The Simpsons Tackles Cell Phone Tracking

Last night’s new episode of the cartoon series has Bart longing for and eventually receiving a cell phone. Unknown to him initially, Mom Marge turns on the tracking feature. Then Bart cleverly has the family track, well, something else. It’s a clever episode and I found it fun to try to identify the technical slips in the presentation (that might be fun for a technology class, too). Also fun: the cartoon implementation of a Google Earth-like “zoom to the location of interest” tool used throughout the story.

Podcast: Autodesk Series #2 -Digital Cities-A Vision for 3D Modeling and Visualization in Local Governments

Autodesk has been a pioneer in 3D visualization for the past 10 years and almost every aspect of government infrastructure can be designed as a 3D model for planning and developing purposes. And, once constructed, these models can be used for operating and maintaining these assets. Autodesk is aggressively moving forward because the benefits of this technology are so exceptional. And now, with the acquisition of 3DGeo, Europe’s leading 3D visualization software solution, Autodesk has been able to accelerate their strategy to help the world’s cities create their next generation base maps as a 3D interactive models. [Podcast sponsored by Autodesk.]
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Beat Credit Crunch: Don’t Use Satnav

While many GPS vendors are touting how GPS can save gas and money, the UK’s Mirror suggests just the opposite.

And don’t rely on sat navs – look at a map too. They can take you the longest way round or get you lost, making your journey more complicated and expensive.

That from Quentin Willson, the motoring editor.

Communication, not LBS, Solves Local Problem for Kawasaki

So, what do you do if you were on Coronado Island and realized you’d forgotten your MacBook charger? Guy Kawasaki twittered his need and location and within 8 minutes had a loaner from a follower or friend of a follower. Now, he’s famous and has 20,000+ followers on Twitter, but there was no fancy GPS needed, “just” communication.

PistachioConsulting via FIR

What Google Learns About You via its Mapping Apps

Dr. Dobbs Portal (Journal) provides an article based on Googling Security: How Much Does Google Know About You? a book coming out later this month by Greg Conti.  Conti is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the U.S. Military Academy (aka West Point). His premise in the article:

You face significant risks from both your use of these services and the content they contain. This article analyzes the information you disclose when using mapping and imagery services, including how your use of these tools discloses locations of your home, employer, family and friends, travel plans, and strategic intentions, and discusses how data mining can easily link seemingly disparate groups of people based on their interest in common locations. It also covers the risks inherent in the content itself, including camera-equipped cars capturing continuous streams of high-quality street-level photographs, collaborative analysis of satellite imagery, and your inability to trust the veracity of the images themselves.

Frankly, it raised a number of issues I’d not considered.