september 2003 archives

Monday, September 29, 2003

A digital Earth

Following some links, I stumbled upon the Redtail Canyon Geo-Community. The website has put a number of common web applications together to create an atlas, blog, photo-blog, search engine, and travel guide: all in one! Users can browse the contents using a map interface. Machines can access the contents through an RSS feed by most recent and nearest postings! The geographical search is defined using a bounding box: really cool stuff...

On a smaller scale, the Lower Manhattan Map website helps tourists, business travelers, and local residents find out where to shop, what to see, where to eat, and how to get around in lower Manhattan neighbourhoods. The online map enables visitors and others to pinpoint the locations of sites they plan to visit, or stores they want to shop at, or subway, bus, and ferry routes they need to take to get downtown. Its design provides easy access to this information through fully searchable maps, and visitors can click on each store or site on the map and obtain detailed information about it, including phone numbers and hours of operation. It is maintained by the NYPIRG Community Mapping Assistance Project.

Official National Mapping Agencies and other mapping bodies recently convened in the Czech town of Brno at Digital Earth 2003. It seems there were quite a few interesting presentations at the symposium...

Friday, September 26, 2003

Flash MX 2004

Yesterday I was at the Flashtival in Amsterdam, where Macromedia introduced the new Flash MX 2004 software. Lots of cool, new stuff has been added. To learn about some of the more design-related topics, have a read over at Clagnut.

From a developer's point of view, there are also quite a few interesting new things in Flash. First of all, there's a new version of ActionScript. The O'Reilly ActionScript Cookbook I recently bought is becoming rapidly obsolete, but on the other hand, new tools have been introduced that take care of some of the coding for you. Also, the structure of the language is much more object-oriented. Components that used to be sold by third parties have been included. Unfortunately, skinning these components to fit within your design has become much more difficult.

Of particular interest is the new ability to interface with web services over SOAP directly. Imagine creating so-called “Rich Internet Applications” that provide route planning and store locator functionality using web services from the likes of Netsolut, Maporama, and AND! Also, there are now quite a few OGC web mapping services that have Flash as a frontend, such as risk map of Groningen.

Monday, September 22, 2003

Exhibition: Balkan in maps

Until October 16th, the library of Leiden University hosts the exhibition “Balkan in kaart. Vijf eeuwen strijd om identiteit”. A total of 50 maps from the 16th to the 21st century give insight into the geopolitical history of the area.

The exhibition addresses 3 topics:

Introduction of the name “Balkan”.
Political borders and the rise and fall of the nation state.
Religious identity and political symbols

All in all, the exhibition provides a completely different approach to political cartography than last weekend in De Balie at the Next Five Minutes Festival!

Mapping for the masses

Microsoft has started shipping MapPoint 2004. It's a business mapping and location-based data visualisation tool, closely integrated into Microsoft Office. Marketing departments can map customers and generate driving directions for the sales team to visit their customers. Also, potential customers can be determined with the additional demographic data and consumer profile data.

Enough of the sales pitch, but really, this is quite an interesting development. Of course it is not going to change the GI industry overnight, but I am sure some of the companies earning a decent wage in this field will have to toughen up their business strategy! On the positive side, it'll make GIS more prominent and accessible in business!

Also, Multimap.com has finally been able to add Argos to its extensive client base. Its technology doesn't only power the Argos store locator functionality, but it has also been built into Argos online reservation service. By linking with Multimap, Argos.co.uk has made its site even more convenient to use as customers can check stock at all their local stores and access maps if they are not sure about directions.

Thursday, September 18, 2003

What are you up to these days?

That question's been asked to me several times the last few weeks. Now the summer is coming to an end, the pace of working is picking up here as well. One of the things I have been contributing to is the National Atlas for Public Health. There's been a new release today and two maps I produced have been included! These maps show the percentage of people receiving unemployment benefits per municipality. Not very exciting, but at least it's got my name on it! More information about the contents of the new release can be found in the online newsletter.

Next week I'll attend Flashtival 2003. I am particularly looking forward to the presentation on Geographic Information Systems and Flash to be delivered by the people from “the Factor.e”. Yes, indeed: yours truly is following the herd of Macromedia. I am using Flash to develop a web-based applications for patients to choose the best hospital. Don't be worried, at the same time I am working on an SVG project as well.

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

New start for Dutch cartography

Yesterday I attended the last AGM of the Netherlands' Cartographic Society. In October, the society shall merge with other societies in the field to become Geo-Informatie Nederland. Good to see a few familiar faces again and it was particularly interesting to go up to the map room again and meet Roelof Oddens. Yes, he's the very person maintaining Oddens' Bookmarks. Click yourself senseless discovering all the cartographic gems he's collected!

Saturday, September 13, 2003

Collaborative blogging

Wilfried: Right now it's a early saterday afternoon down in the paradiso basement which will se the first collaborative blog entry by webmapper.net and socialfiction.org.

It's not sure what will happen today concerning collaborative mapping but yesterday was excellent. Right after a presentation by Brian Holmes and Bureau d'Études the international locative media scene took to the stage. Speakers included Edward of webmapper.net who gave a short introduction on the topics relevant here. Next was Ben from the Headmap collective, talking about his research in street servers and some far out ideas about networking on street level based on FOAF. Next speaker was Esther Polak, well known for her Realtime waag project. Her talk mainly focused on a new project which will show the GPS traces from the cow being milked in Latvia to the dutch consumers of that dairy.

Edward: Attending some media art tool presentation at the moment and I'm blogging away in the background. Rather surreal. Thanks Wilfried for your comments. After Esther, it was Wilfried's turn to present his thoughts and efforts regarding psychogeography. Very cool stuff all in all, especially the whole .walk project and how one can derive the attractiveness of places from his graphs. Drew rounded up the show 'n tell with his presentation of surveillance and mobile phone technology. Mapping itself was not necessarily his objective, rather about determining location using radiation: celldar. Well worth being there!

Be sure this is only the start of some common efforts. Stay tuned to read more about N5M and collaborative mapping. Further reading available at socialfiction.org and hallucinations & antics.

Friday, September 12, 2003

Cartographic Congress, part 2

Today's been one of those days: hearing other people talk the mantra you have had in your head without them being forced to. It was great to attend the presentation of the people from the Bureau d'Études and the collaborative mapping show and tell after.

If you weren't there, here's the notes I took during the various talks, except for my own presentation of course!

Ben Russell - Headmap collective: San Fransisco - Burning Man; PlayStation portable: GPS capable, lots of storage, screen; Karosta; Stories of place in a cartographic format: transform the meaning of a place; Blogosphere: from a map representation to the real people; Traces, repution; Social network (FOAF/Friendster) to broadcast needs and wants (tools, books): turn a street into a library; Web of Trust ties is nicely with PGP
Marc Tuters:: Decentralisation of memory
Esther Polak - Amsterdam RealTime: Movements of people: name of the person on a screen in the museum as part of the exhibition on historical maps of Amsterdam. People traced their normal daily routines. Only a few went out of their way to use the RealTime application to create special traces as a form of art. It established a log book for people to record someone's life at that particular time.; Urban and rural context of RealTime; Milk collector in Russia goes round the area to collect milk from the farms in the area to bring it to the milk factory. Beautiful scenery hides the harshness and poorness of the area. Maps provide an interface to learn about the stories behind the pictures. What would the milk collector's reaction be when he sees his daily routine mapped out? How much time is spent at a place: it takes such a long time to milk only one cow by hand. Animation of geographic reality over time? Lots of the traces were missing.
Wilfried - social fiction: Map is not the territory: accuracy is not important for all applications; Doubts reality?; Psychogeography: space influencing your personal experience (mental landscape of the city); Directions but no map: an algorithm guides you through an area. Very counter-intuitively; Dordrecht: sexing up the old town of the city. Recording the distinguishing factor: place makes space not empty anymore; Algorithm as a brute force strategy to collaborative mapping; Streetgram: map without territory (looks very much like Jo's MUD London.; Boundary Logic diagram (bolagram) scoring the attractiveness/distinctiveness of a place; Together these diagrams shows you how interesting places tie together: topology
Drew - locationservices.org: anti-mapping: mobile phones and surveillance; Location is being used in court cases, e.g. Archer, Enschede fireworks factory explosion; cell-based or using triangulation; Exhibitionism: Look at me, I am here!; Mobility, but static location is becoming important; celldar < roke manor research < siemens (10 m accuracy); countermeasures

All in all, a great mix of people and projects! Interestingly, Wilfried is based in Utrecht too. Should be great to get some collaborative mapping efforts going here in Utrecht...

Tuesday, September 09, 2003

Next Five Minutes

On Friday, the Cartographic Congress will touch down in Amsterdam as part of the Next Five Minutes Festival. Really looking forward to meet up with some of the people I have met before in London and to get to know some of the people I haven't. In response to my introduction to collaborative mapping, Jo Walsh is making some interesting points. When we first met through Headmap back in London, it was great to discuss this stuff and it certainly sharpened my thougths about collaborative mapping. Hopefully Friday's get together is gonna be just as good! See you there?

Monday, September 08, 2003

Database: the new GIS?

A few months ago, MySQL released a new version of its database managment system supporting spatial queries. Of course, this must have been a hard blow for the established database vendors: a premium feature set available at no cost! Oracle is fighting back. Oracle10g has built-in Locator capabilities to store, index, and manage spatial objects and query spatial relationships. Enhancements include a network data model with routing and geocoding, persistent topology, georeferenced raster, and advanced spatial analysis functions!

This new move may not only convince MySQL to push its spatial extensions , but Oracle's move will also startle a few GIS vendors. A recent report indicates that the introduction of Oracle 10g may be disruptive to some established GIS vendors. They will have to adopt new business models. Yet another step towards bringing GIS and mainstream IT together!

Sunday, September 07, 2003

Music to my ears

In the latest issue of GI News, Ordnance Survey's CTO, Ed Parsons, discusses that the experience of the music industry may also apply to geographic information. Parsons talks about several ways in which Napster and Apple iTunes Music Store have changed consumer attitudes towards acquiring digital content:

Expression of individual wishes: create your own mix of songs.
Repurpose sound files: you can use the digital sound as alert sounds on computers, or as ringtones on mobile phones.
Buy one piece at a time: you download a single track instead of the complete album.
Try before you buy: you can download unknown music to sample.

In the light of collaborative mapping, there are two more points. Firstly, not only the established music industry, but also the start-up band can get their songs out to a world-wide audience. Secondly, intellectual property rights violation is around the corner.

There are several lessons to be learned from these 6 points:

People need to be able to combine geographic data sets from several sources and combine this into their unique product. Furthermore, people need to be able to select their own custom tools: some prefer to use a magnifying glass to zoom in, others prefer a drop-down list of predefined scales. The first requirement is addressed by the OGC Web Map Context Documents Specification.
People need to be able to specify how geographic information is delivered: in a text message, as a graphic, a sound file providing driving directions. Proven technologies such as XSL and CSS can be applied to convert geographic data stored in GML into various formats to deliver the information in text, graphic, and sound.
Instead of buying a complete map sheet, people need to be able to obtain only specific themes within a specific area. The OS MasterMap and the OGC Web Mapping Service work using this approach.
When it comes to GIS software tools, people can download trial version from the software vendor websites, but when geographic information is concerned, people need to be able to go for a test drive first. In the 3G world, telcos seem to have become the sentries of location-based services. However it may well be that the LBS services offered by T-mobile in Germany are much better than those by Vodafone, simply because Germany is T-mobile's home market. People need to be able to choose: a mechanism to test-drive LBS services is necessary.
Collaborative mapping will be able to provide complementary and alternative geographic information from the products created by the established NMAs. This creates the opportunity to create critical cartography, putting mainstream cartography into perspective.
(Crown) copyright has put up significant barriers for the development of collaborative mapping projects. From the experience of the music industry, three strategies can be followed to circumvent this issue. One approach would be the Napsterisation of geographic information, as hinted at by Parsons. However, the architecture of Napster made it an easy target for US law, thus leading to the demise of Napster. Although this architecture is easy to implement: adding points of interest derived from official NMA to Opensource initiatives like GPSter, it would make a quick end to collaborative mapping. Another approach would be the one taken by iTunes Music Store: set up relationships with the established music industry. The ESRI Geography Network makes a good start at this for professional customers, not for Joe public. Maybe for us to address? Finally, there's the Gnutellasation of geographic information. Distributed storage of geographic information would make a more difficult target for the law to shut down the exchange of geographic information created by collaborative mapping initiatives. Joshua's location-based book swapping service hints in this direction.

For sure, the experience gained in the music industry really provides a lot of food for thought. However, we all know that sound files only make up a small amount of Internet traffic. Porn is still the killer app! So, what's next? GI News interviewing Heffner and Flint to learn from their experiences? Hmmm... Now that's sexing up a message! Alistair Campbell?

Friday, September 05, 2003

Where is the nearest cinema showing “Pirates of the Caribbean”?

That's the very question that came to us when we were walking in Burnham Beeches last Sunday. We just pushed our luck and drove to Maidenhead. Fortunately it was on at UCI Maidenhead. Great film by the way!

Recently, Whitelabel.org pondered on the question of location when deciding which film to see. One of the comments to his posting draws attention to the fine Scoot UK Cinema Finder service that allows you to search by town or British postcode. Now, IMDb have taken the location search even further: one can search by longitude/latitude!

Cereal about GPS

Have you ever been somewhere and had such a good time that you can't recommend the place highly enough? This week, the Metro has been running a competition to promote some new brand of cereal bars. People can win a Compaq iPaq plus a plug in cable free Global Positioning System to help you make the most of your spare time and track down the exact location of the hottest places to go. You see, even Metro understands location-based services are much more compelling when there is a social touch to it!

Thursday, September 04, 2003

Cartography 2003

Just got back from a short trip back to good, “Olde Blighty”. I was invited to speak at Cartography 2003 about collaborative mapping. It was great to meet people of both BCS and SoC. I have added a new section to this website that gives an introduction and overview of collaborative mapping. Later on I hope to upload the PowerPoint presentation (Edward Tufte, please forgive me for I have sinned).