Monday, October 22. 2007

CartaLens...aka...Flickr on Steroids

Today, I sat down for a demo at GEOINT of CartaLens, a just announced collaboration between National Geographic Maps and MetaCarta. Just let your mind wander for a bit...every photo captured by National Geographic photographers becomes geographically referenced. Add to that the functionality of MetaCarta to search, capture and map any references to geographic names and places mentioned within the text of National Geographic Magazine. The companies call it a "geospatial digital asset management solution." I'd call it Flickr on steroids (See photo at right; click for larger image). The companies plan to offer this to anyone but you can image that this would be a great resource for the media, but given that it is being featured at a military and intelligence conference, you might expect that it has applications for researching regions of "interest." As photographers carry GPS-equipped cameras, it obviously becomes easier to capture content. But the intent is to manage any multimedia image including video and audio. I can see this tool in a variety of applications but the real asset is the incredible photography captured by NGS.

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It looks like a highly inspired mash-up application reminiscent of FlickrVision, and TwitterVision, by Dave Troy, etc.

Good on NG! (Yes, Renee, if you're reading this -- hello, and Happy Birthday!)

#1 Daniel (Link) on 2007-10-23 01:27 (Reply)

The press release announcing the product is here.
http://www.directionsmag.com/press.releases/index.php?duty=Show&id=19542

#2 Adena Schutzberg (Link) on 2007-10-23 06:44 (Reply)

Yes. And did you ever notice that what Google Earth and Maps is basically doing is radically more elaborate than this concept, and it's driven by an international Internet (the entire network) of assets -- vs. highly localized asset management?

Just thought I'd throw that in there.

#2.1 Daniel (Link) on 2007-10-23 08:07 (Reply)

And apologies, but before someone pipes in with an attempt to call me on any sort of 'fanboy-ism', vs. simply having observed all the applications over the last number of years of my life...

I bring up GE/Maps as the primary source due to it being the only application available on such a scale, and doing exactly what I mention above.

Microsoft only appears to understand a tiny bit of what that represents -- Yahoo! is somewhere in their own little space, as usual. All others are equally in their own little space.

Google, however, somehow transcends all that -- and dare I say -- all of them.

#2.1.1 Daniel (Link) on 2007-10-23 08:11 (Reply)

The funny thing, is Renee just messaged me -- which was not only somewhat creepy in timing, but beneficial because she set me straight on a couple things I mentioned here. Thanks, Renee!

I still haven't gotten candles, by the way, in case you're wondering.

#2.2 Daniel (Link) on 2007-10-23 09:09 (Reply)

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In reply to	[ Top level ]#1: Daniel on 2007-10-23 01:27 #2: Adena Schutzberg on 2007-10-23 06:44   #2.1: Daniel on 2007-10-23 08:07     #2.1.1: Daniel on 2007-10-23 08:11   #2.2: Daniel on 2007-10-23 09:09
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