Category: Blog

Blog posts

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Apple LBS Thoughts

Even Macheads talk LBS now

Macbreak weeklyHappy listening to the Macbreak Weekly podcast today, and was surprised to hear a really good discussion on the potential of LBS, PND’s and the rumour that Apple may be developing a standalone GPS device – unlikely methinks.

Still it was not so long ago that if you used a mac you were geographically challenged and lonely in the geospatial community.

Now… well, I’d say around 50% of the audience of the recent Where 2.0 conference were using MacBooks.

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
AGI GIS Technology Thoughts

GI Innovation in the UK – you just need to look in the right place..

Yesterday was a series of interesting contrasts for me, the state of the “traditional” Government dominated GI industry was pretty well summed up by the Chorley Day review event organised by the AGI, key impression – “why after 20 years of trying does nobody listen to us”, while the very same evening brought a larger audience to the mashup* location themed event, key impression – “Hello we would really like to build application “x” using your platform is that OK..”

I was really pleased to see the WIDR guys at the event last night, some bright guys who used to work for me while I was at Ordnance Survey, who have developed a location determination platform, with an open API, based on wifi hotspots. Not a new idea I know, but the API element is really interesting as it offers the potential for developers to easily add location awareness to their own web based applications.

Widr

What would begin to close the gap between the two diverging GI communities, would be if these guys could develop they ideas during the day rather than in their spare time, and bring the benefit directly back to their organisation. The 20% time that Google engineers can use to develop their own ideas is well known, and really is a powerful tool for developing new products and services – would we ever see anything like that in Government ?

No.. I guess not.. but then the next generation of customers of Government services, as David Rhind so brilliantly called them yesterday the “myTube” generation have vastly different expectations of dealing with organisations based on experiences with eBay, Amazon, Facebook, Google etc all of which recognise the importance of innovation in keeping their customers happy.

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

Categories
GIS

Upcoming..

Some fascinating events coming up over the next couple of weeks, which quite well reflect the nature of the GI industry today..

Next week I will be on a panel at the mashup* event which is focusing on Location and the content goes with the title, on the same day I’m at the AGI’s Chorley Day event – a review of the progress or lack of it since the Government published it’s report on the “handling of Geographic Information” 20 year ago, and I’m sure there will be the obvious Sergeant Pepper references !!

For the first time in a number of years I will not be at the ESRI User Conference, read nothing into this other than I’m no longer a ESRI user!! ESRI continue to do great things and are building the tools which are helping to create large parts of the Geoweb. Peter I’m sure you will have a great time experiencing the force at first hand !!

I’m really excited to be delivering the Keynote at the first State of the Map Conference in Manchester next month, Steve Coast and the OpenStreetMap community are getting together for the first time ( amazing what you can do with a virtual community) and discussing the development of open geodata.
The European INSPIRE legislation has the potential to massively increase the amount of Geodata available and the 13th European Commission Workshop on Geographic Information and GIS in Portugal has INSPRE as its central theme.

Interesting times…

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

Categories
Data Policy GIS Ordnance Survey web 2.0

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

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.

Power of InformationThe 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 that it is when this information is in the hands of the citizen, it becomes most valuable.

The report should be seen as a way for government to catch up with and serve the needs of the “mash-up” generation who will increasingly become a demanding group of citizens who understand the power of information.

It will be interesting to see the Governments response to the report, as is often the case we must remember that Government does not speak with a single voice, but the fact that the Cabinet office commissioned this independent report in the the first place is very positive.

If you are a UK reader I recommend downloading and reading this report, there is one recommendation that is close to my heart :-), and another that is just vital –

Recommendation 9. By Budget 2008, government should commission and publish an
independent review of the costs and benefits of the current trading fund charging model for the re-use of public sector information, including the role of the five largest trading funds, the balance of direct versus downstream economic revenue, and the impact on the quality of public sector information.

For too long the debate about cost recovery has been carried out in a vacuum without an authoritative economic justification of the statue quo – this recommendation would either prove the case for the OS so it would no longer have to defend itself, or prove the case of the free data lobby – and we could then get on with the important business of using geography to make the world a better place to live in.

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

Categories
GIS Google Maps

iPhone hype – How LBS became mainstream

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

iPhone hype and excitement is a the level now where any information about the features of the phone is blogged within minutes to an excited world, and where misinformation can cost billions to the investors of Apple.

So it’s interesting that one of the key features demonstrated is the Maps application, powered by Google, and its a great demo of what makes geographic information so valuable.

The user interface of course is great making full use of the gesture support, the application appears fully integrated with the rest of the phones applications, and most important of all for an LBS application, even though the phone is not location aware, the information presented is actionable – the vital ingredient in any LBS application..

Find a restaurant in SF and then call to make the reservation, and as TUAW points out, the restaurant in the commercial is real and is getting many calls because of their instant fame – a pretty good test of data quality.

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

Categories
GIS Ordnance Survey

Land-Line the end is in sight !

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 the professional business customers of OS in September 2008.

This has been a long time in coming, but it is a major step forward for the industry in the UK. Thing in terms of moving from MS-DOS to Windows 95 and will appreciate the scope of the change.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

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Categories
Google Earth Google Maps neogeography opensource

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

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.

GDD PinFor other content owning organisations BBC Backstage sets a great example highlighting the way that forward thinking licensing of information can really aid the innovation process and develop truly useful new content driven sites.

During my time at the OS we made no secret of the fact that Backstage was an inspiration to the OpenSpace project.

Just imagine the mashups which could be created if other content owners in the public sector were as open.. indeed in just this last week, we are beginning to see a more innovative approach to publishing content with the reporting of Brents use of google maps and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency decision to publish some of it’s charts in KML.

A point I made during last weeks London Keynote (about 30 mins in, but its well worth listening to the great Chris di Bona) is that there are still huge amounts of geographic information still to be liberated from existing corporate silos, in addition to the user generated content we are beginning to provide the tools to create.

When you think about it, this is less a technology issue that it has even been – this is now really about information policy..

Written and Submitted from the Google Office, London.

Categories
Google Maps neogeography where 2.0

Where 2.0 and “Sense of Place”

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 meaningful to people because it is not as abstract as mapping.

StreetView

In StreetView we are attempting to represent the world from the perspective of someone in it, i.e. from a perspective of a viewer 2m high not 1500m in the air. High resolution terrestrial imagery is actually very useful, as John demonstrated in today’s presentation, fro example being able to read street signs is a source of attribute information not available else where. This type of imagery especially when navigable in such a simple way, makes exploring the virtual environment easy and really does provide a sense of what in the case above San Francisco is like to visit.
The power of imagery to provide this “sense of place” was also a major part of Quakr some fellow Brits who are developing a site to put geotagged images in their correct perspective location on an interactive map, so that in effect you walk through the photos..

Combine imagery with the environmental sound-scenes developed by inside 30proof for Wild Sanctuary and you are beginning to see what I think used to be called ‘hypermedia” starting to have an impact in communicating geospatial information.

Written and submitted from the British Airways Lounge, at SFO airport using the free broadband network

Categories
Google Earth

My new wallpaper..

GE Panorama

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 understand his possible in developing three dimensional city models, but in a very practical way. One of the oldest postings describes making panoramas from Google Earth, one of which is now my Macbooks new desktop wallpaper. These images really are things of beauty. Gentle reminder though guys… You should not strip the Goggle logo off the images !!!

The most recent posting describes importing Sketch-up models into the Oblivion Game Engine !

This is a must subscribe blog ..

Written and submitted from the Googleplex , Mountain View.

Categories
GIS Thoughts

GeoTEC – GIS Conferences the Canadian way..

GeoTEc 2007

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 that appeal to me and the “hands-on people” in GIS.

Well that is certainly not the case here, taken at random from the programme..

Advanced LIDAR processing;

Intercomparison of DEM Terrain and Watershed Attributes Derived from Three Independent Sources;

Google Earth adds a New Dimension: Dynamic Time based Data Display;

and The 1901 Census as a indication of the Spatial Existence of a Letis Homeland.

Matt Ball and his team have developed a strong technical programme which has attracted over 1000 people to Calgary, and most of those will have had to fly here, arrange accommodation etc.. In Canada at least there is a strong demand for such content – and this is the 21st GeoTEC conference.

I have often had the debate with people back in the UK why we don’t have such strong technical programmes at UK conferences, which end up often only with “Hello I’m from [organisation A] and I did this with my GIS, and here is [Vendor X] who helped me do it”, or lets bash the OS (easy target) and “Why does nobody listen to us”.

Answers on a postcard, or maybe I can convince Matt to come and run a conference in the UK.

Written and submitted from Hyatt Hotel, Calgary, using its in-room wired network.