I can’t believe I had not come across this video before, from a 2007 Superbowl advert from Garmin, the Maposaurus !
Happy Friday everyone !!
Written and submitted from the Google Offices, London (51.495N, 0.146W)
Categories
Month: May 2012
Yesterday I made a presentation at the 13th GSDI Conference in Quebec (thanks to Geoff for his commentary), it was only a flying visit but I left in a more positive frame of mind that I expected.
The high level message of my presentation was, we need to think more about the I in SDI e.g. infrastructure, that we already have a well adopted information infrastructure we can use called the World Wide Web, to use it Geo people just have to be better web citizens.
For too long the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure community has been dominated by the producers of geospatial data, the Mapping Agencies, Cadastres and the Technology companies that serve their perceived needs. As a result discussions of Spatial Data, quality, standards and policy dominated.
I was pleased to see this observation reflected in a number of the plenary presentations, and the obvious logical extension that more focus needs to be concentrated on the potential users of SDI’s and their needs. This point was made brilliantly clear by Gilberto Câmara director of Brazils National Space Research Institute, INPE.
He introduced four questions any SDI supporter should answer..
- How much is your SDI being used to build a modern state ?
- How much is your SDI being used to enforce the rule of law ?
- How much is your SDI being used to support public accountability ?
- Is data from your SDI reaching those that need it ?
Key to answering these questions positively is I think a recognition that the true beneficiaries of a successful SDI, are not other data producers, governments, or public sector bodies, but society as a whole.
Written and submitted from home (51.425N, 0.331W)
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The half-life of an LBS app..
Is around 5 years ??
Well I would estimate that is the case from the imminent closure of Plazes, one of the earliest Location Sharing applications developed back in 2004.
I used Plazes on and off for a few years starting on my first real smartphone the Nokia N95 and for a while it powered the Where Ed function on this blog. Plazes was acquired by Nokia in 2008 and it’s technology was rolled into the ovi platform, although Plazes.com continued as a stand-alone service.
This week Nokia announced the closure of the service, offering users the ability to download and export their location history. This is an important step and one which Nokia should be commended for, your location data is your data and in the spirit of data liberation you should be able to take it with you wherever you want to go..
So why is plazes closing, my personal view is that location sharing as a discrete service is just not that compelling, your location is a useful piece of contextual information whose real value comes from it’s integration with other personal data.
Knowing I’m currently in Calgary, Alberta is interesting..
Knowing I’m in Calgary, it’s 5pm, I’m flying out to San Francisco at 9pm, it’s raining and there is a Tim Hortons my favourite Coffee Shop on the quickest route based on the current traffic conditions is actually valuable.
Written and submitted from the GeoAlberta Conference (51.059N, 113.979W)