Monday, July 28. 2008

UK Crime Maps Not Sitting Well

The UK is rolling out crime maps, called MyNeighbourhood.info, for all of England and Wales by the end of the year according to the Times Online (Times of London). Midlands is being used as a pilot city but this kind of information is not exactly sitting well with everyone. Some, like the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors are fearing it will reduce home values. While countries like the US have had crime maps and mashups (remember ChicagoCrime.org; now EveryBlock Chicago) its seems not everyone wants to know about what's going on around them.

You + ESRI Coverage = iPod touch

Here's a chance for all of you attending the ESRI International User Conference to win an iPod touch. Directions Media wants your help covering the event. The best submission (audio or text) will win an iPod touch. You can enter via e-mail , text or phone between Saturday August 2 and Wednesday August 13, 2008. Full details.

What is GIS for the Google generation?

Dr Pablo Mateos spoke (on behalf of a missing Alex Singleton) at the 2008 ESRC Research Methods Festival on "What is GIS for the Google generation?"

The ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) is a network of research groups, each conducting research and training in an area of social science research methods.

The slides are here and it's tough to tell from them the exact nature of the discussion Still I tease out:

- need to distinguish GIS from today's visualization (GIS = science, much of the rest = visualization)
- today's users are part of a "volunteered" generation and users of social media
- need to "make sense of" the "points on a map" situation and explore metadata

There are some valuable (if uncited) stats and images.

via Twitter

BizWeek on Walking/Biking Directions

The article highlights Google's and MapQuest's walking offerings and local bicycle routing efforts. Of note:

In Broward County, Fla., planners are working on a project that would let users factor in things such as speed limits, traffic volume, lane widths and shortcuts.
The project, shooting for online launch by next summer, has programmers looking at aerial maps and punching key factors into the route-setting algorithms. They also incorporate things like where people or bikers can make left turns but cars can't.

If a car can't make a left turn, a bike can't either. Unless of course the cyclist dismounts and become a pedestrian. (That's rare where I live.)

This week, Google Maps launched a feature that offers walking directions for trips shorter than 6.2 miles. That is being added to a feature already helping visitors find the best mass transit routes.

I didn't realize there was a distance limit. The API would be great for the many sites aimed at race walkers, runners, etc.

But it [Tele Atlas] is open to accepting bike and pedestrian route information from cities and community groups if it can be verified from multiple sources.

TomTom could take the lead here tapping into the cycling, even walking communities... My gut feeling is the money is not there for such an effort, however.

Transit New Zealand Visualizes with Microsoft and Google

Transit New Zealand, operator of the state highways, has two different projects going on related to its road network. The "video viewer prototype" a team effort of Transit, Microsoft and Wellington-based e-spatial runs under the Microsoft Innovation Centre and aims to correlate video views of New Zealand roads with location data. Roadrunner or Virtual Highway, as its known on the Web, is two years old and uses GIS from Argonaut and Google Earth. The former has many layers of data and latter "is designed purely to help road users familiarise themselves with the route before travelling it," says Transit spokesman Anthony Frith.

There are plans, say a source to integrate Virtual Highway into the road asset management system. I suspect we'll see more situations like this as both organizations push into public sector enterprises.

- Computerworld NZ

Google StreetView Trespasses Again; CitJ Trespasses on Google?

A Press Democrat reporter offers an amusing video showing how Google once again travelled onto private property in California. You can even see the "no trespassing" sign. His article appears on Digital Journal, a community news site.

What's even more interesting to me is an uploaded image associated with the video/text article. Below a screen capture of Google Maps and a StreetView image it says: "Screen-shot of Filmore Street in Maricopa County, AZ, taken using Google Street View.
Google Street View
Public Domain"

This image, as far as I can tell, was uploaded by a visitor to the page. It also appears, at least right now, on the main page of Digital Journal. There are tools to upload images and details about copyright. Public Domain? I don't think so. Fair use? Maybe. I see some irony that the story is about Google not following posted signs and this image appears for perhaps the same reason: someone didn't read the signs!