Oracle Announces Spatial Award Winners

At the Oracle Spatial User’s Conference in Tampa, the company announced their award winners for 2009:

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Google Toolbar - Now with Location

I used to live in the Google Toolbar (back in IE days) but now I’m on Safari and find I don’t miss it at all. Google just announced a new “Toolbar Lab” to get out new Toolbar features and the first one is out: it uses Google’s MyLocation (best known for its use on cell phones) to the browser without connecting it to your Google account. That location is used when you open Google Maps, for example, to center the map based on your current location. IE 6+ support only, US only. Download here.

The idea, most think, is to get location in use on the browser and then, you guessed it, tap into it for advertising…

- InformationWeek
- TechCrunch

Beyond GPS to Find Dogs: GPS to Assist Guide Dogs

I have a blind cousin who has had several guide dogs in her life. I’m not a dog person, but those dogs I learned early in life are “working dogs” trained to guide and help and their owners. They were the first dogs of which I was not afraid. But while guide dogs are great “in the neighborhood” as they learn the routine paths to work and school, new geographies present a challenge.

Enter design UK student Jason Perkins who has built Peepo, a GPS enabled tool designed to used “alongside” a guide dog. The device is held in the same hand as the guide dog’s lead and uses vibrations to indicate turns or confirm the user is headed in the correct direction. The device is pre-programmed with start and end destinations before venturing out and the dog continues to do its job monitoring and guiding around and through nearby hazards. The app has been nominated for the Sir James Dyson award (named after the vacuum inventor) which grants £10,000 cash to the winner and another £10,000 for their design department.

Peepo brings new meaning to assisted GPS!

- Dream Dogs

NYC Passes on Google/MS Online Map Apps; Writes App “from Scratch”

Colin Reilly, director of citywide GIS for New York’s Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications (DoITT) explains in a Government Technology article that writing its NYCityMap2.0 with a reusable framework was the way to go. “Using an off-the-shelf mapping application, like Google Earth, would have been the wrong fit, Reilly remarked.”

The framework, already in use as part of the Street Conditions Observation Unit (SCOUT) which finds conditions in need of repair or upgrade. One piece of logic for forgoing a Google or Microsoft based app? It didn’t include the data needed. I don’t follow since it’s possible to add data to both companies’ online offerings.

DoITT used “free open source software called GeoServer in conjunction with Oracle Spatial as the database.” The conclusion from GT: “That, combined with the fact that the agency used internal resources to build the application, meant the project had nearly zero costs, Reilly said.” I don’t follow that either!

The app is very nice, but the user guide PDF seemed to be just a single cover page - dated Dec 2008. Perhaps the updated one for the newly relaunched version, which prompted the article is still pending? (Update: Mac/Safari/Preview gets just one page. Ubuntu/Firefox/DocViewer get full doc. Could be on my side!)