What are your plans for a GPS-enabled cell phone or smartphone?

Care to take part in this poll?

From Google LatLong: The newest Google Earth Enterprise released

Today via the LAtLong weblog, Google announced the newest version of Google Earth Enterprise. Interesting to note, the blog reported that... "enterprise users are some of the most active in using the products and also making contributions to the Google Earth and Maps user community, with data, blogs and mashups."

Enhancements in this release include:

Browser integration with the Google Maps API AJAX architecture, allowing 2D map views to be embedded in any web-based application, so everyone in an organization benefits from the power of Google Earth Enterprise.
Performance enhancements amounting to as much as a 10x speedup for vector data processing and better than 2x reduction in server computation for responding to imagery requests.
New search framework for integrating geocoding and other search services via Java plug-ins including a Google Search Appliance reference implementation.
Regionator for creating Super-Overlays with Regions based KML and publishing them for viewing in any Google Earth client version (Free, Plus or Pro).
Security improvements and extended Operating System support including Red Hat Enterprise Server 4 and SUSE Linux 9 and 10.

http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/07/newest-google-earth-enterprise.html

See Google LatLong: The newest Google Earth Enterprise: "Google Earth Enterprise"

12 useful Nokia N95 Tips and resources for you

Matt Croydon (one of my new flickr contacts) has listed a number of useful N95 resources in his weblog (PostNeo) at http://postneo.com/. The following are just a few of them and some of mine that I've tossed in... thanks Matt!

- Steve's N95 tips http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/tipsn95.htm & his S60 freeware picks http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/nonagss60.htm

- Nokia pod casting app - http://europe.nokia.com/A4160376

- Sports Tracker from Nokia Research Lab http://research.nokia.com/research/projects/SportsTracker/index.html

- Gizmo for S60 http://www.nokia.com/A4403822

- Widsets http://www.widsets.com/

- for wireless IRC see http://mirggi.net/

- tutorial on using VoIP http://support.gizmoproject.com/index.php?_a=knowledgebase&_j=questiondetails&_i=207

- Steve's tips on photos with the N95 ttp://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/tipsn95.htm

- Opera fans see Opera Mini web browser http://www.operamini.com/beta/

- S60 freeware apps from SymbianOne http://www.symbianone.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=75&func=selectcat&cat=25

- Suggested S60 apps from LBSzone - http://www.lbszone.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=28&func=selectcat&cat=14

- Amaze GPS Navigation http://www.amazegps.com/

There's never been an iPod that can...

Have you seen the latest commercial from Apple for the iPhone. IT goes on... there's never been an iPod that can do this..." and then shows browsing photos, looking at contacts, looking at your music and videos, and finally, making a call. But, there's also never been an iPod that will cost a user more than $2240 to use it for a minimal 2 year contract period! (based on $600 price tag for 8GB model, $200 contract buyout that a typical customer will pay to get out of a contract with another carrier and jump to AT&T, and $60 month iPhone contract). Is there an SDK for this thing yet??

The ideal mashup - social networking + sexual predator database - MyPredatorSpace!

I Caught wind of in interesting story on CNN this AM and it got me thinking about a fabulous idea for a mashup... perhaps even an "internal" mashup to be put in place by the likes of MySpace, Facebook, Match.com etc... how about mashing the social network with state and county court records information or existing Sexual Predator mashups in order to mash a user profile with a record that shows that him or her is a recorded sexual predator? Seems that social network sites are likely a very ripe playground for these potential abusers so imagine how cool it would be to flag someone's MySpace account with a little code or icon identifying them as a potential predator! Given that there's public records widely available flagging those with criminal records this would indeed be a welcomed service for those users of the popular networking resources. A great example of a predator database built by accessing public records is the Florida Sexual Predators mashup - see details at http://www.gisuser.com/index.php?option=com_akogallery&Itemid=97&func=detail&id=249

Lord of the Rings Map Tool Mashup using Google Maps

An interesting and likely very popular mashup right now for anyone interested in Lord of the Rings. Locate and map POIs, monsters, Quests, weapons, armor and other. This isn't really up my area of interest although it is very cool, particularly for those LOTR junkies seeking more power points! See http://lotromaps.onlinewelten.com/index_en.php - I'd love to see a similar app for mapping Harry Potter!

Off topic.. so long to the NBA

Off topic.. so long to the NBA. I've never been a huge fan although I did love watching the NBA playoffs (at times). I have to admit that this year I felt that the Phoenix Suns had the series stolen from them by the refs when they played the Spurs. Now all of my suspicions have been confirmed.. so long NBA... I can't wait for the College Hoops season to begin!

Webcast Tomorrow: Mobile GPS & the WHERE developer program

This from the developer of mobile Widgets, WHERE. Want to quickly learn the basics of building mobile GPS apps?  Attend our webcast tomorrow to find out. We'll give a brief overview of the mobile GPS industry and the basics of the WHERE developer program:
Meet the WHERE team
Get the basics on mobile location
Learn the challenges of mobile GPS development (phone porting, carrier agreements, etc)
Find out how the WHERE developer program can speed up the mobile GPS launch cycle
http://www.where.com/presentation

What kind of cell phone do you use?

I'm curious, for those of you that frequently use your cell phone for more than just calling, what kind of device do you use??

Glad to see some useful apps for Google Street View!

I have a Google Street View widget loaded onto my iGoogle page... the widget simply rotates through "interesting" images captured via Google Street View and highlighted as cool by users. This image was front and center on my screen this morning... obviously there's loads of people with way too much time on their hands as they can spend hours browsing the statues that are on AT&T Stadium in San Fran - picture was captured on 24 Willie Mays Avenue, San Fran. On the upside, the imagery being collected is definitely high quality and provides amazing details... maybe a little too much detail ;0)

Parsons on Tele Atlas, community mapping, and a comment on Dash Navigation

Interesting to see Ed Parson's comments re the TomTom / Tele Atlas deal... Ed discusses the significance of community driven mapping... makes me wonder how the Dash Navigation demo roll out will work out once the Dash devices ship to the testers and a crew of some 2,000 "community mappers" will start driving their neighborhoods and enhancing the data product with community input. See http://www.edparsons.com/?p=503 / http://www.dash.net/ - PS: hey dash.. why didn't you score the url dashnavigation.com?? See also this video from Dash http://www.dash.net/video.html

TomTom to buy Tele Atlas N.V.

Funny, just last night after looking over details of the Google, ImagAmerica purchase I was wonder ing which data provider (Tele Atlas, or Navteq) would Google likely buy... now today reports of TomTom's planned buyout of Tele Atlas... TomTom N.V. intends to make a cash offer of € 21.25 per ordinary share for Tele Atlas N.V.  The Offer Price represents a 32% premium over Tele Atlas' average closing share price for the three months prior to 20 July 2007 - see www.teleatlas.com

 

Are You Geospatial? Take this quiz and see if a career in Geo or GIS is for you

I got tipped off about this quiz from the ESRI blogs (http://blogs.esri.com)...the Denver chapter of the Gee-Whiz - that's GIWIZ is offering up a "are you geospatial" quiz. Take the quiz to see if a career in GIS is your cup of tea. I like this one... If you often find not one possible answer to a given question, but many. 

You could be geospatial! Sound like me! See http://www.giwis.org/about-geospatial/quiz.asp

More on the Google purchase of orthoimagery provider, ImageAmerica

No doubt you've likely heard that Google has made another acquisition.. this time its a provider of high-quality ortho-imagery, ImageAmerica.. that's spelled as one word. From the company's press from a couple of years ago...  ImageAmerica, a leading provider of high quality digital orthoimagery, has provided rapid access to up-to-date imagery of the Hurricane Katrina disaster area. Using the latest digital camera system, along with the ER Mapper's ECW compression, ImageAmerica was able to deliver imagery to government emergency services teams for their coordinated relief efforts. This is a sample of what kind of projects the company has worked on in the past. Back in the day, I used to run loads of othro imagery project news announcements for the company... at that time the COO was a gentleman named Tom Maher...

 

Some info from the "About the company" section... Founded in 1998, ImageAmerica manufactures and operates the DDP series of digital mapping cameras and is a leading nationwide provider of high-resolution digital orthoimagery. Utilizing proven new technologies, ImageAmerica provides local government customers across the country 6-inch to 1-foot resolution, map accurate, countywide orthoimagery at a cost and in a time frame not previously available. New six-inch resolution imagery, collected with ImageAmerica's patented Direct Digital Camera system, was conducted over a number of years for many cities and county governments.

 

According to past news releases the company was located at the following address:
ImageAmerica
200 S. Hanley RD, STE 1050
Clayton, MO 63105
314-726-4600
info@image-america.com
www.image-america.com

Word of Google's purchase of ImageAmerica was first reported on the Google LatLong blog. See http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/07/imaging-america.html - No doubt this purchase will lend to support the offerings offered via Google Earth and Google's other mapping products and services. Hey Tom.. .give me a ring if your still with the company ;0)

More on the Nokia N95 - my first 2 days with GPS, updated Shozu and more

More comments on the Nokia N95... well, it's been 2 days since I got going with the N95. I spent Friday night messing around with the device, reading the manual, running through video demos, and migrating data from my old device (N80) and trying to get the new system up and running. For those of you that have never switched smartphones its similar to trying to migrate all your data and apps from your old PC to a new one. Luckily the device comes with some useful utilities that make it a relatively painless process... although I've done this several times now and I likely have a leg up on a "newbie" smart phone user - FYI, I've been using Nokia smart phones for about 3.5 years now. Friday night I did the following and suggest a similar route should you ever get one of the spanky units...

- first, I loaded a 2GM microSD card into it and updated the device's firmware... Nokia just released an update for the N95 that provides additional enhancements supporting A GPS. Updating firmware on a new device is simple and much easier than attempting it on your regular device that would likely be packed with data and apps.. think formatting your PC hard drive!

- I then transferred most of my data from the old device to the new N95 using Bluetooth. The N95 comes with a useful transfer utility specifically for this. I say most because it kept barking at me that the device memory was full and would bail on the process.. weird because the N95 has a ton of free data! A simple solution using file manager that comes with Nokia PC Suite - the PC companion utility for file and application management, used from your PC.

- Once all my contacts, notes, emails etc.. were loaded I then installed a couple of applications that I needed, like Shozu, and configured a flickr upload utility. My flickr is all configured now and shozu helps send all my data in a compact format... fast and cheap!  Shozu is a MUST have. Unfortunately flickr doesn't seem to want to auto post my photos to the blogger blog so I'm still trouble shooting that.

- finally, I loaded a few more songs onto the N95 since I have so much space on the SD card! The MP3 player on the N95 is awesome and the FM radio is great... I was listening to the broadcast at a baseball game on Saturday! This will come in handy when I go see the Rockies play the Padres next week!

- the rest has just been trial and error, mostly trying to figure out how the mapping and GPS is working. It's a learning curve but so far I've managed to capture my position at several locations and then added way points/ POIs for certain features (home, the gym, CSU etc...)  Using the GPS has been fun.. imagine calling up the "Map" application and the map auto centers near my exact location. Then as I update my position from a driving vehicle I can see my location displayed on the map and it moves along with me.. this is way cool! Once I'm more comfortable I'll be making sure that my flickr photos are geotagged and being mapped... I'll likely also try the Google Panoramio service as well (I have an account but don't use it much so far.. it pales in comparisson to flickr IMHO.

- a couple of things I like.. the display is freaking HUGE, the color of the screen is way cool (especially using a dark theme) I had no issues using the device outside on a very hot and sunny day; the music player rocks, GPS is simple so far and fun, the bundled services are plentiful (ie. configure flickr, data transfer, radio station search, etc...

I've already connected with the PictEarth guys since I got the device... maybe I'll send my N95 up for a fly on a UAV.. how cool would that be to capture some aerial photography with it! See http://pictearth.ning.com/ for more on PictEarth

Stay tuned for another update in a day or two.

Rlated weblinks:

- Woohooo. it came... my new Nokia N95!

- Nokia N95 Apps, Tools, and add-ons - http://www.lbszone.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=28&func=selectcat&cat=14

- http://www.flickr.com/photos/gisuser/

Galdos scores a nice headline in the Vancouver Sun and Canada.com

Nice job on Ron Lake of Galdos for grabbing some great headlines in the Vancouver Sun and the Canada.com news portal... this regarding the completion of GML conversion project for NATO - that's North Atlantic Treaty Organization for you civilians (yah, my dad was in the navy ;0) According to the article the contract for to assemble a mish-mash of geospatial data into a seamless, GML coverage. From the article... "Lake wrote the first version of GML on his own, but since then many others have contributed to forming the language. By Lake's estimate, Galdos has invested about $1 million in GML, yet the company doesn't make a penny when someone uses the system, which is non-proprietary. Instead, Galdos receives income from helping organizations convert to that standard and from the design and sale of software products that will give up-to-the-minute information on an area." This is the same model that MapGuide Open Source has gone... See article at http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=27ceb9f7-1ab3-42a4-9305-c29f7b9b59ac - kudos to Ron Lake and best to all of you lucky enough to be heading to Vancouver next week for the GeoWeb event... drop me a line if you have a spare moment!