Tuesday, August 25. 2009

Microsoft's Popfly Shuts Down

Like much of the rest of the world I didn't realize the shutdown occurred yesterday. But I noticed today. I was reviewing next week's lesson for my students where I reference the customization power of both Yahoo Pipes and Microsoft's Popfly. That's where I found the notice that it was no longer available. A more complete explanation was made on July 16 on the Popfly blog.

Pipes and Popfly are visual development tools aimed, for the most part, at non-programmers.

I'm pleased Yahoo Pipes is still with us. But, the fact that Popfly never made it out of beta gives me pause. Why did Popfly not make it? More broadly, why are these very powerful visual modeling tools not more popular? I know that Safe's Workbench, the first one of these I ever saw, IS well used within its user base. (I even used it fairly effectively as a complete newbie at the FME User Conference.) I wonder about ESRI's ModelBuilder. I like to think it's used, but don't hear much about it or about people sharing models.

Are these types of metaphors just not that useful? Is there really no audience for programming between casual or heavy duty that would use such interfaces? Are they too complex to use?

Bing Maps via WMS

Jeff Harrison at The Carbon Project let me know about a new beta offering from On Terra Systems that makes Bing Maps data available via a WMS. You can join the beta and test it out for free.

Quote of the Week

"The GPS bases are loaded on the iPhone — it now remains to be seen if developers can knock it out of the park."

- But as Patrick Connolly, research director of IMS Research, in a TWICE (This Week in Consumer Electronics) article about GPS apps for the iPhone

$80 GPS Watch for Waypoints, Geotagging

The ChinaVision GPS watch is not for the Garmin Forerunner crowd (where pace and distance are key measures). No, this bulky and utilitarian device allows you to save your path, set waypoints and have it guide you back to them (not necessarily on roads, but as the crow flies) and it can time stamp locations so that digital photographs can be later linked to those locations.

The price is good; all the detailed specs are here.

Via Crunchgear

Map Projecting Gadget Takes Silver at Design Competition

I've learned that when a device wins a design competition, there's a good reason: elegant design. That does not mean the device is practical or in demand.

Take the Maptor, designed by Jinsun Park and Seonkeun Park of South Korea's Samsung Art & Design Institute, which received a silver award at the 2009 International Design Excellence Awards organized by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).

The not-yet-available tubular device fits in your hand (or hangs around your neck) and projects a map image on any flat surface. The device is battery powered and downloads maps via Bluetooth. And there's a GPS inside so there's a "you are here" pin on the map.

- Crave

Podcast: Government Data as Platform for Innovation

Three news stories this week address (1) federal govt technology change, (2) a city opening up its data and (3) a grant funded hyperlocal website being acquired. We think they are related and provide some pointers about what technologists, policians and citizens can expect regarding access to data, including geodata.

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