involved at www.gutenkarte.org . My Favourite is the map of the locations from H.G. Wells “War of the Worlds” which was set in my local part of England, the map is not perfect, sometimes the wrong locations are identified – but you get the idea.
I need to spend a few days gathering my thought’s about the conference – I can’t remember a conference I have attended in the past few years where this was just so much to take-in.. Where 2.0 will be again taking place in San Jose next June, and will be a show not to miss.
Written and submitted from the Fairmont Hotel, San Jose, using the hotels broadband network.
When I worked in the software industry the term “sleeping with the bear” was often used to describe the relationship between the company I worked for and the partners and independent software vendors who all together provided solutions based on my companies core technology. The analogy follows that it is all very pleasant sleeping with the bear while it is asleep, you get its warmth and its implicit protection.. however when the bear wakes up you need to be very careful as it does not necessary want to share its bed…
I was reminded on this today at the first day of the where 2.0 conference in terms of the number of innovative companies which have based their business propositions on building on the Google Maps API. Many of these applications seem to be totally reliant on the continued availability of a mapping platform which abstracts all the complexity of managing constantly changing geospatial databases of hundreds of Gigabytes of information to a simple javascript API. While this continues to be the case everybody is happy – the bear is asleep… but I got the distinct impression that things may be beginning to change.
As mentioned earlier Google have now announced a paid for service with a clearer service definition under more strict change control, although denied, does this mean the free API is about to start the much anticipated introduction of map advertising ?
The development of services such as mapstraction and openlayers.org both announced at the conference are examples of web mapping API’s that are attempting to develop independently to the functionality of a single GYM interface.
Overall I must admit I am still taken aback by the energy and pace of development of the new application areas spotlighted at Where 2.0, in contrast to more pedestrian GIS events, these are numerious enough to need a separate post.
However in saying that, in many ways what is represented here is only the top 10% of an application stack, in effect the mash-up community is standing on the shoulders of the established GI industry, who behind the scenes, do all the difficult work to collect and integrate the data which is made available through the new accessible API’s
This is actually just as is should be, you don’t need to be a mechanic to drive a modern car, so you also don’t need to be a GIS expert to produce a pushpin map – the world however still needs mechanics and GIS experts.
More thoughts on todays presentation highlights tomorrow – I’m off to bed !!
Written and submitted from the Fairmont Hotel, San Jose, using the hotels broadband network.
Ok so what does this mean, Google are to offer a fully supported version of Google Maps for Enterprise use, with the promise to offer stable cartography – e.g no Golden Arches.
Mmm.. I need to think about this, along with a international address geocoding service are google now moving more into the “traditional” enterprise space held by mapquest, map-point and multi-map ? The service is for the US and Canada only at the moment, but the intention is to expand to other markets.
Written and submitted from the Conference room of the Where 2.0 at the Fairmont Hotel, San Jose, using the conferences free wifi network.
Tick off another ambition thanks to a wonderful birthday present from my wife, and the excellent chaps at Delta Aviation at Sywell.
On one of the hottest days so far this year in the UK, I donned an Irving Jacket to go for a trial lesson in a 1941 vintage DH82A Tiger Moth, and spent a happy but warm 30 minutes flying round Northamptonshire at 1,500 feet.
A highly recommended way to see the countryside, and I’m afraid I might just catch the bug, however rather than saving for lessons and my PPL I might just spend the money on a joyride in the P51 Mustang, Delta also operate !!
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
