Blog posts
As requested by Mike, here are the links to download the mp3’s directly rather than use itunes
Future Britain – Richard Scase
The Geospatial Semantic Grid – Jayant Sharma
Disruptive Technologies – Robin Mannings
Hey Dude where’s my database – Andrew Duff
Written and submitted from the Novotel Hotel, York, using the hotels wifi network.
Announced today Yahoo! Maps is a consumer web map service similar to Google with an open API but in addition to the expected AJAX API Yahoo offers a Flash version as well.
On first impressions the cartography is similar to Google using Teleatlas and Navteq data but without imagery.
Of real interest to me is the RSS feed “Traffic API” which uses dynamic data feeds to produce real time applications, indeed RSS seems to be the input format of choice.
The only minor problem – the world consists of North America only !!
Written and submitted from the Welcome Break Services on the M62, using the BT Openzone wifi network. – the glamour of travel !!
The Terrafuture podcasts are now all available on iTunes if you need the individual mp3 links just shout. There seems to be a bug with the artwork on the podcast description at the moment, but I hope to get that sorted in the next 24 hours.
Written and submitted from the Corrus Hotel, Bristol, using the hotels wifi network.
Yesterdays presentation is available here for download, my main point I guess was to point out the shift in thinking needed by Mapping Agencies as we move from the age of document centric cartography to cartography driven from databases.
Written and submitted from the Westin Hotel, Warsaw, using the hotels broadband network.
As promised last month, The guys have done a stella job in putting together a series of podcasts from the TerraFuture event we held at the Ordnance Survey in September. The first podcast is Richard Scase on the changes we can expect in society over the next ten years and how that may impact on the GI industry.
The podcast is available here as a direct mp3 download, or subscribe to the series here in iTunes. Thanks to David and Jenny for putting this together and we’d be interested to hear what you think.
Written and submitted from the Westin Hotel, Warsaw, using the hotels broadband network.
I’m in Warsaw this week to present at the 20th ESRI European User Conference. An interesting contrast to the “big show” in San Diego, today the first day had a similar agenda with presentations from Jack Dangermond and David Maquire, but rather than an audience of thousands, the audience here in the wonderful Palace of Culture and Science was measured in hundreds.
Little difference in terms of message from July, although clearly progress has been made, and there are now a few more details around the upcoming products.
Of particular note for me was the “first public demonstration” of ArcGIS Explorer, the real thing this time rather than the “smoke and mirrors” prototype shown at the International User Conference. ArcGIS Explorer is a Google Earth Killer, clearly ESRI were more than a little put out by the hype surronding Google Earth and have come out fighting.
ArcGIS Explorer will be a free 15Mb download from the ESRI website and will connect to a dedicated ArcWeb server farm at ESRI providing an experience similar to Google Earth, although I was not clear where the imagery is sourced from. What got me excited however, is the ability of ArcGIS Explorer to use other data services including OGC WMS and WFS servers and any ArcIMS server you may already use. ArcGIS can also display local data, File GDB’s,shape files, most image formats and even KML files from your PC’s hard drive.
The interface is quite radical for ESRI and has a task driven interface similar to google earth, with simple search tools as the primary user interface. ESRI have developed a interactive navigation tool which floats as a separate window, and according to my ESRI friend has been developed based on the rich experience of games designers who really know how 3D navigation works.
The open nature of ArcExplorer in data terms is complemented by an API which will allow developers to customise and extend ArcGIS Explorers capabilities. This could be a really hot product for ESRI, and its timing might well allow it to benefit from the building anti Google sentiment – it also might just turn out to be the ArcView 3.x replacement everybody is still looking for.
Written and submitted from the Westin Hotel, Warsaw, using the hotels broadband network.
So things are beginning to calm down in regard to the hype around the introduction of the video capable iPod. But the big news I think behind the hardware is that Apple have cut a deal with ABC television in the States to distribute via the iTunes music store (iTMS), television programmes including Lost and Desperate Housewives (these are not available outside the US due to licensing arrangements) .
For a $1.99 you can download any of these programmes the day after they are shown to view on your computer as well as of course your iPod.
As with the original iPod it’s success comes not only from a its fabulous design, but also from the ease of obtaining content for it, one click at iTMS brings a single track or an album right onto your device. What Apple successfully did was to arrange distribution deals with all the major record companies, against their better judgement, to put in place pricing and licensing agreements that are very simple -a single universal price for each track, playback restricted to five devices etc. The result HUGH SUCCESS and now they are doing the same for video.
In some ways you could argue that Google Local (nee maps) has started to do the same thing, but I think the GI industry needs to learn a lot from the iTunes experience, and yes, that does include the Ordnance Survey. The OS needs to introduce simpler licensing, making available small amounts of mapping data on demand for the increasingly technology literate, traditional topographic map user.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
Adena at All Points Blog reports on some very interesting news from the USGS, which seems to be beginning the process of outsourcing map production. New USGS Director Patrick Leahy is reported to be looking to outsource the production of maps in flood risk areas to state and local government and importantly commercial suppliers. This follows the inability of USGS to deliver appropriate mapping following the Katrina flooding of New Orleans.
As I pointed out at the SoC conference last month much of the topo mapping covering this part of the states is nearly 30 years old, a result of the under funding of the USGS over many decades. I wonder if this out-sourcing will come with additional funding – or are the USGS falling into the trap believing that “somebody else” will be able to do what they themselves has been unable to for the same money ?
Or maybe we are beginning to see the commercialisation of topo data in the United States ?
Written and submitted from the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, using its free 802.11 network.
Wired News reports that the Indian Government are concerned that Google Earth represents a security risk. Imagery clearly shows key government building in Delhi, Air-Bases etc.. When will government’s realise that the horse has already bolted here.. High Resolution imagery is available to anybody with a network connection, but without some local information or context it really is not that useful – If you have never visited Delhi for example how long would it take you to work our which building was the Prime Minister Office ? – As a potential terrorist is it not easier to just catch a tourist bus or ask a taxi driver ?
Reminds me of one of my favourite screen shots of the past couple of years – See if you can guess what is been hidden on this Washington DC city Web GIS application.
Written and submitted from the Sheraton Grand, Edinburgh, using the hotels wifi network.
Like many ESRI shops who build “Enterprise” class applications we at the OS are increasing looking to use linux based servers from now on – and our vendor of choice at the moment is HP who have a nice range of AMD Opteron based Proliant servers. Nothing unusual in this I hear you say, indeed not, it is actually increasingly difficult to source 32bit processor servers in this class – however the problem my system architects are trying to get around at the moment is that ESRI don’t officially support 64bit processors !!
As much as I buy into the whole ArcServices concept and will deploy ArcServer based applications in the future, this seems a little strange?
So ESRI Technical product management if you are listening…