Google Earth inspiration was Star Treks tricorder !!

I flew into Dubai this morning to attend the second Map Middle East Conference, and was knocked over by the presentation of Michael Jones CTO of the Google Earth/Map/Local team. Jones presented the vision for Google’s “geography” applications, which was breathtaking in its scope. Building on the Google mission to organise the worlds data, Jones …

Tim Berners-Lee agrees: our data should be intelligent (not free)

As reported in this weeks Guardian OS Story, Tim Berners-Lee has commented on the OS and the role of Geographic Information in the semantic web. Contrary to earlier reports, Sir Tim seems NOT to be asking for free access to geospatial data… instead, intelligent, feature based geospatial data, rather than simple mapping should be made …

When MasterMap is a Map..

I mentioned a while ago that I was disappointed that few people were really exploiting the information in OS MasterMap to produce different cartographic representations, instead sticking to the OS “house style”. Well last week the British Cartographic Society awarded its MasterMap “Better Mapping” award to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, for their …

Bombay dreams

At heart I am a geographer, this IT stuff I do is really the hobby, and the geographer in me was really engaged by one of the best podcasts I have every listened too! As part of IT Conversations excellent series, I came across the presentation of Suketu Mehta from last years Pop!Tech conference. There …

Outdoor Gadgets

I spent a very enjoyable Saturday this weekend, helping to man the Ordnance Survey stand at the Outdoors Show, a public exhibition for everybody who enjoys the outdoors. Amongst all the stands showing canoes, sleeping bags, climbing ropes, and maps !! what really got my interest was the every growing number of vendors of “high …

Satnav savvy ?

I got thinking last week about the actual impact of GPS navigation systems on peoples driving habits after reports of satnavs sending people through villages as short cuts. I’m not sure this is actually the case, why I’m uncertain was an experience on a Friday evening a few weeks previously… I travel north up the …