Friday, July 3. 2009

Quote of the Week

"It’s extremely gratifying. I can’t wait for this to show up on Google Earth for the first time."

Entrix Inc. senior project scientist Chris Pfeifer on Slough’s Gut Marsh which his company helped rebuild on Cape Cod in the Cape Gazette.

Japanese Imperial Army Maps Online

Maps from the Japanese Imperial Army archives are now online (Japanese language archive) and might be used to study changes in forest cover or the growth of cities, per one researcher. Some of the maps date back to the 1880s. The maps were collected, copied or created during times of Japanese colonialsim, making residents of some impacted countries less than pleased with their appearance on the Web.

- AFP

Thursday, July 2. 2009

NAVTEQ: "The phone will not replace the sat-nav"

Not a new sentiment, though I've mostly heard it from sat-nav providers, not data providers. That comment comes from NAVTEQ vice president, Serge Bussat. He goes on to say, in an interview from Pocket-Link, "It's not about building the map, it's about building the layers on top of it." That says the article means not data layers, but apps. The future for NAVTEQ in sat-nav? In-car solutions. As the article points out, most folks commenting suggest phones will indeed push stand alone sat navs aside.

I'm not sure why it matters to NAVTEQ where its data end up. And, I'm not sure why a spokesperson would say, "it's not about building the map" unless it plans to get out of the data business and into the app biz. And, of course, the company is getting into the app biz, at least a bit, with its online and mobile phone directions/traffic apps.

Discussions in an MSNBC article that highlighted missing information in a satnav highlight the importance of the added layer. This was official NAVTEQ response from Navteq spokesman Bob Richter:

“The information for travelling on the I-66 is correctly referenced in the Navteq [sic] map and is made available to our customers. We regret we cannot comment on the actual system performance, as it is our policy not to speak on behalf of our customers who make other necessary decisions in the final system development once we deliver our data.”

- Pocket-Lint

In other NAVTEQ news:

NAVTEQ Vice Chairman (and former CEO) Judson Green is joining the board of human resources consulting and outsourcing company Hewitt Associates Inc.

- press release

MapQuest Adds July 4 Events to its Maps

In the spirit of the upcoming July 4th Independence Day events, MapQuest has added another icon on its maps - it's a startburst firework. Clicking on it shows July 4th celebrations from When.com, which is not all that complete. The icon joins the other regular ones (some hotel chains), grocery stores, bars, pharmacies...

Adding road closures related to those would be a nice addition!

via LA Times

Apps for Democracy 2 Wraps

Version 2 of DC crowdsourcing initiative to better serve its constituents saw its final submissions come in last night. In this version the community determined what sorts of apps were needed and developers were then asked to address them. Then, there's options for more funding. The results of phase 2 are here.

Government folks (D.C. Department of Transportation, the Office of Planning and the office of the city's CTO) took on one request themselves: developing a "Where's My Bus?" app. It details the five route Circulator Buses. A commercial option for that NextBus is back up and running, but having some issues, per the Washington Post.

- ReadWriteWeb

EU Drops Planned Tax on Mobile Phones with GPS, TV

The proposed tax would have menat a 14 percent charge on phones with mobile TV and a 3.7 percent tax on phones with navigation. Phone makers of course were against the plan and a majority of European countries voted "no" ending discussions for now.

- Reuters