Ed Parsons

The Power of Information Report – connecting .gov.uk to the mashup generation

by Ed ParsonsData Policy, GIS, Ordnance Survey, web 2.0 June 8, 20073 Comments

Ed Mayo and Tom Steinberg have completed, their important review of the potential value of Government generated information, when combined with citizen contributed information and tools. The Power of Information review commissioned by the cabinet office, is a very important report in my opinion – noting the value of Public Sector information, but also recognising …

iPhone hype – How LBS became mainstream

by Ed ParsonsGIS, Google Maps June 7, 20074 Comments

Great posting at the TUAW detailing the Zaprudering of the iPhone commercials which are running in the states this week. Zaprudering for those not steeped is conspiracy theory is the process of analysing meaning in the detail of a film, and derives from the famous Zapruder film of the JFK assassination. iPhone hype and excitement …

Land-Line the end is in sight !

by Ed ParsonsGIS, Ordnance Survey June 5, 2007Comments are Disabled

With very little fanfare the retirement of Land-Line the Ordnance Survey’s most important cartographic product was announced yesterday, oddly the main story on the OS website is about a graduate training programme ! Some seven years after the introduction of OS MasterMap, the database focused feature dataset will become the primary product for most of …

Google Developer Day – BBC leads the mash-ups revolution..

by Ed ParsonsGoogle Earth, Google Maps, neogeography, opensource June 4, 20074 Comments

As a follow up to the Google Developer Day event last week , Silicon.com has a great article on the adoption of mash-up culture at the BBC and their brilliant backstage project. For other content owning organisations BBC Backstage sets a great example highlighting the way that forward thinking licensing of information can really aid …

Where 2.0 and “Sense of Place”

by Ed ParsonsGoogle Maps, neogeography, where 2.0 May 30, 20075 Comments

I’m flying back to the UK to present at the Google Developer Day in London, so my comments on this years Where 2.0 are rather brief. What stood out for me was the recognition of the importance of “sense of place” information, geospatial data that is not traditional cartography, but which is really useful and …

When you see your life in a museum

by Ed ParsonsThoughts May 28, 20078 Comments

If you ever find yourself in Mountain View with a spare hour or so, you really should visit the Computer History Museum. It’s a little strange seeing the computers you have used on museum shelves… guess thats a sign of getting old. Great to see the Brits’s represented by the trio of Sinclair machines, including …

My new wallpaper..

by Ed ParsonsGoogle Earth May 23, 2007Comments are Disabled

This week I’m catching up with people at the Googleplex in Mountain View, more mind expansion for me… one of the most drop dead cool things I have seen however has come from London and the increasing impressive Digital Urban blog. Andy and his team at CASA, part of UCL are really extending what we …

The price of a map on my phone – £0.00

by Ed ParsonsLBS, Thoughts May 16, 20073 Comments

There is a campaign that Mastercard runs in the UK and maybe elsewhere comparing the value of goods and services with the value of Mastercard, of course the value of Mastercard is always priceless ! Well is appears over the past couple of months and with the latest announcement from Motorola picked up by All …

GeoTEC – GIS Conferences the Canadian way..

by Ed ParsonsGIS, Thoughts May 16, 20075 Comments

This week I’m in Calgary at the GeoTEC 2007 conference, where I was asked to deliver the Keynote and it is proving to be an interesting contrast with conferences back in the UK. Outside of user conferences and a few academic conferences, it is unusual to find particularly technical presentations and workshop sessions – things …

LBS and actionable content..

by Ed ParsonsGoogle Maps, LBS, neogeography May 11, 20075 Comments

Like myself you may have been using the mobile version of Google Maps for the last year or so and it works very well, the application is well adapted to mobile devices – if you look carefully you will see that it uses a different rendering to the normal browser based Google Maps – mobile …