Category: Blog

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Data Policy

Power of Information BarCamp

barcamp logoThe Power of Information Report continues to have its impact around Whitehall, following the hell frezzing release of OS Openspace (alpha) just before the deadline of December last year, the Office of Public Sector Informtion (OPSI) has announced plans to run a barcamp a week on Saturday (12th January).

The BarCampPOIR8 will have as it’s subject the creation of web-based channel to support requests for the publication of specific public information datasets. This was recommendation 8 of the report hence POIR8 !

It’s rather short notice, but great to see Government bodies reaching out to the information policy and developement community in this way.

For those not familiar with the tradtion, this article explains what a barcamp is 🙂

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

Categories
GIS

Here comes 2008 !

So roll on 2008, it’s a great time to be involved with geospatial technology in all it forms, and for its great to be part of an industry that is touching so many more peoples lives…

Part of the excitment I feel is due to the fact that the industry is changing to finally better suit the needs of a wider community of users rather than just the professional GIS users. Some indication of this rate of change can be seen in a simple analysis of the search terms used in our favourite serach engine and how these have changed over the last few years.

Using the Google Trends tool it is possible to track how often a term is searched for, and to compare this over time.

OS Trends
Search for “Ordnance Survey”

For example it is interesting to compare the decreasing trend for “Ordnance Survey” with the increasing trend for “Tele Atlas” and “Navteq”.

navteq_graph.png
Search for “Navteq”

The change reflected here I would suggest is the change is focus of users away from local data provders to international suppliers and of course the move away from paper mapping to electronic mapping for many consumers.

Of course it’s easy to read too much into these trends, but as a measure of interest or attention amongst internet users these trends are interesting, I’ll leave it up to you to stop other geospatial search term trends, but look forward for another 12 months of upheaval as the structure and focus of the industry concerned with geographic information continues to change and broaden its appeal beyond the professional (paleogeography) market.

Happy New Year !!

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

Categories
GPS

The Knowledge beats Sat-Nav even South of the River..

An excellent BBC Click Online show which puts a sat-nav equiped car up against a London Taxi Driver to navigate around London. As you would expect the Cabbie wins, but it’s an excellent explanation of how satnav works warts and all.

Satnav challenge

At the end of the day like many other applications of Geospatial technology, it the data that makes all the difference.

Although this show is a lot better than many others I have seen, comparing a satnav to local knowledge is always unfair, local knowledge will always win, a better comparison is between satnav and a road atlas, or even asking people directions.

My Advice re choosing a GPS, never waste money on a factory fitted system, they are too expensive and are often a year or two behind the capabilities of modern Tom-Tom or Garmin system, however I just love the Ozzy Osbourne instructions driving instructions !

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

Categories
Data Policy opensource

OpenAerialMap – Think Open Street Map for imagery..

Open Aerial Map

As happens in this world of constant communications, I heard of the new OpenAerialMap site via an IM chat with Jeff Johnson of PictEarth on Sunday lunchtime !

The idea behind OAM is for it to become an online repository for community generated aerial photography, sourced from Kites, Low cost UAV’s , etc. I’m sure many still see the creation of Open Source imagery captured by amateurs as a Joke, but then people were not serious about OSM !

It’s true that OAM cannot really replace the global systematic cover offered by satellite imagery or the professional aerial photography producers, but for applications where discrete imagery is required of a particular location at high resolution, or to cover a specific event or activity (high temporal resolution) there is a niche which can be filled by this imagery, and the services like OAM which distribute it.

As with OSM, OAM can work because the tools to both capture and distribute this type of Geodata have become democratised to the extent where it is possible for the amateur to respond to events faster than the professional,and to make that data available without the restrictions of conventional licensing. Although the distribution of large amounts of imagery represents all sorts of new challenges in developing a robust operational system.

As with traditional mapping, we are not looking at a replacement to the traditional top-down centralist approach to the creation of Geodata, however there is now at least an alternative, that may become more significant over time.

I wonder if there are plans to use include Geobase SPOT data set of Canada ?

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

Categories
iphone N95

So farewell N95

Now a full committed disciple of the iPhone, its time to say farewell to the my Nokia N95 which has joined hundreds of others on eBay, there is a depressed market if ever I saw one.. when I last looked there were 1600 phones on the market.

Technically the Nokia device is superior to the iPhone, it has 3.5G network access, a fantastic camera and of course GPS, but the U/I is just so much better and it just works, I’m not seeing the signal strength issues some have reported, but O2 really need to get the EDGE network extended quickly, although the Cloud wifi system in London works really well.

So now all we need is for Apple to update their Maps application to use “My Location”…

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

Categories
Google Maps

There are hills in them there maps…

Without much fuss we added an extra button to Google Maps todays and brought relief to cartography fans everywhere… sorry that is the worst pun I could come up with.

The terrain view is offers another perspective of our world and for some users, like those interested in outdoors recreation for example, is really vital.Terrain

Written and submitted from the Malmaison Hotel, Birmingham, using it’s free wired broadband network.

Categories
Google Maps Thoughts

Our Dumb World : Who needs the CIA World factbook now..

Our dumb world

The Onion a great news magazine and website from over the pond brings us their version of the World Fact Book in the form on a new Google Maps mash-up Our Dumb World – The worlds countries summarised into simple info bubbles, you need look no further for a comprehensive world view.

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Data Policy Thoughts

F**kwits

Anybody seen this dataHas anybody seen this data ?

If so, please return it in the envelope provided, as the owner would quite like it back.

Lisa, I think was a little shocked this evening when I jumped of the sofa and started swearing at the TV news.

Dear readers outside of the UK, I must explain.. the Government department responsible for taxation in the UK sent a dump of a database containing detailed personal and financial details of 25 million people (nearly half the UK population) on a couple of CD’s in the mail and it has gone missing !!

As an IT professional this is wrong on so many levels it really defies belief, why store personal information including address, national insurance details, Date of Birth etc in the same database as peoples bank details?, why dump them to a CD and not use the government secure intranet which has costs tens if not hundreds of millions to develop and operate, why not encrypt the data ?

The list just goes on and on.

The government say – don’t worry we don’t think the database has fallen into the wrong hands – well I don’t feel very reassured.

Now I’m just trying to convince Lisa to change her bank account, as she along with every mother/carer in the country has their bank accounts security compromised by these idiots !!

UPDATE

Looks like the data has been found.. don’t you just love the British sense of humour ?

ebay

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

Categories
Data Policy Ordnance Survey Thoughts

Geodata suppliers – lessons from the music industry..

I got myself in trouble on a number of occasions with my old boss when I drew the obvious comparisons between the Geodata industry and the Music Industry, and how Geodata providers needed to move with the times..

It is therefore interesting to see that a least one music industry boss is recognising the mistakes of the past/present… to quote Edgar Bronfman of Warner Music..

“We used to fool ourselves…We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won.”

Remember this is not always about making information free, it is about making it accessible..

There is a lesson there for leadership of a number of .gov.uk organisations don’t you think ?

Written and submitted from Starbucks, Horseferry Road, using my three 3G modem.

Categories
Android LBS Mobile opensource

Android and LBS – in the stack at last…

So maybe now Mr Balmer is reconsidering his comments of last week..

For me and my interest in geographic information the key detail about the Android SDK is the LBS component, and where is appears in the whole android stack. I have often argued that LBS would only really make sense as an underlining infrastructure that is available to all applications, therefore allowing much higher levels of integration.

One of the key factors to the success of the iPhone is the great integration between its applications, it’s just a shame these are currently restricted in number, to the Apple supplied applications.

Android

With Android the Location Manager component is part of the core application framework, meaning that all user applications have access to the devices location. At a simple level this means that applications like the address book as access to the device location, so your contacts rather than sorted alphabetically could be sorted based on distance from your locations.

Or slightly more “left field” how about a security application which locks the device waiting on the user to enter a PIN if the devices location does not match the scheduled location from the calendar application.

For really the first time, the innovation which always comes from Open Source development can be focused on building LBS.. at last !!

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