Category: Blog

Blog posts

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Android Context based computing Thoughts

Went for a walk, came back with a map

 

Early this week to test a new Android application and to walk of the Google Christmas Lunch, I went for an early afternoon walk near the office.

The application I was testing was My Maps Editor and Android application to create and edit Google My Maps, and it pretty much worked first time as expected allowing be to create a simple map of my walk.

At the end of 2008 it’s quite difficult to get really excited by this as we have come to expect so much from mainstream geospatial technology.

But just think what I have achieved from my walk, not only have I created a multimedia rich database with potentially metre accuracy geospatial features, I have also created a distribution channel to publish the database within minutes to hundreds of millions of users.

All from a mobile device that costs a few hundred pounds.

 

So this type of technology may never be used to create base map data, but for many organisations who need to be able to do simple data capture outside of the office there is huge potential here.

Maybe over christmas I will complete my recycling map for Richmond 🙂

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Fun !! Thoughts

The “modern world” demo…

As anyone who has spent any time as a demo jockey can tell you, the best demos paint a picture for your audience of a future using your tools/products which is both exciting and believable. If your demo and your product was really good your audience would leave enthused with the possibilities now achievable, and can’t wait to try themselves.

On rare occasions you might get an opportunity to demonstrate something a little more radical, something that is really just out of the labs but which has the potential to really change the industry, I think about the first time I saw MapGuide in late 1995 and of course Google Earth ten years later, both products which have had a major impact on the Geospatial industry directly or indirectly.

40 years ago however a demo was given that truly radical, so audacious in terms of its content to many who saw it, it seemed so different from the current technology that it appeared to be science fiction rather than IT. Yet the demo given by Doug Engelbart and his colleagues from the Stanford Augmentation Research Centre, was so influential it has become known as the mother of all demos, it’s pretty much a demonstration of the computer you are sitting in-front of today, with mouse , web like hypertext documents delivered via a wide area network which allowed real time collaboration with remote colleagues, there is even an example of structuring data using location !

Now thanks to the modern version of that technology you too can watch the complete demo on youTube. While watching this, don’t forget that the primary mechanism to interact with a computer was the punch card.

Oh and by the way, iPhone product mangers take note – there is a great demo of copy and paste in part 2 of 10 if you need some inspiration..

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Google Earth OGC opensource

Looking for a Google Earth Server

Then look no further than the latest release of GeoServer which has fantastic new KML serving capabilities on a par with the Google Earth Enterprise server.

The key new capability here is to stream vector  and raster data to Google Earth as the user zooms or pans  making sure that only just the minimum amount of information is transferred thereby giving the great performance you expect from Google Earth.

This release of GeoServer can also extrude KML with a height attributes allowing users to stream simple 3D model data to Google Earth.

GeoServer 1.7.1
GeoServer 1.7.1 serves 3D KML

 

GeoServer continues to develop into a serious enterprise application which no doubt is getting the attention of the guys in Redlands and is providing much needed competition in the market. From a KML perspective it is now possible for an organisation to self publish almost any type and size of geospatial database using an open technology stack.

And it runs nicely on my Mac !!!

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Data Policy Thoughts

Set the boundaries free

An excellent post by Richard Allan on the Power of Information blog, Geographic Data that Should be Free (In All Senses of the Word).

As the post points out there could be a very simple solution to the current problem with OS derived data, make certain types of geospatial data including administrative boundaries and the locations of public services free . 

This would have a very minor impact on the revenue of the OS, the real “cash cow” for the OS is its large scale Mastermap data, it could almost give away all it’s other data products and not really notice the difference.

Written and submitted from a First Great Western Train, near Reading using my Three 3G modem.

Categories
Google Maps Thoughts

Everybody reads the Terms of Service..

Just like buses on the high street in any town in the UK, you have to wait ages and then along come a bunch together, so it is with the Maps API TOS, which Google revised again today.

Clearly section 11 was an area of concern to the community, it is the section that balances legally what you as a map user submit and how Google may use your content. MIckey on the Geo Developers Blog gives an excellent explantion of the thinking behind the changes to this section.

I believe these changes improve the clarity of the TOS and will hopefully reduce the concerns expressed by some developers. 

The new section 11 for reference is below…

11. Licenses from You to Google.

11.1 Content License. Google claims no ownership over Your Content, and You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Your Content. By submitting, posting or displaying Your Content in the Service, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute Your Content through the Service and as search results through Google Services. This license is solely for the purpose of enabling Google to operate the Service, to promote the Service (including through public presentations), and to index and serve such content as search results through Google Services. If you are unable or unwilling to provide such a license to Your Content, please see theFAQ for information on configuring your Maps API Implementation to opt out. 

11.2 Brand Features License. You grant to Google a nontransferable, nonexclusive license during the Term to use Your Brand Features to advertise that you are using the Service.

11.3 Authority to Grant Licenses. You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licenses.

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

Categories
INSPIRE Ordnance Survey SDI Thoughts

Place matters: the Location Strategy for the UK

Finally after an extended delay the Dept of Communities and Local Government has published the UK location strategy, Place matters. The blueprint for a UK Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), or an extended job application for someone in Southampton…

You decide !

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Data Policy Ordnance Survey Thoughts

A change of direction for the OS ?

From todays Pre-Budget report, a document that’s main focus is the fiscal stimulation of the UK economy, this nugget of potentially very exciting news…

“4.54 Re-use of public sector information from trading funds 

The HM Treasury/Shareholder Executive assessment of trading funds has considered the potential for innovation and growth from increasing commercial and other use of public sector information. It will shortly publish some key principles for the re-use of this information, consider how these currently apply in each of the trading funds and how they might apply in the future, and the role of the Office of Public Sector Information in ensuring that Government policy is fully reflected in practice.

For the Ordnance Survey, this will involve consideration of its underlying business model. Further details will be announced in Budget 2009.”

In politics, timing is everything..

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

Categories
Data Policy OS Research Thoughts

Notes from down-under

As the Whitehall farce that is the OS derived data debacle continues, it’s interesting to contrast the flow of public sector information in the UK with that in Australia which I have just experienced first hand at the first Asia Pacific Spatial Innovation Conference.

Interestingly for a Geospatial conference there was in addition to the usual technology developments, a theme looking at innovation in business models, funding and licensing. It’s not often there are as many economists at a geospatial conference as ESRI gurus !

For me the biggest take away was the increasing recognition by government here that data needs to be set free both at all levels of government, and there are I’m sure many important lessons which could be picked up in Europe and in the UK specifically. 


Australia is more similar to the UK than the US, for example the value of information is recognised and information products are protected by copyright as is the case in the UK.

But in Australia, lead by the great example of Queensland, government data sets are starting to be released using Creative Commons licenses, and in a study presented by Tim Barker the Director of Queensland’s Spatial Information Office, 85% of the public sector data-sets they had examined could by licensed using one of the standard creative commons licenses without any problems.

Before you all fall about laughing saying this could never happen in the UK, the OS actually has released information under a creative commons license before, the research team published some ontologies used in semantic research using a non-commercial share alike licence, but of course perhaps that was a little under the radar screen.

Still we live in hope…

Written and submitted from the Qantas Lounge, Sydney AIrport, using its free 802.11 network.

Categories
Data Policy neogeography Thoughts

Mash-up hero !!

This is a great story from the mySociety blog, Michael Houlsby from East Hampshire council has built an API to the councils database to allow users of the fix my street application to post issues directly into the councils own operational database.

I can only imagine how hard this was to achieve not from a technical point of view, but from this bottom up approach to delivering a IT system, which goes completely against the usual philosophy of delivering IT systems in government.

Many people view mash-ups only as a way of publishing information, but really mash-ups are just about providing open interfaces to your online services, so it brilliant to see such an approach used in the UK to contribute information, which in turn potentially improves the quality of life for the lucky residents of East Hants !

Kudos to Michael, an example of the value to web 2.0 I will be using from now on..

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

Categories
iphone

iPhone best-selling phone in the US

The Guardian points out that the iPhone has replaced Motorola’s RAZR as the best selling mobile (cell) phone in the US. That’s impressive for an expensive smartphone, but to replace the RAZR !!

I can’t beleive people were still buying that pile of Sh*t !, a phone with perhaps the worlds most complex user interface since the Apollo command module.

Please feel free to drop a comment, with your worst phone experience.

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