Digital and Societal Transformation ideas-expertise-proces

Routeyou has made an elevator pitch video about its application. Full article on this link.

I met Jonas Linden last week from Swedish company Idevio, that makes map compression and streaming tools.  Locago is a great application .  The idea of geo-mashup is taken in a quite litteral way: users from their mobile handsets, can add the layers that they want onto maps, and even create some layers themselves.  All this is available on a fast loading map application Rating ***

During the mobile summit in Sweden, Stockholm, a short interview in Swedish was taken about GEO2.0, GEOweb and also the link with mobile; Full article (Swedish) below: http://internetworld.idg.se/2.1006/1.189574/om-tva-ar-hittar-mobilen-dig

What is GEO 2.0  What are the trends?  In this presentation (hear it live at gisotopolis event) you will find the key concepts of GEO 2.0 and a good digest of the postings on this blog over the past 6 months: geomashup, crowdsourcing, tracking,... read all about it on this slideshare presentation. GEO 2.0 - geography in (ter) action View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: tonchidot geo2.0 )

Will this service work where others failed? DISY enables users to exchange messages via Belgian licence-plates.You can send messages by SMS or by e-mail to the DISY Web-site. This one will be delivered to the e-mail adress linked to a registered DISY licence plate. DISY stickers are available to put on the cars. The examples are more 'citizen' oriented, like warning that lights are still on etc. One can easily imagine other services like a traffic jam version of the rendez.vous site. Rating ** Interesting concept of interactive use of a licence plate.

When I started about a year ago to collect the posters on the street of lost and found dogs, and to point them on an online map, I was far from understanding that a truly GEO2.0 application was initiated.  Whilst first manually adding the different posters, the service of Google maps allows now to other to collaborate and for other to be a search scout and add their posters of lost dog/cats. View Larger Map The website is www.perdutrouve.be or www.verlorengevonden.be . Basically it allows anybody to be a local scouts: if a cat or dog is lost in your area, take a picture of the poster that people have distributed in their street;   add it on the map: GREEN for a found dog/cat; RED for a lost dog/cat.  Anybody can help.  Any suggestions for improvement welcome.

One does not always have to go far to see great examples of geo-tourism applications. The CityTripPlanner is a personalized tourist guide application that relieves the tourist from the burden of having to plan his trips in advance and based onan overload of available information. The application instantly generates personalized sightseeing tours based on userpreferences and interests. Together with the city of Leuven (Belgium) a prototype of the CityTripPlannerapplication has been launched and can be accessed via http://www.citytripplanner.com and http://www.citytripplanner.be . Currently, thesite is being extended to include other cities in the Dutch-speaking part ofBelgium, such as Bruges, Antwerp, Ghent and Mechelen. This project is backed by the Flemish Government. The CityTripPlanner application is based on extensive, state-of-the-art research performed at the Centre for Industrial Management of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Rating **

crossposting press release: Tele Atlas Gains Access to TomTom’s Unique Speed Profiles Database   D Tele Atlas, a leading global provider of digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location based solutions, has gained access to TomTom’s vast speed profiles database, which will be made available to Tele Atlas customers later this year in a uniform, global, low footprint format. Speed profiles transform the navigation user experience because routes are calculated using real measurements instead of rough estimates. The speed profiles database is derived from almost half a trillion speed measurements that TomTom customers in 25 countries have been sharing with the company over the past two years, making it unique in terms of both size and richness. Today this speed profile database already provides highly accurate information about actual average speeds for every five minutes of the day on any day of the week on all of the roads in 23 European countries and 90 percent of the roa...

In less than a month the GISoTOPO lisconference will bring together all actors from the GEO-information scene. I will be introducing and sharing the GEO2.0 track of the conference. Some French info. For the full program check the program page on GISOTOPOLIS . Registration has started.

Intersting background article.  It explains how you can provide 'tagged assets' with real time localistation whatever technology (wifi, mobile networks,...)is used, and how these assets can provide dynamic information. Link: real-time location systems (RTLS).

crosslink: http://www.gisdevelopment.net/magazine/global/2008/september/46.htm

This somehow strange site is the electronic version of gossipping about your neighbour.  Movies etc can be uploaded about this strange neighbor.  It seems interesting when you want to buy a property and be at least informed of behavior of the street inhabitants: http://www.rottenneighbor.com/rottenmedia.php

The Tonchidot application enables location-based data to be tagged to real-world objects, and to present that information as a graphical layer over images in your iPhone camera — much more exciting than a simple map. For example, you can look at a street through your camera, and the Sekai Camera can display arrows pointing to all the nearby restaurants or stores or messages from your friends.   video on youtube

Tele Atlas, announced Open Green MapTM, PongrTM andthe Travel Channel GOTM as the finalists in the Tele Atlas LBS InnovatorsSeries’ Maps In Apps 2008 competition. When looking at the details of the winners, the winning components look very similar to the winners of Android Google competition, and this is looks like a sure trend: social networks that use localisation aspects, price shopping that combine on and offline shops, and localised travel 'city' guides Also, it is clear that innovation is coming bottom up, from the user base Podcasts of the judges and download commentary on the LBS industry can be downloaded here : The 2008 Maps in Apps finalists are: - Open Green Map: A social mapping web site designed to guide users tolocal nature, culture and green living innovations. The application willhelp connect the growing 'go local,' green development and ecotourismmovements with social networking and interactive mapping, empoweringwidespread participation in critical lo...

The European Navigation Event , takes place on October 7th and 8th 2008 in Eindhoven, Netherlands. This event focuses on location based services, and includes also also a rallye.

Location aware functions are starting to appear too on the iphone, that includes a GPS. A full overview can be seen on Apple webapps It can also be highlighted that 'tourism' type of applications are hugely represented, where the location awareness element makes totally sense. Yelp, Urbanspoon and iWant are usefull to find restaurant, localise cheap gasstations, or call a cab. The full list can be seen under Apple webapps/ travel , but here a small best of from me: San Francisco Lowest Price Gas Finder 09/04/2008 Locate the lowest price gas in the San Francisco (California) area right from your iPhone More View web app WorldPics - The world in photos 08/25/2008 A free community website made to discover the world through geolocated photos. More View web app iconFind Quick use of icons to find points of interest around you. More View web app iSinGeo 06/26/2008 Location based web application for finding things near you in Singapore. More View web app IndyDining - Indian...

Read this excellent article from AWT Agence Wallonne de Télécom . (French)

The Android Developer Challenge has announced its winners.  Android is the mobile platform from Google.    Going through the list of applications, a lot of the winners have used location aware software (using the GPS foreseen in the mobile platform). Ecorio tracks all your movements and calculates your ecologic footprint..  talking about small brother! GoCart brings togetheer the perfect application and the link between online and offline shopping. Wertago is a nightclubbers community application. Lots more to be checked on this site

It seems that geo-tagging becomes a standard tool in the different mobile community applications. Shozu has created the one click or no click upload of your pictures; if your mobile phone is GPS enabled, it will also send these GPS coordinates. The upload can happen on the different predefined platforms. Rating ***

The new N79 from Nokia includes immediate geotagging possibilities to an online photobook.

Not much know in Belgium, the social networking site  Gypsii , is growing fast. This mobile application, enables you to tag your friends, tag your pictures , yourself (space me) and share with your community.

The Photosynth application of Microsoft has been released lately. This powerfull graphic tool allows you to reconstitute and share a location in 3D, based on a number of pictures taken from different angles. This rendering of your own 3D images is a new powerfull tool. A powerfull graphic card is needed on your PC. Try out, or check te existing public places that are available in 3D or look at the Photosynth development blog from Microsoft labs.

Google maps includes the new following user generated - EDIT functions : - If you deem that a certain location is wrongly positioned on a map, you can flag this and indicate the right location; - also, user generated content can cause inapropriate content (copyright, adult, other offensive material,...), this especially now that a lot of pictures become geo-localised and are uploaded massively.

I like the name of this application mapmixer: this is exactly what user generated content is doing: it is pilling up different layers of location aware experiences, to make it a contextual interesting place;  try out yourself on Mapmixer on this l ink

All geo experts in Belgium need to be at the GISOTOPOLIS event on 14 and 15th of October 2008 in Brussels.  During this conference/exhibition, I will take the lead for the geo2.0 track.  Have a look at provisional programme at this link .

Nokia makes  a big inroad to push its mapservice on the phones. On this site the mapsters allow you to create your own map.  I did not find out actually how it really works.  Looks like it is a way to make people associate Nokia and maps. Who has a better idea?

Description: Proceedings from the where 2.0 conference .  Conference positioned as trend analysis between established business entrepreneurs and grassroots developers in the location aware technologies. Rank: *** for in depth picture of the moment; food for early adopters

The Belgian association  Geocoaching   has embarked on a user generated treasure hunt using GPS.  How does it work?  Someone hides in a box a number of objects.  The box contains a logbook.  With the help of a GPS device, the exact location of the box is determined an published on the geocoaching site.  These coordinates can be seen by others, and with the help of the GPS device the hidden treasure is searched.  The first one to find can sign the logbook and take out an object of the box, that they need to replace by another one. In this way the treasure changes continuously..... Enjoy

The site trendwatching.com has published a list of business ideas to get inspired by. Some geolinked ideas are: Trend 5: Hyperlocal: GPS simplifies local search and involvement and check out the complete list  here.

Tele Atlas announced that Google™ has signed a long term license agreement with the company that gives Google access to Tele Atlas maps and dynamic content in more than 200 countries around the world. The agreement spans Google’s current and future map-based services and navigation offerings across mobile, online and desktop environments. These include the Google Maps™ and Google Earth™ services and mobile applications such as Google Maps for Mobile™. The agreement also gives Tele Atlas access to edits for its maps from Google’s community of users, whose suggested changes can help the company further increase the quality and richness of Tele Atlas maps. “This agreement is important too because it gives us access to input from a significant online community of map users, whose feedback can help us keep our maps fresh and accurate.” said Bill Henry, CEO of Tele Atlas Source: http://www.teleatlas.com/WhyTeleAtlas/Pressroom/PressReleases/TA_CT018846

Google has created an online service called mapmaker. With mapmaker you can contribute to the Google maps, at this time in selected areas in the world.  On top of the satellite images that are provided, users may annotate directions, add names of roads, local stores, and other point of interest.  This is than moderated and can be included in the Google community.   By using this system, Google goes to a next level in what can describe teh 'crowd sourcing' model: using local knowledge and capitalising on it.  

The Tomtom Mapshare technology is one of the most practical aspects related to theTeleatlas-Tomtom merger. For reminder the mapshare technology enables users to indicate road changes; at the same time GPS routes of the users are collected in anonymous way. The daily data collected on GPS routes would amount in Western Europe over three times the kilometers of all the roads in Western Europe; in the US the GPS routes are equal to all the miles of all the roads in the US once every two days. (source: speech Teleatlas at GentBC launch ) The updated suggestions and GPS tracks are being used as of Q 4 2008 for updates of maps of the partners of TeleAtlas. These updates and real accuracy are important as the market of GPS is moving mainstream. Before, GPS was a high end consumer market wit a gadget and high fault tolerance approach; this moved to a mass market that is requesting a fault free tool that delivers on its promise and this for a fair price. Link datanews article

Cleaning up waste places in Estonia in a collaborative wa y

Teleatlas announces a competition for developers to work out the best Location Based Service. Have a look at t his site for details and let your innovation work!

Vint Cerf made the final speech at the World Congress on Information Technology in Kuala Lumpur. Vint Cerf is one of the founders of the Internet, inventor of the TCP IP protocol. Looking towards 2035, he mentioned 5 trends in mobility, two of them associated to geo 2.0: - geographically indexed information and geolocation based services - navigation systems like gps and galileo, mobile tower triangulation, Greetings from Kuala Lumpur

Following link explains the new feature on Google maps for mobile;  without an GPS in your mobile, it will anyhow be able to pinpoint your approximate location.  How does this localisation exactly work? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6gqipmbcok&eurl=http://google.com/gmm/mylocation.html?hl=en/

The self service approach of Google maps might have created a halt to other projects of artists, scientists,... that were using more complex tools; dubbed neogreography. Following article from Geoconnexion explains more of this: http://www.geoconnexion.com/uploads/neogeography_intv7i4.pdf Other projects are thriving on it: http://www.unsiteblanc.com/

GEO international magazine reports on following article where GEO mashups can be used for serving the community better http://www.geoconnexion.com/uploads/geomashups_intv7i4.pdf

Microsoft has activated in Microsoft life maps the ability to export your collections to GPS devices and GeoRSS feeds (which means I can make custom maps for my Dash GPS) Link to article: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/11/microsoft-live-maps-drinks-google-maps-milkshake/

With vast area of informal parts in growth cities around the world, the challenge of having meaningfull maps becomes more important. Most streets are not completely known by name even. In that respect the collaborative project is of interest, where everyone contributes to disclose these areas through mapping its own little part of the puzzle. Link: Indian project from Google

One of the difficulties in road navigation systems, is that the driving situation tends to change quite often; when the conditions change because of road traffic conditions, this information tends already to be standardised and disseminated.  These updates are often a combination of profesional information and user generated information through phone traffic hotlines.  The smarter GPS navigation handsets suggest another route. Than comes the local conditions: local market every thursday, closed road because of works,... now this information can be uploaded and shard ith other users.  The Mapshare solution from company TomTom for example is a great example of this 2,0way of making traffic information more relevant.  Do you have another suggestion?  Than post a reply on this blog.

The way we interact with our actual surroundings and the semantics of the way this is represented has been in constant evolution. Remember the flat world and the fear to fall ot it? Maps in all sort (navigation routes, copernican views, mercator view,...) have represented our surroundings, often being kept as military or commercial secret. The advent of cheap processors and affordable internet bandwith brings about a new interaction of citizens on their surroundings. This blog is about the GEO 2.0 evolution. It wil emphasise on different aspects of the interaction within geography. .Interaction is not crime, it is more like jazzing up maps.