Free Program Teaches Web 2.0

One of the most popular articles at Directions Magazine last year was an editorial I wrote on “Homework.” In it I assigned homework to readers to get them up to speed on technologies/ideas they might not have yet explored.

Wired is running an article about a free program called Learning 2.0 and it’s not what you think. It’s more like my homework article and was originally written to upgrade librarians tech skills. If you are feeling behind the Web 2.0 curve, this is a great resource (and free and open source).

Update: Folks “Reveal Existance” of Skyhook Wireless Wi-Fi Database

Update 3/29: Computerwold has a response to the concern from Skyhook CEO Ted Morgan who basically says, we don’t take much information and we don’t sell or share it. They have a good reason to hold it close: with that data others could easily do what they do! The article does note that if Skyhook is sold all bets are off. Do I think Skyhook will be sold eventually? Yes, yes I do!

—original message from 3/21/07—

Folks at Slashdot are getting uptight about an Internet Patrol article “revealing” Skyhook’s database of personal (and other) wi-fi hotpots used to locate machines using Skyhook’s technology.

Hang on! Skyhook has been talking about this openly since it launched. It does not hide how its non-GPS system works. In fact, Ted Morgan was happy to speak to us about the company’s mapping plans when he gave us the story on Skyhook’s partnership with SiRF. The company boasts (rightly so) about the database in press releases! Consider this title: Skyhook Wireless Wi-Fi Database Now Includes Coverage In Top 100 U.S. Cities, Totaling More Than 8 Million Access Points.

This story popped this week because AOL added Skyhook’s technology to AIM, as reported here earlier in the week.

New at Directions Magazine

Posted today at Directions Magazine:

- Exploring Yahoo! Pipes
- The Kelsey Group’s Drilling Down on Local ‘07 Conference
- GIS-T Nashville

Interested? We have a feed of articles from Directions Magazine or you can subscribe to e-mail newsletters.

RIM adds Mapping APIs

Research in Motion (the Blackberry folks) are now offering developers not one, but two mapping APIs: they “provide access to location information from a local or external GPS device and an API for BlackBerry Maps, which provides geo-code and mapping data, will allow developers to create custom mapping and location applications.”

Infoworld (hey did you see this pub is going online only?)

Virtual Earth Replaces MapQuest at InfoNow

You proabably saw the news today that Microsoft is touting how InfoNow is using Virtual Earth (press release) for store locator apps. PC World offers the rest of the story (appologies to Paul Harvey). InfoNow dropped MapQuest to move to the Microsoft solution. The article goes on to note that Greg Sterling said it may help validate Microsoft’s product, but doen’t really change its position in the market.

What it may mean, said Microsoft in an e-mail to PC World, is that at some point InfoNow customers (such as banks) may incorporate their customer data (like ATM locations) into Virtual Earth.