WOM World, The Connected Life and the future of geospatial

Finland or bust... It's been a couple of years but once again I'm preparing for a trip to Finland. I haven't mentioned much about this but given that I'll be absent most of next week I figured I'd share a bit of what's taking place next week.

To my surprise I was recently sent an invite to what's billed as WOM / World, a Nokia-sponsored workshop that will conincide with the Nokia Open World Event - recall WOM World is also a blog that covers off what's happening in the social media space coupled with related developments with Nokia devices and services. Given that I've been covering the topics of Geospatial / LBS, and Symbian OS devices for a number of years now I guess I was a good fit to take part in the event! What I find exciting about this event in particular is the heavy focus that LBS will play in discussions, particularly with respect to social media apps and services... heck, just think about it, just today I mentioned a new application from Singapore called GPS Movies that enables users to essentially affect the content and outcome of a movie depending on where they are geographically located when watching the movie on their handset. This and other exciting technologies will no doubt be hot/fun topics of discussion at the event.

Of particularly interest next week will be a workshop that I'll be moderating - the topic of discussion - The Connected Life. During the session we'll look at attendees views of how location aware technologies are developing and will involve discussing future solutions for geospatial services and they might integrate in mobile apps and services. Should be interesting.

This first of it's kind event is scheduled to take place Sept 11-14 in Helsinki. According to the event planners, "the aim is to involve everyone from creative’s, designers, video producers to open source software bloggers and mobile tech pioneers thorough discussion on what the future holds, for everything from mobile tech to media co-creation." During the week we'll also be outfitted with a new trial Nokia device, the E71 http://maps.nokia.com/e71 so we can share stories and thoughts about some of the supported location-aware apps like Twibble, Joikuspot, Wcities and others. I'll also be sure to discuss some of the other location-aware mobile apps that i use like Google maps, Spoprts Tracker, ZoneTag, locr, Earthcomber, WHERE, Boopsie, Qik, Lightpole, and others.







For more on WOM World see the blog at http://www.womworld.com/Nokia

Reminder - GeoEye Launch Tomorrow, Sept 6,

Heads-up if you plan on watching the launch via live feed over the web. Details... The launch video and commentary will be streamed 'live' over the Internet beginning at about 11:15 a.m. PDT after feeding 15 minutes of bars and tone. The live Web broadcast can be accessed by visiting the GeoEye Web site (http://www.geoeye.com/) or by going directly to http://launch.geoeye.com/. Boeing's webcast of the launch may be found at: http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bls/missions/335/. More info on the launch posted here.

3D virtual world mobile navigation

German company 3DVU has the right idea with their Navi2Go application - thiunk Multi-Language 3D Picture Navigation. Using high-res aerial photography, users can travel over the entire UK, US, Germany at high resolution aerial photography with full 3D landscape. Imagine pulling up the navigation app on your mobile device and you have access to a realistic 3D rendering putting your location into context, enabling you to be perfectly oriented. Read more about the app here or see www.3dvu.com.

location-aware social networking application, whereyougonnabe updated

Looks like Peter and crew have just released a new update for the location-aware social networking application, whereyougonnabe. Some key new features in this release include:
- WYTV, a new animated map display inspired by the cool Twittervision, but using data from whereyougonnabe. This displays an interesting mix of activities from your friends and public activities from other users. You can click through on friends' activities to see more details.


- Calendar synchronization now uses Google Local Search, based on the context of which city you've told us you're in. So if you're in Denver, CO and you put a location of "1100 Broadway" or "Apple Store" on an activity in your calendar that week, it will find a suitable location in Denver.
- We now support display of distances in kilometers as well as miles, a request we have had from several users. If your home is in the US or UK the default setting is miles, elsewhere it is km. You can change your preference on the settings page.
- The experience for new users is improved - when you add the application you can immediately view data from your friends, or public activities from other users, without having to enter any data. Users just need to tell us their home location before creating their own activities.
- Various small usability improvements and bug fixes.


See http://apps.facebook.com/whereyougonnabe/

Offset your CO2 emmissions with your mobile

If you're interested in helping to save the planet then we.offset is a handy mobile app used to help Monitor CO2 emissio. Nokia has made available an interesting mobile application that enables users to monitor and track their CO2 emissions. Users can then offset their emissions in an effort to help save the planet. You can Download wi.offset for your mobile at http://www.nokia.com/environment/weoffset

TNRIS Tracking Hurricane Gustav via virtual Earth

TNRIS has a very nice web mapping service (powered via Microsoft Virtual Earth) showing users where Gustav is currently located - live doppler feed show the progress of the storm as it heads over Louisiana and into NE Texas - see the TNRIS hurricane season resources at http://www.tnris.org/EmergencyResponse.aspx

Mashup maps Impact of Hurricane Gustav on oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico

Brian over at the Timoney group has share details of some work his team did over the labor-day week-end to help convey the impacts of hurricane Gustav on oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. the mashup shows natural gas, pipelines, platforms in the gulf along with data for each oil provider - See GulfImpact - the application is powered by Microsoft's virtual Earth platform

Hurricane Gustav GIS data, Imagery and path compared to Katrina

Wow, dejavu! Here we am almost 3 years to the day on a Sunday morning as I find myself searching around for some real-time imagery and data showing a major Hurricane headed towards the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Perhaps the quickest way to access imagery and graphics showing the path of Gustav is via WeatherUnderground. NOAA's hurricane center is also a must-visit resource as is the NOAA NowCoast real-time webmapping service at http://nowcoast.noaa.gov/
Perhaps of interest to some of you is the GIS data product available from NOAA (SHP file) for storm surge probabilities (.ZIP) - see NOAA for latest data updates. For more image captures from Hurricane Gustav and Katrina see here.

Other relevant weblinks:

• http://hurricane.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes
• http://hurricane.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/viewer.html
• http://hurricane.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/query_expediter.html
• http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/history.shtml
• http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/
• http://www.osei.noaa.gov/
• http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hgx/projects/allison01.htm
• Hurricane Evacuation zone maps
• Hurricane prepardeness
• http://www.giscorps.org/
• Track Flooding During Tropical Storm Gustav in Real-Time
• Preparing for the 2008 Hurricane Season

Hurricane Gustav as seen Sunday AM via NOAA Goes Imagery
GOEES Imagery from 2005 showing the well developed eye of Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Gustav path (Source: WeatherUnderground) Interesting as compared to the path that Hurricane Katrina took in 2005 (below)