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Looks like I’m going to be having a busy September, following my vacation I’m back to talk at the Society of Cartographers Summer School in Cambridge and at a event we are holding at the OS called Terra future. The events although in many ways very different are both focusing in on the increasing use of information, and geographic information in particular in mainstream applications.

Steve Chilton has put together a very interesting agenda for Cambridge, and I’m looking forward to debating public access to mapping data with the evangelists of the “open geodata’ movement including Steve Coast and Jo Walsh co-author of Mapping Hacks.

Terra future, later on in the month looks at the role of location information for all business markets over the next decade, with a eye on developments in information technology and the expected changes in society as these impact on users of GI. Speakers include Peter Cochrane ex-CTO of BT and author of a must read blog on silicon.com, Richard Scase, Prof. of Organisational Behaviour at the University of Kent; and Jayant Sharma – Oracle Corporation’s technical director for spatial products development.

These really are exciting times to be in the GI industry, who would have thought even a few months back, that so much interest would be generated by a few web mapping applications and how much these events would fire peoples imaginations as to what is possible.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Tim Martin comments on the hype surrounding Google Earth, asking is google as much a hindrance as help to the GI industry? I think Tim is right to recognise some of the data quality issues apparent in both Google apps, but I think it is a mistake to see Google in any-ways trying to advance the traditional GIS industry.

That is not what they are trying to do, to be honest I don’t think they are very much bothered about the traditional GI industry, it is too small and too inward looking for them to care.

What they have done with great success is make “fit for purpose” geographic information available to the general public in a form that is easy to use and very accessible in the case of Google Earth, and with Google Maps, have made available a platform with which web developers can build their own map based applications complete with geodata – something ESRI has been trying to do for years.

Google are not likely to support spatial analysis in the near future because, it is too specialised and would be of little interest to the mass-market, rather than because it would expose issues with the available data. ESRI seem to have plans to address these more demanding applications across the web using their ArcWeb services project and will I assume understand and respond to the issue Martin identifies.

I thought it was about time I actually tried to use the Google Maps API rather than just talk about it, so I spent a couple of hours over the weekend building a simple google map application. The result Where’s ed? took just an hour or so to put together ( Can’ get it to work with Safari but the bug is a least recognised!), in contrast to build a similar application using Autodesk MapGuide, something I used to be very familiar with, would take a day or two and I would have to acquire the data from somewhere – something which could take weeks!

This is the one place where I think Google does justify the hype, in a few months Google Maps has done more to allow the individual to develop mapping based websites than the traditional GIS industry has done in 10 years. The democratisation of Geographic Information in this way is the result of two things, firstly a simple, slick API for developers and secondly and most importantly of all, the making available of a consistent source of commercial geographic information at no cost to the developer or user.

The advertising based business model of Google has not touched the Google Geography apps yet, if will in time .., but at which point, we the developers and consumers will already be hooked.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

As I metioned a week or so ago the BBC called as they were putting together a piece on Google Earth, well this morning Rory Cellan Jones produced this report (realplayer) for the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, the “must listen” breakfast show for the great and the good in the UK.

No great insights.. but Google is really bringing GI into the mainstream.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Inventor of podcasting Adam Curry has discovered the google maps api, in his latest Daily Source Code podcast he talks extensively on the subject and is clearly very excitied about the possibilites of using it along with GPS to produce “indie” mapping data and services.

There seems to be a mainstream hype developing around google maps/earth at the moment – I had a call from the BBC today looking into doing a piece on Radio 4 on google earth !

As I was in “the valley” today, on my way home from visiting Fujitsu in Sunnyvale I thought I would drop into the Apple campus in nearby Cupertino. I am please to confirm it still exisits despite Microsoft not having it on the imagery layer in MSN virtual earth. I have the t-shirt to prove it!

The imagery used by microsoft appears to come from the USGS, and if one wanted a concrete example of problems on “free” geodata this is it. The imagery although available at cost of duplication is over 15 years old! compare that to the commerical imagery used by Google and supplied by DigitalGlobe. – You pay your money (or not) and take the choice..

Written and submitted from the BA lounge, San Francisco Airport, using the t-mobile wifi network.