Maps24 - International Mapping Portal Uses Java App (corrected)

We’ve commented on Maps24 before, a product of Mapsolute GmbH. This web mapping portal is worth a second look if only to see how they’ve implemented Java. Some unique features:

• Quick Zoom - Zoom out then quickly back in to original zoom level
• Route Flight - driving directions can be plotted on map and then animated to show mileage remaining
• Driving directions can be altered if the user stipulates a POI. For example, if you want to make certain that your route takes you by banks, then the route can be filtered as such or any number of other POIs.
• 3D view nicely orients the viewer but there is no terrain data; much like what you see in an in-vehicle nav system by TomTom

The international maps of the Middle East and Europe are done well. NAVTEQ is the data supplier.

New MapServer Foundation (with Autodesk code!) Will Change Geospatial Industry

Check out my article at Directions Magazine with details on the foundation, Autodesk’s participation, and the key players’ take on the future.

Geofencing and Geoslavery

The Chicago Sun Times writes about Xora, a company that uses “geofences” to track when employees or family members cross invisible boundaries. This is not news to the geocommunity, what is is the response to the widespead use of the term geofencing. He and a colleague coined the term “geoslavery” in 2003 (and wrote about it in Directions recently). Says Dobson:

“Some people said I was being alarmist,” Dobson said. “It occurs to me now, if I had gone one notch less, I probably would have come up with ‘geofencing’ and considered that a horrifying term. Now, that’s accepted as common terminology by the people who advertise it.”

Says William Herbert, a New York labor attorney who has studied the so-called “human tracking” issue:

... human-tracking and geofence technology are “mandatory subjects of bargaining” for labor unions. But he laments that human-tracking has not attracted the sort of debate that other controversial new technologies, like bio-technology, have gotten.

Vint Cerf on Mashups

The folks at Search Engine Watch note an IDG article interviewing Vint Cerf, new VP at Google.

Of interest to our community, Cerf on Mashups:

I can’t tell you how excited I am about it. We know we don’t have a corner on creativity. There are creative people all around the world, hundreds of millions of them, and they are going to think of things to do with our basic platform that we didn’t think of. So the mashup stuff is a wonderful way of allowing people to find new ways of applying the basic infrastructures we’re propagating. This will turn out to be a major source of ideas for applying Google-based technology to a variety of applications.

The Real Competition for Mobile Search

Techdirt makes a very good point, referencing Russell Buckley at MobHappy: Buckley argues that mobile search services don’t really compete against other such services but against asking local people for information. Admit it, you ask people in the grocery store which kind of avocado to buy and take recommendations on what brand of socks to try. I know I do.