september 2004 archives

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Art+communication: trans-cultural mapping

Yesterday UPS delivered our tickets for tomorrow's flight to Riga, Latvia. Indeed, we're invited to the 7th International festival for new media culture Art+Communication 2004. How things can change in the course of a few weeks! Just recently I noted that webmapper.net had not been involved in the locative media network as much since Transmediale in January this year. We're back on track now!

We'll take part in the locative media debate on Saturday, mainly to give our view from a geographic and cartographic perspective. Hopefully, we'll also have an opportunity to present the Droombeek project to our peers.

Monday, September 27, 2004

Flashtival 2004

This morning, I travelled to Rotterdam to attend Flashtival 2004. Okay, it wasn't as spectacular as last year. First, I had only just started exploring the ins and outs of Flash and still did not quite get the movie clip. Furthermore, Macromedia announced Flash 2004 at last year's festival. Nevertheless, it was good to be there this year.

The first presentation was delivered by an accessibility guidelines pressure group Drempels Weg. The presenter did not know the slightest about either Flash or Actionscript. Even talking about XHTML, he wasn't able to make a proper case. Also, he made it seem as if validation is the same as accessibility. I particularly liked one question from a member of the audience: Can you set the accessibility in ActionScript?:

this._accessibility = true;

The second presentation about Flash Remoting really made up for the first presentation. Although I attended the presentation on this subject last year in Amsterdam, I did not quite understand what it was about. But now, all my efforts creating and parsing text files seem in vain. Worth looking into further, especially the Open Source alternative for Macromedia's Flash Remoting!

During the lunch break I visited the booth of IDgis who demoed their Flash client to view GIS data delivered using OGC standards through Deegree. Also, I bumped into two more cartographers: Winifred and Willem. It was very nice to finally put a face to Willem's name. Hopefully we'll see some fine cartographic products made with Flash some time soon!

Saturday, September 25, 2004

Geographic information a security loophole

Ever since Multimap.com first put aerial photos online, they've received emails of concern from the public over the depiction of military installations and other objects that constitute the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) on maps and particularly aerial photos. Despite the Defence Advisory Notice (or D-notice) no.4 issued by the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee (DPBAC) and various articles in the media these maps and aerial photos have been made available online.

However, the Guardian newspaper announced today that D-notice no.4 will be amended to cover a much wider range of sensitive sites. Earlier this year, the Home Office issued guidance for business and local authorities to deal with increased threats of terrorism.

Telling the media what to report - or rather not report - about buildings and locations whose functions are visible to the naked eye or described on maps is quite another matter, some senior officials concede.

In the US, the Homeland Security Working Group of the FGDC has established Guidelines for Providing Appropriate Access to Geospatial Data in Response to Security Concerns. Jo Walsh already highlighted the decision-support flow-chart:

Do the security costs outweigh the societal benefits of active dissemination? [Yes]
Would the public still be served, and the risk mitigated, by changing the data? [Yes]
Do you have the authority to change the data? [Yes]
Change the data

So what is the Dutch position on all this? With proud, the evening news recently showed footage of Bush's speech in which he thanked the Netherlands for their contribution to the “Coalition of the Willing”. Oh, willing we are! Triggered by the public ignorance over the existance of a fireworks factory in the middle of a residential area, the Netherlands Ministry of Spatial Planning, Housing and the Environment has set up a “Register Risicosituaties Gevaarlijke Stoffen” and a “InformatieSysteem Overige Ramptypen”. While the former geo-portal will inform the public on the location of industrial facilities that handle hazardous (i.e. toxic and flammable) substances, the latter geo-portal will inform the public on the location of areas that may experience flooding or locations with raised traffic risks and the sites of soft targets such as kindergardens and public buildings. So the Netherlands are indeed willing to divulge this information to any interested parties.

Admittedly, both geo-portals are still in the making. So in the meantime, have a look at the current risk mapping services of the provinces of Fryslân, Gelderland, Groningen, Limburg Noord-Holland, Overijssel, and Utrecht and pick your target.

On top of this, the Dutch MP Mat Herben of the LPF party raised the question in Parliament whether the Netherlands Ministry of Defence was aware that high-resolution aerial imagery of military objects was available on Vanuit de lucht. The imagery had been available for one and a half year and had only recently been pulled off the website, despite laws that it is not allowed to show photos of military objects. Curious hey! All in all, it's a fine line informing the general public about potential risks in their neighbourhood and exposing national security!

Sunday, September 19, 2004

National Atlas of the Netherlands

Last week there was a new release of the Dutch National Atlas of Public Health. Yes, working on this atlas is what pays my bills. Having worked as a software engineer for three years, I am now an intermediary between cartographers and the IT people in our department. However, I fortunately get to make some maps now and then and even write the explanatory texts that accompany the maps. Usually I stick to describing just the geographic patterns as I am no expert on public health. It's an interesting field though! Not many funky new Flash maps this time, just the usual static map with hotspots you can click on to obtain further information. This time round I even got to update the map of hospital locations. It's the most popular map of the atlas for some reason. I am working on an interactive version too, but it'll have to wait until the next release.

That's actually one of the things that I still don't get. Why update an online atlas only quarterly? The major advantage of the web over any other medium is the fact that's easy to update anything you publish on the web. Some maps in the atlas are rather outdated I'd say. Also, one of the requirements for producing the atlas is that it has to run from a CD-ROM. In short: no room for any server-side dynamics. That makes updating the atlas more frequently rather difficult I have to admit. Slowly people become convinced there have to be made some changes. One is coming soon. The home-grown CMS is due an update. That should make producing the atlas much easier for a start!

Recently, I have been talking to some members of the working group for the national atlas of GIN to find out what the status is of the plans for a new national atlas, i.e. one that covers more subjects than the public health atlas. Interestingly, all members seem to be rather enthousiastic and a meeting is planned for early November. It would be great if the RIVM I am working at now would play a pivotal role is this undertaking. I look forward to posting more news on this from November onwards.

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

More search engines acknowledge potential of location

Following on from earlier posts concerning search engines adding location as a search key (e.g. Google Local), Ask Jeeves and Yahoo! are extending their search functionality. While Ask Jeeves has widened its service teaming up with CitySearch Yahoo! Local beta builds on the success of SmartView, an additional service to Yahoo! Maps that provides local information from various parts of the Yahoo! network.

CitySearch, a leading local search service, was mentioned a few times in the Local Search Series. Thus, Ask Jeeves combines its proprietary natural language processing technology with local content:

Searches for local information and services represent one of the most significant areas of user demand on Ask Jeeves.

Yahoo! Local also provides mechanisms for personalisation and recommendation. As the users are the true source of local information, users can provide feedback on the search results: You're the real local — you tell us.

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Web Mapping Contest 2004

Since last year's contest was such a success, Directions Magazine today announced the Web Mapping Contest 2004. The 2003 edition did not only bring together many fine examples of online mapping applications, it also provided interesting insight into the tools of the trade that are being used to create and maintain maps on the web.