GIS jobs in Fort Collins with Technigraphics

Some local news here on the front range... TechniGraphics has a new home and is reportedly planning on hiring 100 new people between now and 2010. The company currently has 87 employees and will be adding 10% more this year... see www.tgstech.com for some career opportunities right here in Fort Collins, CO. The company has contracts with the NGA

just updated and posted from Google - KML 2.2 Reference

not sure if you noticed or not but yesterday Google posted an update to the KML reference. Some new features include a camera reference - a virtual camera that views the scene; additional support for attribution, and much more. See the KML 2.2 Reference (beta) at http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/kml_tags_beta1.html

Google map Mashups and show me the money

I noticed in some of the blogging going on this week that there was some questions regarding where the business (aka. revenues) lies in many of the new location-enabled applications and services that are coming online every day... a great question. Indeed at Where 2.0 a common topic of discussion was indeed just that - "the app looks really cool but where's the business model?" This is an even more important question when you look at companies like Fatdoor who launched a social networking service at Where - these guys had a big presence with loads of staff and all the free t-shirts you can handle! So where's the money? Well, much of that is still a mystery.. perhaps drumming up VC. Most of it I suspect will come from the obvious... advertising revenues - think Google! Yesterday at Google's developer day there was much discussion about the direction of the APIs. Something we were told we'll be seeing much more of is advertising... particularly in maps. Not just textual ads surrounding maps like we see everywhere but also, ads embedded within maps. Imagine as you look through your favorite mashup you will be presented with cool little graphic icons from Burger King or McDonalds etc... we were told that developers will have some control and be able to decide if they wish to serve these ads or not. More relevant ads are in the future as well and a move towards improvements like forcing new ads as you pan around the map or ads that change based on zoom level etc... the end result is more options for developers, more cash in their pockets, oh, and loads of advertising cash for Google as well. Enhancements to the Google Ajax Search API enabling users to display search results within their website, the Ajax feed API enabling users to easily load RSS and atom feeds into their websites will enable publishers to easily add compelling content to their sites... think more traffic. Also, on the flip side of ads.. those serving ads will be able to use Google Checkout and integrate the service into their ads.. think "buy now". With the new mashup editor, google gears and in particular, Mapplets, the number of people using google maps mashups is going to increase at an exponential rate for sure. Mapplets will enable people to mashup their mashups (eg. add a crimemapping mashup to your real estate mashup) so developers should be drooling over this as I suspect those that create mapplets will be rewarded with substantially larger adwords revenue checks than what they are used to. See http://code.google.com

gisuser

Google Maps Street View and Google Developer Day on YouTube

No doubt you heard all about the updates to google maps from this week... here's a cool youtube channel from Google that will introduce you to what all the hype is about - see http://www.youtube.com/google for this and a number of other videos.





Looking for videos from Google Developer Day? You'll find them HERE... thanks Google!

eco week and geography leaving an impact on kids

I just returned from my son's elementary school graduation ceremony.. it was very cool to see and hear about the kid's elementary experience but what was really cool was hearing a quote from each child regarding his/her most memorable moment over the past 6 years. Of interest, about half of them noted/referenced their experience from the last year during what was billed as eco week. This was a week of fun, education, and activities involving getting in touch with nature and geography. The kids truly were inspired and motivated by hands-on learning, being outdoors, and learning about their natural surroundings. Any teachers looking for some great ideas might consider planning such an event... perhaps in conjunction with GIS day and geography week!

Webinar reminder How Location Based Services Deliver

Here's a reminder about an event of interest taking place today... "In Perfect Sync; How Location Based Services Deliver Exceptional Control of the Mobile Enterprise". June 1 (that's today) , 2007 12:00 PM Central - During this Free webinar you'll learn best practices from Rob Juncker, CTO of Gearworks on how to keep your mobile enterprise in perfect sync with Location Based Services -- Details HERE - One participant will be selected to win a new Palm Treo! See also http://www.integratedmobile.com/events/

Work offline with Reader thanks to Google Gears

Imagine working offline without missing a hitch... enter Google Gears.

Recall one year ago Google web toolkit – write in tools that your familiar with and deploy with relative ease. Recently a milestone with 1 millionth download. But, there’s some limits with AJAX.. ie. When you aren’t online (say using your PC on a plane) this is where google gears comes into play as your users can work in offline mode – gears is BSD license (open source)… take your applications offline… “we want this to be a standard for developers”

More on Gears… works on all major platforms… suitable for everyone’s needs. This launch reflects google’s thinking – want it to be an evolutionary approach. Evolutionary from a end user standpoint – enable you to use your app when you’re offline. Developers can continue using their existing skills.

Google reader offline is launched at the same time as well Use gears to sync all of your feeds… they are now available for viewing offline… SWEET!!! Demo… in offline mode (not web) use reader to look at your feeds.. use all the functionality and next time you go online your edits and updates are synched. Not using Google reader yet? Check it out and sync your favorite feeds. For more on this see code.google.com

checking in from Google Developer Day 2007

Just checking in from google developer day 2007 here in San Jose. We just spent an hour or so hanging in the gogole lounge, grabbing some google shwag and chatting with some other developers and attendees. the event is about to kick off and I scored a seat front and center.. until we break out into different tracks. The session titled building blocks for better web apps is about to kick off... a reminder that you can catch this event via a live webcast - search google for the location of that one. No doubt you also may have caught some of the events and news from the other events that took place earlier today at various venues around the Globe... can't wait to get back and see what transpired around the world in this marathon developer fest.

Hey I scored a spacenavigator from Google Earth Blog.. cool!

Just got a phone call from Frank Taylor - creator of the way cool google earth blog. Frank informed me that I was randomly selected as the winner of a space navigator - a very funky navigation device (puck) designed to enhance your 3D navigation - like when using Google Earth or Microsoft Live Search. I'll be connecting with Frank tomorrow at Google Developer Day to pickup the prize. Thanks Frank! I'll also be sure to report in the near future on how I'll be using the navigator.

Google Developer Day kicks off down-under - word of Google Gears, Google Mashup Editor

From down-under... google announces Google Gears an open source technology for creating offline web applications. Google is offering Google Gears as a free, fully open source technology in order to help every web application, not just Google applications. As a first example of what is possible, the Google Reader™ feed reader (http://reader.google.com) is available today with Gears-enabled offline capabilities. Google Gears works with all major browsers on all major platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux. Google Gears is available now at http://gears.google.com.

Also out of devday in Australia is some news we'll be hearing about in a few hours here in San Jose... a solution for easier mashup creation - Google Mashup Editor, an experimental online code editor for building mashups using a simple markup language. Aimed at developers familiar with HTML and JavaScript, the Google Mashup Editor offers a simpler way to deploy AJAX user interface components atop existing feeds and Google web services. By substituting extended XHTML tags for entire blocks of JavaScript code and hosting the mashups on Google servers, the Google Mashup Editor speeds mashup creation and fosters more powerful, more interesting web applications.

Google Developer Day website will provide live webcasts of the sessions
see: http://code.google.com/events/developerday - I'll be there so check out the flickr for some pics and check back here for some comments from Google devday.

On a side note, I just caught the 11 o'clock news here in San Jose. Seems that people being interviewed in the Bay area are a bit concerned that the new Google Street Side imagery may be a little to good in some cases... the concern is that people's faces are clearly discernable in many scenes. Imagine this, perhaps you were comminng out of Secrets Adult Shop on Market St. when the imagery was being collected... would you want your mug front and center leaving Sectrets?? No doubt we'll be hearing more about this over the coming weeks... Apparently Google has commented that they will gladly remove or obscure any images that cause people concern.

Where2.0 wrapping up

Where2.0 is close to wrapping up. One of the most confusing aspects of this event is no doubt the selection of presenters / speakers (ie. who gets selected to present) and how long they get on stage. Some presenters get 5 minute "lightning" slots and others get 15 minute blocks of time. As we wind down is seems apparent that many people are wondering how the final speaker manages to score a marathon 30 minute block of time. Nothing against the presenter or the topic "Where is "here" and what's mapping got to do with it" but how is it that she gets 30 minutes and Michael Jones gets only 15 minutes, Christian Dwyer (Mapquest) a mere 5 minutes.. what the hey... that's where2.0 for ya! Nice job Brady et al. FYI, Brady Forrest, conference chair informed me that there were some 200+ submissions by people wanting to present at this year's event. Keep this in mind if you plan on showing your stuff next year - it better be good!

Michael Jones, Google CTO at Where2.0- sports triquarter and Apple iPhone

Michael Jones, Google CTO took to the stage of Where2.0 today carrying of all things… a triquarter. Why? Well, if you thought it would be impossible to be in possession of such a device Michael would like you to know that it is indeed possible... as is much more – like perhaps the 3D web! We all know by now that Google’s mission is organizing all of the World’s information. The Challenge though… there’s a second web, a geospatial web and Jones notes that it’s underserved… perhaps it’s a little less underserved after the Where 2.0 event! We were reminded about spatial modality and that what makes it great is the connectedness - think “The 3D spatial web”… Google is indeed working hard at not only organizing the World’s information but is also aggressively building out the 3D web. This week we’ve heard about Google’s high-res street-side imagery, the addition of mapplets, and recall SketchUp coming into the fold and being given away to the user community… today Jones confirmed that the company has indeed acquired Panoramio… all pieces of the puzzle in developing the 3D Web. I’m sure we’ll hear more about all of this tomorrow at the Google Developer day. Finally, in addition to the triquarter, Jones also brought with him an Apple iPhone (which also was sporting what else... maps!) - see video below from my youtube:

Browsing + shopping = NearbyNow

NearbyNow makes a shopping mall searchable – fromm the developers... search before you shop with your mobile device. Find anything you need near you…signs in a mall prompt users to txt in to win, search etc… a unique mall code is provided for each mall. The service also offers sweepstakes like daily prizes, spotlight specials. Currently live in 50 malls, 110 by December. They offer “reserve this product” service enabling users to hold items at a retail outlet. Driving the uptake:

Thanks American idol

Sweepstakes are helpful

Has more “sale” interest than the web

The right offer can create stampedes

See more info on this innovative LBS app at http://www.nearbynow.com

Dash Navigation in-car search and building a community of drivers

Dash Navigation is building a community of drivers & providing in car search - Eric Klein and Mark Williamson took to the stage to describe the first connected navigation device for the US – standard navigation + GPRS and WiFi connectivity enabling send and receive data. They ask… “What happens when you leave your computer and hop in your car?” Simple… Dash enables you to bring information into your vehicle. The device has a real-time traffic model, each device gathers information as they drive… think of a community of drivers gathering data and reporting / sharing with others... community-based traffic probes. Drivers are also gathering updated basemap information. Sample – search yahoo!, locate address of interest, right-click and send to car.
Also available via Dash is Search in Car – a fundamental approach to changing consumer behavior. Partnered with Yahoo! users can search in their vehicle for local results… imagine searching for WiFi while driving through San Fran while attending a conference. Or, imagine driving down a road and your searching for a building. Now you can view an image of a desired area (if available) to help you locate your intended destination. Furthermore, you can save photos and even add comments – think community mapping! Dash can partner with content partners to provide access to their data – via std. data formats like GeoRSS and KML or make it available via 2-way API - Note: Dash currently has 2000 units being tested all over the country right now. For more about dash see http://www.dash.net/

a couple of fun quotes from where

I have to share a couple of fun quotes from Where 2.0... just on stage... "Where is free and easy... like Paris Hilton!" and from last night at the Loki beer bash from a guy whol walked up to me... "Hey, are you James Fee?" I don't know what made him ask that??? later

Amerisurv May 2007 now available

I just noticed that my biz partners Allen and Marc have made the May 2007 edition of The American Surveyor Magazine available for viewing - hot off the press. HTML versions of archived editions are now available (NEW) online via a new online resource at www.amerisurv.com (still "beta") and the beutiful, high-res PDFs are also available for download as well.. check it out and stay tuned for loads of new features and functionality from this fine resource. See http://www.amerisurv.com

create your tiny Google Street Side url and a mapplet reminder

A reminder if you plan on working with the cool, new Google maps street side maps... if you plan on sharing cool locations with others then try taking advantage of tinyurl (see www.tinyurl.com). As an example, I was walking the streets of New York and want to share this location with my friends http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=new+york+time+square&ie=UTF8&view=map&ll=40.757534,-73.985447&spn=0.002401,0.005193&z=18&om=0&layer=c&cbll=40.75657,-73.98614&cbp=1,231.601237942122,0.5,1
http://tinyurl.com/2vcpza - notice its a little long and won't work well within a webpage. A simple soultion is to grab a "tinyurl". So now I have http://tinyurl.com/2vcpza or http://preview.tinyurl.com/2vcpza (with a preview). Lastly, if you haven't tested out mapplets yet - think mashups of mashups you can't access the functionality from the "regular" google maps home. Anyone can develop a mapplet... try creating a map that shows crime stats along with weather data and perhaps thro w in your own news from a GeoRSS enabled feed. To try mapplets jump to the preview site at http://maps.google.com/preview

Winding Down at Where - Where fair, plundr, CDT and Trulia Hindsight

Just winding down after taking in the Where fair followed up by a "social event" hosted by Sykhook Wireless - have you tried the Loki toolbar yet? Where fair featured displays from innovative minds that are in the preliminary stage but comfortable enough with their apps to show them off and get some feedback. We saw an application called Plundr - they use the Skyhook wireless WiFi positioning technology to locate places and then use th eplayers location in a treasure hunt style game (try it at plundr.playareacode.com) - they also have a version designed to run on the Nintendo DS. Also of interest at the fair, the Continental divide Trial Project conceived by Backpacker Magazine. Imagine 50 teams mapping and gathering data along 3100 miles of trail that takes them through Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. The teams (volunteers) will be collecting GPS data, photos, videos, and will be podcasting as the project gets rolling this summer - Let me leave off by urging you to check out the truliahindsight service that i mentioned previously. This latest update to Trulia (the popular real estate mapping service) features some clever animations designed to convey some interesting patterms that emerge when displaying temporal datasets... the change and trends really jump out at you... Check out this Link from Trulia showing the construction of Levittown, New York. From the company... Watch the Trulia Hindsight map light up between 1947 and 1951, when builders Levitt and Sons, Inc. mass-produced 17,447 homes on what had once been potato farms on Long Island. Their most popular model, a ranch built on a concrete slab, measured 32' by 25' and sold for $7,990. All a prospective buyer needed was a $90 deposit and payments of $58 per month. another tip... have you tested Geocommons yet? Have you browsed the best places to get KFC in Uganda?? How about maps of the most dangerous tornado alleys in the US? Create an account, upload some data... enjoy! Let me leave you with some weblinks of interest to ponder and explore:

• http://mumbai.freemap.in/
• http://www.openstreetmap.org/
• http://www.twittervision.com
• http://www.topix.net
• http://www.twitter.com
  
• http://www.quakr.co.uk
• http://www.mapufacture.com/
• http://www.lggi.com/titan
• http://georss.org/geopress/
• http://www.eff.org
• http://www.cabspotting.org
• http://www.weogeo.com/
• http://outside.in/San_Jose

later (GL)

Explore Your Communities with outside.in

Wrapping up the sessions today at Where is Steven Johnson who’s sharing details of Outside.in – tagline: neighborhoods are the human scale. This clever resource provides local blog results and much more (think who’s blogging near me and what are they saying). Most people are typically interested with news and developers that are in their local area or neighborhood, although that may be tough to find… until now. Outside.in provides a solution and delivers some fun and relevant results. As an example, for news from San Jose see http://outside.in/San_Jose. For something fun, check out America's Top 10 Bloggiest Neighborhoods - Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, Shaw, DC, Downtown LA are the top 3 bloggiest neighborhoods! http://outside.in – have fun! Of note, you can find out more about the app in their blog at outside.in blog... ok, I'm outta here as its now "Miller Time"

Another new, cool visualization tool - Trulia hindsight

Wow.. another new launch today from Where.. this time its popular real estate resource Trulia who've added truliahindsight - an amazing new way to visualize change and trends via a clever mapping UI with animations. The site is the result of a collaboration between Stamen Design (stamen.com) and Trulia. The animations you'll access use the year the properties were built to show the growth of streets, neighborhoods and cities over time... interesting as you browse changes in San Fran and you'll see how with a rise in price people tend to migrate to the hills and closer to the coast (as can be expected). What a great visualization tool and a fun experience for the user - check it out at http://hindsight.trulia.com/

Garmin announces plugin API and Garmin developer

Garmin has elected to use Where as the venue to announce a new API and a developer program - the objective is to help make GPS web development simple. The Garmin Communicator Plugin API is a browser plugin and JavaScript support code that allows developers to transfer location data – such as waypoints, track logs, maps and points of interest (POIs) – to and from a website and Garmin device. Additional information about these applications and the Garmin Developer website is also available at http://developer.garmin.com. Also available in Garmin Developer is a Content Toolkit, which lets developers compile secure POIs for Garmin GPS devices. Garmin Developer has been broken into 4 components: Device comms, Web services, Mobile services, LBS - FYI, the company is expected to sell some 9+million devices this year alone!

Listening to your Google Earth experience with Soundscapes

Imagine seeing and hearing wolves on your PC while you navigate in 3D through their natural environment, perhaps incorporating topo data layers and other images and data relevant to wolf habitat (watersheds, hydrographic features,elevation data etc…) Imagine seeing and hearing the sounds of the Galapagos, or humpback whales in Mauii, or perhaps adding sound to your experience while you navigate through Tanzania exploring Jane Goodall’s work in a 3D environment. The map has provide us with an immersive geographic experience but now with this vast collection of soundscapes we can all hear sounds from aournd the globe… even listening to now extinct wildlife habitats that were thought to be forever lost. Sound tells the truth… a soundscape is worth 1,000 pictures… this is very slick and I can’t wait to show this one to my kids – I think we’ll start by listening to a soundscape from Yellowstone Park! See http://earth.wildsanctuary.com - soundscapes have been recently profiled in the BBC and the New York Times

Yahoo! Maps making Google Trends yet

I just noticed that Google's Zeitgeist was recently updated with Google Trends - intgeresting to see that Yahoo maps hits the list but google maps doesn't. See for yourself on http://www.google.com/trends/

Mapquest, Jim Greiner provides usear research findings

Mapquest, Jim Greiner, Sr VP and GM took the stage to discuss some recent Mapquest research/survey findings. He asks...what benefits users? Research findings recently conducted regarding online map users. Success factors and Mapquest research survey findings - demonstrate value to users, give user the control, reinforce the foundation, don’t just provide data but help them make a decision, evolve with your users. Once users are shown a benefit of use then they will adopt the technology – only 18% of users are using advanced imagery but 47% plan on increasing usage. Interest in personalization increased from 49 – 68% once given examples of usage. Giving the user control – people want to save addresses or planned routes; people want point and click routing, 59% would share their custom maps only with their trusted network but less than 22% would post publicly (blogs)… only 23% want to add photos to a map. Don’t just give data – people want more info like is a road a toll road and if so, how much does it cost. Incident records like accidents and historical records are of interest to the user and help them to make decisions. Evolving with users – 41% want to send maps and routes to a mobile - of note: Greiner did not discuss the new API in his presentation

GeoPress location enabling plugin for bloggs (GeoRSS)

Updated today... GeoPress location enabling plugin for bloggs - a WordPress and MovableType plugin that allows users to quickly and easily embed location information in blog posts. You can then embed a dynamic map, Microformat adr and geo output, and adds GeoRSS to the RSS output, or use KML for viewing in GoogleEarth - see http://georss.org/geopress/

Google maps street view test drive

Have you test driven Google maps street view yet? Try searching on "san francisco, ca fisherman wharf" then zoom into Powel St. as an example. Click on a street that's outlined in blue then get a popu-up window where you can navigate down the street, viewing high-res,360 degree imagery.. what's what cool is as you move north, south, east or west down the street the address is updated. the you can pan side-to-side, zoom in, out etc... you can almost make out the car license tags!

Peer to peer with Leica Titan

Mladen Stojic from Leica Geospatial just provided me with an intro to Titan - Recall virtual GIS from Leica in 1996… delivering 3D content over the web. Enabling a networkof global users to search, view, or download data… bringing the gap in P2P data sharing. Think enable rapid sharing of geospatial data via a fast, peer-to-peer network.

Find, view, retrival… building a one stop network from local users and commercial data providers. Think about this.. see the NY State data clearinghouse and the USDA… data rich but tough to use for the novice. Trying to solve:
- connecting people

- make it simple to publish

- facilitate interaction and communication

- sharing data but retaining ownership rights

- enabling users to become local servers of data

- be standards compliant (WMS, WFS)

- move away from static 2D and towards 3D

The Vision – build an online collaborative network where authors become servers. Building an online dynamic digital earth. So what exactly is it? Think innovation via synthesis… think Napster via geospatial gateway… discover, share. Collaboration is facilitated via an Instant Messenger interface for discussion and a 3D Globe UI for discovery. Think Napster + MySpace + Google Earth + P2P = TITAN

Its publicly available web-based 3D client

A global network of users

Chat, discover, access, share, publish

The purpose – contribution and grow the network

It should be interesting to see who adopts this application and to see how its used, what kind or data is made available, and how people interract. Sharing data is free although a model is yet to be officially worked out (ie. some limits will likely apply) See www.lggi.com/titan

mashing mashups with Google Mapplets

New today also… Google Mapplets from immersive Media – example, search Chicago for real estate information. Now using mapplets to mashup KML files using the Google Maps API. Mapplets enables third party developers to create mini applications that can be displayed on Google Maps, much like Google Gadgets are displayed on iGoogle. These Mapplets contain a variety of information, from housing listings to crime data, and tools like distance measurement

Google Goes Live With Street View - Hanke at where 2.0

Today Google has announced Street View (recall specualtion on this the other day)... street-level mapping via google maps. I'm now listening to Google's John Henke show high-res imagery from San Fran (we're reading the words on street signs!)... from the presentation... Half the World’s population is now covered with high-res imagery… imagine, tribes in the Amazon rainforest mapping their resources suing Google Earth! Today Google has Announced Google Streetview – street level immersive cartography. Launching with 5 cities… see the new streetview icon (try San Fran for an example or check out the Google campus - you can see teh development team). Now you can start driving the streets of your favorite places enjoying high-res images providing an experience similar to walking the street - google is working with Immersive MEdia on this project - see more in this post. Henke is excited about the opportunities that are available to build something signifigant - a more comprehensive and inclusive map that we can all build together – a map of annotations, a map of sound. Geo has become integral to what many people are doing where we can view anything on a map.

The geography of news and Topics.net

Rich Skrenta and The geography of news and how physical location matters - Topics.net is an innovative service aggregating news sources from 50k+ sources and blogs. Categorizing news down to the zipcode. Launched in 04, 10m unique monthly visitors, 332,500 local news pages. The software scans a story and figures out what I’ts about and where its about. Using their own algorithms The Approach… geographic entity recognition, disambiguation, supporting evidence threshold – this enables identification of content that is about a specific area, not just merely mentioning a geographic entity. Maps are provide to show comment activity - this as a heatmap and GeoRSS feeds are also available. As an example see news items about San Jose - http://www.topix.net/san-jose. Check out topix news at www.topix.net

Schuyler on Maximum City of Mumbai

Tuesday morning kicked off with Schuyler Erle, Metacarta and author of O’reilly books, Mapping hacks and Google Map Hacks. He went on describing the Maximum City of Mumbai, India (see here - Amazon). Looking at the problems plaguing the area and the many issues to be addressed. But... mapping is hard, or at least it was hard. People need access to data and tools to create and share their maps. We have Census data, NASA,USGS and access to terabytes of data, however, the data is tough to get, full of holes and inaccuracies, and tough to use. Contrast this with Europe where there’s tons of accurate data but people are required to pay for access to the data (think Ordnance Survey – similar to Canada). He suggests we look at publicgeodata.org. So... here in the US why is the situation such an embarrassment and accessing free, accurate data so difficult asks Shuyler? He recounts a story in Mumbai where there were an immense amount of mapping data for the city, however, these data were not tied to any projection or coordinate system – there was no ground control! The data were in AutoCAD format and then OSGeo came to the rescue – enter Mumbai freemap. See osgeo.org, Mumbai.freemap.in and the efforts of Open StreetMap - http://www.openstreetmap.org.

Where 2.0 tuesday kick-off

I'm looking forward to hearing more about the Mapquest API here today at Where.. should be good as looking through the attendee list it appears that every one of the Denver, CO based company employees are here in San Jose. Recall last night doppler, fatdoor, upstart, swivel, geocommons, and meta lens were announced and launched to the World. Looks like Brady is on stage so I'm gonna kick back and listen.. stay tuned... FYI, there's ome 44 mapping APIs on programmable web.. mapping APIs definitely dominate. This trend fueled by companies opening up their platforms and exposure to geodata (google, yahoo!, mapquest, microsoft, etc...)

Leica TITAN and launch of the Leica TITAN Network

Interesting to see Geospatial heavyweight Leica Geospation making a big announcement today at Where 2.0.. this from the ocompany... "Users and organizations need a central, safe environment to discover, share, visualize, and retrieve geospatial data, web services, and location-based information," said Mladen Stojic, Director of Enterprise and Visualization Products, Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging. "With a high performance 3D virtual globe, Leica TITAN provides this vibrant solution, with enhanced features, allowing interactive communication, collaboration, and sharing of information." See the Beta at http://www.lggi.com/titan

Waking up at where 2.0

Just waking up and getting going here.. coffee is almost done (right on!) A reminder, you can catch all my photos from Where on the GISuser flickr - see also this "official" flickr titled x180. I see Mapquest has officially announced their new API today, the official PR is over at GISuser - FYI, To learn more about MapQuest Advantage API 5.1, visit http://company.mapquest.com/mqbs/4.html or request an evaluation at http://company.mapquest.com/jsp/eval.jsp. The rapidfire sessions kick off at 9 today, I see tele Atlas is offering drive and ride trips in their familiar Orange data collection vans... I'll have to try and get a drive along - my tip for the day, be sure to check out geocommons WOW! PS - thanks to O'reilly for picking up on my coverage and giving the mention in their blog!

fly tornado paths using Google Earth

Interested in storm chasing? Here's details of an interesting mashup that tracks tornados... http://climate.engin.umich.edu/tornadopaths/ - view storms by intensity, search by location, add comments etc... very slick! Created by the developer of lecturetools.org

WhereCamp reminder at Where 2.0

Anselm Hook Meadan took the stage at Where to remind us about WhereCamp - an unconference format gathering of geo-enthusiasts, web 2.0 and mobile developers, social place hackers, artists, grad students, geographers, earth scientists and anybody else who wants to 'know their place'. WhereCamp is June 2/3 at the Yahoo Campus - see the website at http://wherecamp.org for details. Why wherecamp? Because location is important! Think of it as a post where20 camp, hacking code, hanging out, late night conversations, playing geo games, ect… think IRC in the real world.

Tagzania - tagging places

Tagzania comes from a Basque company, making mashups for many partners... the app is about tags and places -think delicious with a geo focus. Add a point, tag it with a location. see www.tagzania.com - they aren't reinventing the wheel but rather, adding spokes to connect with others

Mapicurious and the 5 minute, 30 slide pitch

Brad Gilreath of Mapicurious is up on stage for his 5 minutes... I'm not really sure what he's pitching but I do give him credit for managing to show some 25-30 powerpoint slides in under 5 minutes... he's gone on abaout maps and creating maps but yet he hasn't shown one map in his slides.. yikes! Go see mapicurious.com for more about Brad and what he does.. i think I'll check him out because I still don't really have a clue!

New York is UpNext - explore the big apple in 3D

Something new... only available for New York users at this time... UpNext is a 3D virtual cityscape where users can explore and discover their city. UpNext empowers users to search visually, straight from their web browser, to find what’s UpNext in their city. Explore and discover your city in 3D. Search by address, street intersection, … uses MS local search API.. users can add restaurant or business reviews.. search by category or medallion (ie. Night life) think 3D search, fast panning (AJAX), locate events, read user comments and reviews, See what’s going on in New York! See upnext.com - WOW!

Share your trips with Dopplr

Dan from dopplr has introduced us to Dopplr.. a cool social networking tool for those who travel.. think share your trips and your schedules... man this could be cool for me over the next month which will take me from San jose, Denver, Seattle, and San Diego.. i'll have to check this one out - see www.dopplr.com - the app provides some very nice security features for those of you concerned with sharing too much about your location - a nice touch

more rapid talks at where 2.0 - 30 proof adds sounds to KML

Loads of cool stuff here in the rapid sessions... Friends of the Urban Forest, a non-profit tree group dives into osgeo and the difference it makes. www.fuf.org – education, community, project management, and mapping! Working with Autodesk, City of San Fran., and FUF. Fostering a community-based asset management system that is a cooperative effort of non-profits, and corporations… because it takes a lot of hands to make a city green! Taking a map and making it more than just images on a screen… one tree at a time.

30 proof is adding sounds to KML...
Pushing the limits of KML development. Data + maps = understanding
These guys are working with groups like the Wild Sanctuary, recording sounds of nature, and embedding them into KML making the sights and sounds available to users of Google Earth. Prototypes under development:
- sounding off with the national park service- see and hear your park experience.
- Understanding the war in iraq and collecting data from the conflict and share with users of Google Earth.
This is way cool - see www.30proff.com (great name!)

Swivel.com is now adding geography to their offerings... these guys were making geographic data available to the community (recall i spoke about this last week I think) data is uploaded bu users, downlaoded via KML if desired, and now viewable in a mapUI. Their mission - to liberate data!

hipoqih.com follow your friends

hipoqih.com is a service composed of a Web and plugin for mobile devices that allow recording warnings and URL associated to any geopoint in the planet. These warnings can be shown automatically in terminals with the plugin when approaching that geopoint - a Free and universal application. The company wants to be the provider of the location information for Internet users. Follow me service (their killer app) can be integrated into your weblog useful for tracking and sharing your location (great if you have a Nokia N95 or other GPS enabled mobile device – just announced today and now available from http://www.hipoqih.com/downloads/hipoqih.S60.zip). They also provide geo alerts and geofencing applications. Use this cool app to follow your friends!

FatDoor - a neighborhood-based community social network

Just heard about FatDoor - a neighborhood-based community social network. It aims to help you find out more about your neighbors. Demo provided… login using your account, establish a profile. The mapping is powered by Microsoft Virtual Earth. Its a cool networking app.. think LinkedIn for your neighborhood + more. Unfortunately the cTO got the hook fromm Brady for using up his 5 minutes.. too bad - see www.fatdoor.com

national geographic meta lens

National Geographic just presented a cool API called Meta Lens... a solution for geo-referencing, management, retrieval, and real-time delivery of digital media. We saw how images were captured, uploaded to the server, geolocation provided and then made available to others via Google Earth.. . I'm sure we'll hear more on this one

Ignite launchpad

FYI, in case your wondering who and what we're hearing about here at where 2.0 Ignite see http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/05/tonight_is_the.html - the talks are starting any minute! Have you heard about Geocommons? They will be kicking things off shortly and after that something cool from National Geo... meta lens

a geoblogger sighting at Where 2.0

Just had my first geoblogger sighting here at Where 2.0 as "Fantom Planet" (Daniel) just cruised by to say hi - you can always find me front and center! Funny, he asked why he didn't see me at the Intergraph show as he thought that I was always at that one. Ya, that's funny and indeed I did used to always attend the event (and cover the crap out of it too!)... but seems like the crew at Intergraph have lost my email address... too bad... if I had been there there may have been some material published and blogged from the show!

Where2.0 Blog

FYI... the Where2.0 blog location seems to be really tricky to find so here it is... http://www.oreillynet.com/conferences/blog/where_20/ - nothingn there yet but hopefully soon.. maybe they will pick up on this post too! FYI.. just noticed on the news that just north of here BART is offereing free WiFi on the trains (underground too)... cool!

Checking in from Where 2.0, San jose

Just got into San Jose, CA in preparation for the Ignite Where 2.0 session this evening... so far looks like most people are still in transit. Its nice to be here again although the town is pretty quiet today because of the holiday week end. Its hot as crap here today and i'd forgotten about some of the typical valley scenes... like the $15 4 minute cab ride from the airport, the Shark Tank... quiet as ever as the arena is now pretty much closed for the summer since the sharks are no longer playing... and the urine soaked streets as you walk a mere 2 blocks from the downtown area in search of the sub $100 a night hotel. Hey its not all that bad though... we have the Tech musuem and Where 2.0 getting ready to kick off. Only at Where 2.0 do you look into the exhibit hall floor and see Google setting up and a few feet away a booth from the University of Alaska! The pin board will start filling up soon as people mark Where they came from, bodies will gather around the 37" flat panel screen streaming a contstant update from Twittervision( http://twittervision.com/) I was watching it and up popped an image from this region by Sergey... The diverse mix of people here will be really cool, with GIs types, those in search of VC, mashers, programmers, and technology professionals from the traditional GIS space... I sate beside a guy from USA Today on the flight. He's with their graphics crew and in search of come cool ideas and looking to see who's doing what... what a great place to come and watch what people are up to. I'm posting photos at regular intervals so if you're interested in seeing what's happeneing here at where (dows that make sense?) be sure to drop in and have a looksee http://www.flickr.com/photos/gisuser - PS: my "m"key is sticking so bear with mmme!

Oh... I picked up the requisite Where 2.0 bag (shwag)... FYI, the contents included a bunch of cards from the likes of map24, Schmap, Garmin, and Very Spatial ... man, we gotta get some GISuser.com postcard done up! Imaging Notes also managed to get their publication inn the bag as did ESRI with their latest Map Book. there's also a who's who list with all the conntact info... sweet! So who's here.. well, I could tell ya but i'd have to kill you but there's reps here from Tele Atlasas, Navteq, Mapquest, Autodesk, Mapquest, Decarta, Lonely Planet, ESRI and many others. Gotta go grab some Chinese now before things get started at 7

USGS Science / Hurricane Response Vehicle

Of interest from the USGS... the USGS in Lafayette, La. has a new science response vehicle which can be immediately deployed to hurricane sites along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts. Equipped with state-of-the-art satellite computer systems it will provide critical communications when other sources fail. The vehicle serves as a mobile laboratory, facilitating collection and processing field samples including water quality testing on site; receives weather and emergency information. It also provides "geoaddressing" of 911 calls and critical infrastructure, such as levee breaks, bridges, pumping stations. The vehicle provides living quarters for a small team of scientists and response personnel for about a week.  It has recently been tested during a mock hurricane drill in May. (www.usgs.gov)

Is Google forging ahead with Google Street View?

Will the gloves come off at Where 2.0 as speculation mounts that Google will announce even more functionality in their geospatial offerings.. this time maybe with Google street view?? According to ZDnet (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=584)the company has been registering domain names that could imply just that. The following names have been secured:

GOOGLE-MAPS-STREET-VIEW.COM
GOOGLE-MAPS-STREET-VIEW.NET
GOOGLE-MAPS-STREET-VIEW.ORG
GOOGLEMAPSSTREETVIEW.ORG
GOOGLESTREETVIEW.COM
GOOGLESTREETVIEW.NET
GOOGLESTREETVIEW.ORG

It's no secret that to date Microsoft has dominated the "street view" space, serving up impressive street-level mapping for many major city centers... remember this http://preview.local.live.com/? Microsoft will be presenting at Where 2.0 in a session titled "Building out a 3D World".. perhaps we'll hear more about their plans at this one. Google developer day sessions can all be browsed here: http://code.google.com/events/developerday/mv-sessions.html