A nice Free Wifi Access map from the Londonist, locating free public wifi sites, moderated at the moment pehaps it would be more useful if it allowed users to maintain the database.
Still a long way from the original consume the net database.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
I have just returned from the beautiful town of Girona in Spain, where I was speaking at the AGILE 2008 Conference, a meeting of the key Geographic Information research laboratories in Europe, which was expertly organised by SIGTE the GIS Lab at the University of Girona.
As is increasingly the case at conferences I attend, researchers are using both Google Maps and Google Earth as mechanisms to communicate their results in an appealing way. I hope to be able to highlight some interesting examples over the next few days, but there seems to be a clear pattern emerging where spatial analysis may be carried out using programs developed by researchers or by using powerful analytic tool sets like ArcGIS or ArcGIS Server, but presented using Google Earth.
The products of the research are often rendered via KML for display, but what is perhaps still missing in some cases is for the results to be really published, i.e. for the KML files to be posted on a web server somewhere along with details of the research for others to discover.
Interestingly there was very little discussion of the neo/paleo-geography debate, which is great, I hope we have moved onto to a position where the users of “professional” high end tools such as those produced by ESRI see a natural final publishing step of creating KML output of their work, certainly with the tools now available in the next version of ArcGIS and the OGC adoption of KML this should be simple one.
Of course as you would expect there are limitations with the current generation of virtual globes, Google Earth included, for some aspects of GI Science. Notably in more complex handling of temporal and sub surface features, and in cartographic output more functionality is needed.
Some of these limitations reflect the largely mass-market focus of Google Earth, but such feedback is always useful to hear, todays research requirement could well be tomorrows mass-market standard feature, and it is wise never to underestimate how sophisticated users may become.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
Good News, the wonderful BBC iPlayer is coming to users of Virgin Media’s cable TV service, let’s hope the flaky infrastructure of Virgin Media can cope with the demand.
This poses an interesting question does it not, on one hand the ISP’s like Virgin Media are upset that applications like the iplayer are hogging broadband capacity, while on the other hand the same content delivered to set top boxes using the same fundamental network is OK.
Maybe Virgin Media is behind Net Neutrality after-all…
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
Last Week saw TomTom announce a large drop in quarterly earnings , with sales of their iconic PND becoming more difficult, needing price reductions to keep sales moving.
Many are suggesting this is the natural evolution of the market, with saturation at a particular price point on one hand, while on the other, mobile phones with GPS are taking market share. I’m not sure I buy the mobile phone argument yet, for sure in the medium term converged mobile devices may make personal navigation devices obsolete, but I don’t think the current generation of mobile devices such as the N95 are there yet.
TomTom has a strong brand name and produce well designed products, (The Apple of GPS ?), maybe the issue is the more familar one of techncology adoption, are we seeing the chasm where early adopters have the devices, but mass-market users have not moved.
If your were to read some newspapers in the UK, you would believe that following the instructions of a “sat-nav” would a best lead you into a field, or at worse onto a railway line in front of a speeding express train.
These reports must have an impact on the buying behaviours of many mass-market consumers, but do they explain Tom Toms recent problem, or are there a group of potential consumers who still find the whole business too complicated and expensive for their needs ?
Is the PND yet to cross the chasm ?
Unlike my friend at lost in spatial, I don’t think this is related to an alien plot (Dr. Who viewers only reference).
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
We say Goodbye to the great Humphrey Lyttelton who died yesterday, Jazz Musician and host of the I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue radio show, one of the Great British institutions, and something which during my time in Southampton made by commute just about bearable.
Humph was a great institution in himself, with a wicked sense of humour in addition to his skills with the trumpet, I was lucky to see him play at the Bull Head in Barnes a few years ago which was quite brilliant.
But it is for ISIHAC which Humph will be best remembered, some of my favourite lines (remember this went out at 6.30 pm on national radio);
“Samantha’s going out now for an ice cream with her new Italian gentleman friend. She says she’s looking forward to licking the nuts off a large Neapolitan.”
“Dear Mrs McCartney: My, what a terrible mess. You must be kicking yourself.”
And of course Lionel Blair, may now sleep soundly without nightmares of Sound Charades, for which his expertise was rightly famous..
“…miming the titles…against a strict time limit. The most highly skilled of all was Lionel Blair — but how the tears of frustration welled up in his eyes during their Italian tour at not being allowed the use of his mouth to finish off Two Gentlemen of Verona?”.
..And so, ladies and gentlemen, as the 4×4 of destiny on the level crossing of fate stalls in the path of the speeding freight train of doom, and the signalman of time rushes to fetch his camera… we say farewell and thanks for the memories Humph
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
Is people…
Having had my first experience of Heathrow Terminal 5 this week, I was expecting from all the media reports something not much better than the original Heathrow Aerodrome of 1946, including the tents !!
I’m pleased to say overall, I was very happy with the experience, however there are still a few problems, but all of these can be linked to problems of management rather than of design or technology.
For example BAA claims you can pass from check-in, through security, to airside within 10 minutes and have installed many robotic controlled x-ray machines which, cleverly collect empty trays used for jackets etc, and move them to the front of the machine.
All very neat, but what is the point of all this technology, if you only chose to operate 2 of the 8 machines at the northern end of the terminal on a Tuesday morning, resulting in long queues and a wait time of nearer 30 minutes.
I know the unused machines were serviceable as when I reached the front of the line, three more x-rays machines were switched on by additional staff !!
Once passed security you have to admire the architecture of the building, you are greeted by the unusual sight at Heathrow of windows allowing natural light into the building, and a good selection of shops including for the tech people out there, a PC World complete with mini-apple store and a Nokia store. If you are looking for a cheap Macbook Air in the UK, this may be the place, the spotty youth in PC World sold one while I was watching.
The only other minor mishap of my T5 experience was the BA staff at my gate not knowing how to change the plasma screens to let the expectant passengers know that the flight was boarding, a case of “which button is it I need to press..”
Overall a huge improvement on T1-4 and nowhere near as bad as the media makes out, of course if you were a passenger in the first few days your experience was a nightmare, but as of today T5 is nearly there, just need to replace a few more of the monkeys in charge and T5 will be great.
Written and submitted from Arlanda Airport, Stockholm, using the public 802.11 network.
I’ve spent much of this week along with some of the other guys from Google at the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Technical Committee meeting in St. Louis. KML is hopefully just a few weeks away from becoming an adopted standard, and the OGC as an community I’m pleased to say, is increasingly taking interest in geospatial technologies developed outside of its traditional membership.
So amongst the continued detailed work on the W*S standards we know so well, there was much debate about the potential of RESTful interfaces and the use of lightweight technologies such as GeoJSON and AtomPub as realistic alternatives to creating transactional web services beyond mash-ups.
It becomes really interesting when the new and existing are combined, one of the slickest demos I saw was using an extension to the existing SLD standard to control the server side creation of KML data from a component WMS service, populating attribute data into KML Extended data tags.
There is also growing recognition that as a reflection of the new technologies, new approaches to creating standards may also be needed, after-all the pace at which technologies are introduced and adopted by the mass-market is much faster than the traditional standards process can keep pace with.
Perhaps a new approach is needed where standards are defined at the same time as new applications and functionality developed, so that the standards process is driven by individuals and organisations implementing new functionality which is standardised once demonstrated to be both stable and useful !
This new approach which focuses more on the user need, was nicely summarised in a presentation from NASA with a picture of a cheese stall, “I’d like some cheese.. bit I rather not know how it’s made”.
Googles release of the libkml open source library should be seen in this context, as it allows developers to quickly get started in creating well formed KML files, and to experiment quickly by actually writing code. Want to write a FDO provider to read and write KML, then libkml is a great starting point, likewise if you want to write a new iPhoto geo-tagging plug-in, libkml deals with most of the basic requirements you would need. In both cases any extensions or changes that might be needed to KML can be tested and proven in a practial sense before becoming standardised.
I have been to perhaps half a dozen Technical Committee meetings over the last few years, and I leave St. Louis feeling more optimistic than even before that the OGC can remain the positive influence on the industry it has been up to now, change is needed but that’s recognised.
Written and submitted from the Westin Hotel, St. Louis, using its broadband network
Seemed to have reached that point this week, when my kids (aged 10 and 8 ) pointed out this youtube video as the greatest thing they had every seen, and the point of much playground discussion. As a lover of all thing to do with aviation I had to agree.
Compliments to SAC Dean Tabreham, Royal Air Force for a great video and please if you enjoy it do as Dean and his mates ask donate something to their selected charity.
Written and submitted from the SAS Radisson Hotel, St. Peterburg, using its broadband network.
I don’t normally advertise these type of courses, however in this case I am happy to make an exception due to location. City University are running a State of the Art in Location Based Services 2008 masterclass, on March 5th before the KTN event ‘Location Based Services 2008 – LBS in the Public Sector‘ on 6th, both a the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington.
Both days sound interesting from a content point of view, and the NPL in Teddington is just a very interesting place to visit.
Written and submitted from the Maurya Hotel, Delhi, using its broadband network.
For many years as a user of Apple computers since the Macintosh LC I was quite happy to be a member of the minority of computer users at odds with the majority of other computers users, happy to stand out as a member of “the cult of mac“. Now of course things are different pop into any Starbucks anywhere is the world and you will see Macbooks everywhere, Macs are slowly becoming more mainstream.
This week I was in California and it seemed that almost every other person was using an iPhone, in the Google office it was more extreme almost everybody had one. Yet back home in the UK, I think I have seen maybe two or three other iPhone users in London, and one user on a train from Manchester, the contrast with San Francisco is enormous !
Although there are well known limitations with todays iPhone, no 3G, poor camera, no MMS, the iPhone is by a very long way the best mobile phone I have owned, I actually don’t think it is the spec of the iPhone that is the problem is Europe.
So what has gone wrong, clearly Apple hoped that the iPhone would in Europe follow the success of the phone in the US market, but of course the markets are very different.
Despite the widespread (compared to the US) availability of SIM free phones in Europe, most people still expect to be given a free phone when opening a new contract or renewing an expired contract.
These operator provided “free” phones are not low end models either, the number of people on the train I see with Nokia N95’s is staggering – many I’m sure not even aware of the capability of their “mobile computers”, against this few people outside the geek minority are willing to spend nearly three hundred pounds on a iPhone.
Never mind, I enjoy my smugness as a member of the “cult of iPhone”, knowing that I have spent a large sum of money to have a technically superior device, others think is an extravagant waste of money… ah yes back to the good old days !!
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.