As More Universities offer LBS Apps, Will Towns, too? What about standards?

The Duke Chronicle details what some call iDuke, a mobile app that offer the university calendar, maps, real time tracking of busses and the like. It’s expected to be available around spring break. It’s parallel to an effort at Standard dubbed iStanford.

Now, this is all well and good, but - does it mean that those who travel among campuses will be downloading new, different apps all the time? If my town offers up iSomerville (not sure that’ll happen any time soon…) will I also have to load up iCambridge to be sure I get bus tracking when I visit my Dad in the town next door? Are there standards and are folks interested enough to have a single client that could tap into data delivered by standard interfaces from providers representing different geographies?

UK Gets Snow and Makes/Shares Maps

The UK has quite a bit of snow today, something not too common. The last big storm was in 1991, per Bloomberg. But, that means some interesting maps!

The first map I found was a great traffic map from Trusted Reviews - with nearly 400 traffic jams - provided by a TomTom with traffic info.

Next is a map built from tweets coded with post codes evaluating how “good” the snow is on a 1-10 scale. I’m not sure how to evaluate “good” based on my US eastern and midwestern snow experiences. Here’s the discussion (Pocket Lint) of the Twitter/Google Maps mashup that builds the map.

Podcast: Spatial Infrastructure-A Critical Part of Stimulating the Economy and Protecting the Nation’s Assets

Last week, The Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) announced the release of Spatial Infrastructures, [PDF] the second white paper to be published in the Geospatial Dimensions of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Response (CIP-ER) white paper series, which will include at least six more white papers published into the spring of 2009.


In this interview, Directions Magazine Editor in Chief Joe Francica speaks with John Moeller of Northrop Grumman, the paper’s author, and Bob Samborski, executive director of GITA. The discussion focuses on driving awareness of geospatial technology to a broader audience as well as sustainable development, geospatial standards and the recent initiatives of the Coalition of Geospatial Organizations (COGO) to bring awareness of geospatial technology to our nation’s policy makers.

The paper comes at a critical time for the geospatial community as COGO, GITA and others attempt to push Congress to support better oversight of government geospatial initiatives, especially in light of the economic stimulus package being sought by the Obama administration. [Also in this interview you will hear reference to the American Society of Civil Engineers, which recently issued its 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure.]

The interview lasts for approximately 25 minutes.

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MySpace CEO: Friend Finding Apps a Ways Away

Mike Arrington at TechCrunch did an interview with Chris DeWolfe, MySpace CEO, at Davos. The key bit on LBS:

Michael Arrington: In terms of location based services I think there’s major applications for advertizers and that’s what we’re currently excited about and then um, you know the whole notion of taking photos and having the exact location…

Chris DeWolfe: I think there’s major applications for advertisers and that’s what we are really excited about. And then the whole notion of taking photos and having the exact location stamped on those photos and being able to upload them directly, that’s been great. We have that. And being able to write a review since location based services now get you within a couple meters of your exact location where you are at, so if you are at a restaurant and have a really good meal, you should be able to write a review directly from there . So we are really excited about the advertising side of things. In terms finding friends or meeting new friends, I think that’s a ways off. And meeting new friends based on a location service sounds a little creepy to me.

California CIO Wants a GIO

Government Technology is reporting that California may create a GIO position. That’s the word from state CIO Teri Takai, who “wants” such a position.