Category: Blog

Blog posts

Categories
Android iphone LBS

Contextual Computing and The Informed Traveller

landt

I’m speaking next week at the Location and Timing Forum who are holding a special meeting on the informed traveller, in other words providing contextual services to travellers.

Next week the meeting is at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, so I won’t really be needing much in the way of contextual services to get me there ..

But in all seriousness I have become to rely at least on the mobile mapping services on both my Android and iPhone to get me to meetings, where once I might have printed off a map from a web mapping service, or in the more distant past used a street atlas, I now just use my phone.

This is of course the most obvious and simple application, the real innovation will come when in addition to location the other context clues about the individual traveller such as time and history are also used in applications.

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
AGI conference

Being Digital means being interactive.

Next week I will be joining a panel on the “value” of Location at Being-Digital ’09 at Centre Point in London.  The topic of course is an interesting one, but for me the event format is perhaps more notable.

bd-logo-square-mdBeing-Digital is a “conference without PowerPoint’s”, instead there are round-tables of industry experts discussing hot topics and short demos. The focus is much more on debate and discussion; both via traditional questions from the room and via SMS and Twitter feedback (Hashtag is #bde). 

This level of interaction is important and in not uncommon in broader web conferences especially those accross the pond, but it’s less common in the UK.

Hopefully the reinvigorated AGI GeoCommunity conference with its new Geoweb stream, will bring some of this different approach to the world of GI conferences.

 

Written and submitted from Teddington Swimming pool, using my home 3 UMTS modem.

Categories
Data Policy

SDI in a paragraph.. take note Europe !

While the alpha geeks of the geospatial world were meeting at Where2.0 in San Jose, something really significant happened in Washington.

From the FAQ of the Obama administrations new website data.gov launched today..

“What are some resources for viewing geospatial datasets?

The geospatial datasets available on Data.gov are provided in up to three open file formats: Keyhole Markup Language (KML), Compressed Keyhole Markup Language (KMZ) and ESRI Shapefile. These datasets are all viewable in many commercial and freely available applications. More information about Geographic Information System (GIS) software can be found by doing a web search.”

It does not need to more complex than this for the citizens of the US to benefit, there are many individuals and organisations both commercial and non-commercial who can now build on this.

Written and submitted from the BA Lounge, San Francisco Airport.

Categories
Data Policy

A rare victory for public sector data reuse in Europe

From Jeff Thurston at the Vector One blog, news that the Dutch operation of Landmark Information Group have won a case at the Dutch High Courts asserting that they should be able to access environment information from the City of Amsterdam without high license costs or limitations to its reuse.

This is an interesting development because it is an area where there is little case law despite the fact that the reuse of public sector information as a policy in Europe has been established for a number of years.

The key element to this decision was that is was not appropriate for the City to enforce expensive licensing on a database which was created by them to carry out their core activities.

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
conference LBS Thoughts

A different perspective of London

I gave a presentation at the Digital Cities Seminar yesterday and was fascinated by some of the maps Sir Terry Farrell showed as part of his presentation which will be featured in his new book Shaping London.

It is always refreshing to look at how people other than cartographers choose to represent geospatial information, the image below taken from Terry’s presentation show the Thames Gateway, the area of urban redevelopment east of London, and takes its inspiration from Beck’s Underground map.

 

Thames Gateway
Thames Gateway

 

 

Beck’s map (or plan ?) is truly iconic and the map of the Thames gateway uses the Circle Line from it both to provide a geographic anchor for the map and to provide relative scale. I always find it amusing to remind people that one of the most famous maps in the world is the product of a graphic designer based on the principles of laying out electrical circuit diagrams.

 

 

Becks Tube Map
Becks Tube Map

 

 

In my presentation I made the point that we are increasing moving to a time when maps are customised to an individuals needs, and will become task focused delivered on mobile devices and as a result transient. Indeed for many tasks where a map was once needed a location aware application can provide users with the information they need without a map display.

Just step back and think about this one button from the “infamous” National Rail app for the iPhone.

 

Next Train Home
Next Train Home

 

Press it anywhere in the UK, and it will tell you the time of the next train home, and when you would expect to arrive. As a geospatial professional think about all the functionality and data that is hidden behind this simple button, and the analogue sources of information you would need to have access to to provide the answer.

As a Geographer sometimes it hard to accept, but it is still true, that it is often not about the map !!

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Google Maps SDI Thoughts

Richmond Maps nearly everything…

Its great to see my own local authority making great use of Google Maps, as pointed out  by the Mapperz team , Richmond Council have produced a series of maps using Google Maps to illustrate most of their local services, including a pet subject of mine Recycling sites. 

richmond_maps

There is much to be said for a very simple approach like this, the maps are straight forward and communicate a single type of service each, and therefore are simple to use.

Behind the scenes the locations could also be  indexed and become part of the ever increasing geoweb discovered by other websites and services, remember key to the success of the web is the ability to consume information via different channels. 

Such an approach also illustrates the potential for developing a UK Spatial Data Infrastructure from the ground up, at least one focused at the needs of citizen in contrast to the more formal approach developing SDI’s for professional use.

The next step would be for Richmond to publish these points of interest as a feed (KML/GeoRSS), so they would be more easily accessible to anyone wanting to integrate local services in to their own applications. But for the residents of Richmond having this information easily accessible in this way is an important step forward..

Well done Richmond !!

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Data Policy Google Earth Thoughts

GIS without a GIS ?

Interesting challenge, Can you do simple spatial analysis without access to a GIS or raw data ?

I received this email today, what do you think ?

“Hope you are well – I am now 18 months into a career in renewable energy and am the “expert” in GIS in this company.  We work with Imass (my old employers) with a GIS-based system for working out how much connections of wind-farms, biomass plants etc. are to the electricity grid.  I am going through a data checking exercise and want to compare substation locations digitised by Imass with air photos and maps.  

It is easy for us to create a KML file and display on Google Earth but do any of your readers know of a clever way of comparing with OS mapping – without the need of a GIS or ownership of the OS maps?  Obviously one by one we can compare on Multimap but how do I quickly move around 800 points? 

I wondered if  Where’s the Path was along the right lines on this.  Not sure where I can find the right forum to discuss.”

My guess is that for largely organisational / licensing issues this would not be possible, even if technically it may be, but it’s an interesting thought…

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Data Policy iphone LBS Thoughts

#Geomob just keeps growing

On Friday evening, I went along to the latest meeting of Geomob the developer community event created by Christopher Osborne focused on developments in what used to be called Location Based Services, but which now more sensibly people recognise as mobile applications of GEO technologies.

The key difference from the old days (2 years ago !!) of LBS, is that now the barrier to entry is much lower allowing the hacker community to really start to play and innovate without having to have huge resources behind them.

However despite technologies and services like Fire Eagle, Google Maps, OpenStreetMap/Cluodmade, there are still problems getting access to some types of information that would make mobile applications even more compelling, and yes I am talking about that old chestnut, access to public sector data sets.

The relevance of this to the community was demonstrated by the appreciation of the audience for the presentation given by Richard Allan of the Power of Information Task Force, who highlighted the well known issues with OS licensing practises.

2009-03-27 19.46.57.jpg

For me these problems are demonstrated perfectly by the example of the new iPhone application National Rail.

This is a wonderful application, that is really useful providing real time train timetable information, and making use of location technology to automatically identify the closest station to you, and give you the timetable for trains to take you home.. very useful on a Friday night believe me..

IMG_0001.PNG

The only problem is the cost, £4.99 which is expensive for an iPhone application where most commercial application cost less than a pound.

Why should the application cost anything? after-all surely the role of the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) is too make it easy for people to use the trains, not to sell software.

I have a similar application on my iPhone produced by British Airways that allows me to look up their timetable.. it is free.

ATOC may argue that there are development costs, etc in releasing an application like this, well the solution to that is straight forward, make he timetable information available free for the Geomob developers to download, sit back and watch what happens !

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

Categories
Data Policy opensource Thoughts

StateoftheMap 2009 Call for Papers

The call for papers for always one of the most interesting conference has just been announced. StateoftheMap 2009 is the conference to discuss all thinks to do with the ground breaking Open Street Map Project, and this year will be held in Amsterdam in July

This is much more than a gathering of people who like to ride bikes with GPS tapped to their handlebars however, the conference is a excellent forum for discussions of new types of cartography, data access policy and legal issues around open source data.

Indeed this year I’m sure one of the hottest topics will be licensing of data, not something which appears to everybody, but its an indication that the project has reached a level of maturity that it needs to be addressed.

Written and submitted from the 11:45 London-Cardiff Train, near Bristol.

Categories
Data Policy Google Maps Transport

Transport for London boards the mash-up bandwagon

tflkml

As introduced by Christopher Osborne @osbornec on Twitter this morning (where else do you get news these days ?), Transport for London (TfL) the government organisation responsible for most transport in London have begun providing access to limited amounts of their transit data, via a simple web feed interface.

TfL must be congratulated for this step, and by doing so using simple XML feeds including using KML for station locations. Contrast this with the route often taken to build complex (and expensive) web portals and online ordering systems for data.

Of course the missing piece which would be of great value to many developers, Google included, would be the schedule information for the Buses, Tubes and Trams that TfL runs. This information is widely available in the US and in some other European cities and is behind the transit feature of Google Maps.

Still a great step forward, and an example for others to follow !

Written and submitted from the Google Office, Dublin.