Category: Thoughts

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Thoughts

When you see your life in a museum

Computer History Museum

If you ever find yourself in Mountain View with a spare hour or so, you really should visit the Computer History Museum. It’s a little strange seeing the computers you have used on museum shelves… guess thats a sign of getting old.

Sinclair trio

Great to see the Brits’s represented by the trio of Sinclair machines, including my first personal computer the ZX Spectrum of 1982 !!

As a Apple Fan boy, of course I was impressed by the Apple 1 and the blue box which was the first “technology” developed by the two Steves and illegal ( it was used to get free long-distance phone calls) !!

The VAX

Also represented a Vax minicomputer which was my first experience of computer mapping using GIMMS,MAPICS and SYMAP – yes I used SYMAP once upon a time !!!

Fast forward to today, I’m this evening going to the Ignite meeting part of the Where 2.0 conference to see the very latest innovative business ideas for using geospatial information and processes – this is an industry which moves very quickly but it’s good to see an organisation documenting and preseving this progress.

Now I must dust of my Apple Newton when I get home….

Written and submitted from the Marriott Residence Inn, Mountain View using the hotels free wifi network

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LBS Thoughts

The price of a map on my phone – £0.00

There is a campaign that Mastercard runs in the UK and maybe elsewhere comparing the value of goods and services with the value of Mastercard, of course the value of Mastercard is always priceless ! Well is appears over the past couple of months and with the latest announcement from Motorola picked up by All Points Blog, The price of maps on a phone is zero.

I have two mobile devices I carry around with me, my N95 and a Blackberry both of which have manufacturer installed mapping applications which offer extensive street level mapping data free of charge.. in the case of the N95 I can even download offline a global mapping dataset to store on my 2GB storage card so that I won’t incur the stupid data rates imposed by the network operators in the UK

Of course if you don’t have a new Nokia, Motorola or Blackberry you can download Google Maps for Mobile which delivers the same Google maps experience of the desktop on any mobile device which can run Java.

I remember as a data supplier we had such high hopes of the mobile market and LBS taking off as a major revenue stream, it still is a potentially a major stream, but it is certainly not going to be the gold mine it was hoped to be with individual transaction based billing of consumers. That was always going to be too costly and complex to build a business model around, at best a subscription model as used for some of the navigation applications might be sustainable.. but time will tell.

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

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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.

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Google Maps Thoughts

A new urban cartography online

Ok so my head is still spinning… but I just had to comment on the latest development to Google maps which went live yesterday and which provide a “2.5D” view of some major US cities and Tokyo – I just love the simpicity of this rendering, it povides the much needed sense of place, but does not make the existing information or user generated “my-maps” content any less clear..

Ny25D

I’m off on vacation with the family next week in NYC so I will put this to the test…

Now how cool would it be to see the UCL London city model rendered like this !

Sometimes less is more..

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

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AGI Thoughts

AGI moves with the times…

The AGI 2007 Conference blogsite is now live, an interesting way to track progress running up to this years AGI conference, which itself is a radical departure from previous years… Make sure you comment if you have anything to say, this type of openness in the way the AGI works should be applauded.

I sure this change in direction for he conference is a good move, however I’m not sure which of the groups represented on the poster is me.. guess I need a hard hat !

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

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Google Earth Google Maps Thoughts

My new office…

You may have picked up on the rumors that I have a new job, well it’s true !!

This week I joined Google as the Geospatial Technologist for EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and to say I am excited would be somewhat of an understatement.
Google Door

Google (and yes Microsoft and Yahoo as well 🙂 ) have had a massive positive impact on the traditional GI industry and are developing truly innovative ways of distributing and exploiting geographic information – and there is still much more to come !

The “heavy lifting” of the data providers and sophisticated software tools developers is still a very important part of the industry which after-all is data driven, but through the efforts of Google the information is getting into the hands of a new community of some 200 million users, when they need it, and how they need it.

It’s really important that the world of neogeography and the more established industry come together as there is much to learn from both ends of the spectrum, there is already much good working going on to integrate geoRSS and KML with existing OGC standards for example.

Google lives up to its reputation – I feel like I’m back at university, really bright people getting on and solving problems, but unlike most university departments or corporate research units, with all the resources needed to do so – and yes there are lots of Lava lamps, as much free food and drink as you could cope with, and a games room 🙂

I have been smiling continuously for the last week, but I can see life is going to get really busy !!

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

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GIS Thoughts

April first..

Nice posting for yesterday by steve on the opengeodata blog, one day maybe ?

Still think my MapSat news from last year is hard to beat, like all 01/04 gags it could almost be true…

How about a GPS enabled zune, that will tell your location to 5 people within wifi distance of you – comes in a nice shade of brown…

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

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Thoughts

Is this the UK’s most expensive wifi hotspot ?

As an “indepepedent” IT executive a much higher awareness of the cost of business becomes part of your life, a point well made by Mike Barrett in his new blog. So today I’m at the Stoneleigh conference centre, south of Coventry in the UK – and the cost of the centres wifi network is enough to make your eyes water !!

Wifi Costs

Yes you read that correctly thats £60 ($120) per day !!

I guess wifi has become the new mini bar as a source of easy money for hotels and conference centres. I really must get my t-mobile data plan sorted out !!

Written and submitted from the Stoneleigh Park conference centre, using its really expensive 802.11 network

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AGI GIS Thoughts

Surveying and GIS two separate worlds in the UK…

Wofg 2007 Logo For Web SmallThis week I am giving the keynote presentation at World of Geomatics, for many years the main trade show for the surveying industry in the UK. Although small compared to something like interGEO or GITA, the show is successful and is supported a loyal audience. It is also fully supported by the professional bodies of surveying in the UK RICS, ICES and the Survey Association.

In contrast to these international shows you will not find any GIS vendors a World of Geomatics, for many years the GIS software and data interests were served by the large GIS shows in Birmingham in the late 80’s early 1990’s and more recently by the AGI annual conference and exhibition. In the last decade these shows have struggled to compete with the internet as educational resources and this year there will be no vendor neutral GIS exhibition in the UK !!

I have never really understood this, why do experts in the fields of manipulating Geographical Information in the UK exist in almost parallel universes – Answers on a postcard if you have any thoughts (OK by email but I have always wanted to write that !!) – Maybe there is a future opportunity here ?

I think I understand why the surveying shows have remained successful, it is to do with professionalism and the recognition of the value of “industry best practice”, something which has been recognised only recently by GIS professionals.

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

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Google Maps Technology Thoughts

Google Maps api and GeoRSS

Great news announced at the Google Maps api blog today, that GeoRSS is now fully supported in Google Maps. It is now possible just to pass the location of a GeoRSS feed as a parameter to the google maps url to see the feed rendered as an overlay. So http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://edparsons.floo-net.com/?feed=rss2 produces a map of this blog.

Google maps and GeoRSS

Of course the map is also embed-able using the api, as in this quick and dirty example of this blog, and my past travels.

Many have been waiting for this capability, and as the Google api seems to be the most popular mapping api this is a great opportunity, GeoRSS is a really robust lightweight encoding which should now be able to reach an even wider community of users

It you are publishing simple geographic information on a regular basis why are you not using GeoRSS ?

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