Friday, August 29. 2008

Google Announces Android Challenge Winners: Many are LBS-y

The gallery is here. Among the winning geo-related apps:

BreadCrumbz - picture based nav
Locale - reconfigures app based on location among other things (big winner)
Piggyback - carpooling app
Pocket Journey - touring app
PebbleBox - collect and share location-based information
cab4me - gets you a cab!

via Phones Review

New Form Factor for Nav App

Say good bye to your phone/PDA and hello to rather bulbous wrist worn device. It's apparently got GPS and an MP3 player. A cellophane-looking touch screen is hidden inside and slides out for use. My immediate response: I'd need three hands to use it or would need to take it off for use. Pics at link below.

- Tuvie via C|net Asia.

Best thing about SQL Server Spatial?

It's free! So says the CIO of e-spatial.

Spatial components of SQL Server used to be available only as third-party plug-ins, but spatial functionality is now integrated into the new version.

“With no added cost, which is brilliant,” says [CIO Matti] Seikkula.

From a relational data perspective, the difference between the older SQL Server 2005 and the 2008 version is not huge, but from a spatial perspective, the new built-in functionalities open up new opportunities for companies, without them having to invest money, says Seikkula.

- Computerworld NZ

For PR folks and CEOs: Jason Calacanis On How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company

Some great tips on being a great PR person for your company and how to deal with the press. Few can do what Jason does, but many can do some of it.

Alley Insider

Location of Katrina Deaths Upends Previous Assumptions

The work was done by Knight Ridder and suggests that many of the assumptions about those who died in Katrina are perhaps misplaced.

Knight Ridder took addresses where bodies were recovered from data from Louisiana state officials and and plotted them on maps of Orleans and St. Bernard parishes. Those locations were then compared with census data on income in those neighborhoods. A number of bodies were excluded including those recovered from hospitals and nursing homes, and body collection points.

What does the study show?

- the victims weren’t disproportionately poor
- they also weren’t disproportionately African American
- the elderly were disproportionately impacted though many had cars in the driveway

- Knight Ridder via The Olympian

British Cartographic Society President: Internet Maps Threaten Old Landmarks

British Cartographic Society president Mary Spence speaking at a Royal Geographic Society conference voiced concern that online maps are failing to include key points of interest such as churches and stately homes thus effectively wiping them off the map. She's also concerned that adult use [word added; was missing] of online maps and sat navs mean children are not learning to read maps. Not to worry says Ed Parsons of Google, online maps are customizable; the data is there, you just need to find or create it.

This feels like a ploy to draw attention to the BCS. If so, it's working; there's lots of coverage. Perhaps we should simply encourage the society to devote these energies to promoting more/better geographic literacy worldwide?

Full story with quotes at The Telegraph, via The Press Association