Cultural differences..

This one very rare tweet from Andy Rubin, lead on the Android Programme at Google in 140 characters perfectly embodies the open and geeky culture at Google. This is of course not always initially a great advantage when building consumer facing products, for my non geeks readers “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git …

The Open Government Licence

Last week in addition to the new more open OS licesning, another in many ways more fundamental new license was introduced with little fanfare, but I would argue it’s impact if widely adopted could be far more important. The new UK Open Government licence (OGL) developed by the National Archives, is a robust licence developed using Creative Commons like …

Beehives and Google Earth fight crime!

A great example of an innovative use of Google Earth Enterprise, as an extension to Local Government GIS use in the UK. To find the application of Beehives you will just need to watch .. Written and submitted from the Google Offices, London (51.495N, 0.146W)

So is the OS derived data issue now solved ?

Well from reading a couple of press releases the signs look hopeful… Both the OS and the Dept. of Communities and Local Government have announced the signing of the new Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA), a sole source long term contract for providing mapping data to all of the public sector. I’m sure this has not gone down …

Live Tube Map

A great early example of the value of the new TfL train prediction API, a map of the ‘Real time” locations of Tube Trains. Produced by MySociety ace Matthew Somerville a really neat demo and another example of the value of releasing government datasets, and in this case an example of an occasion where an API is …