Thursday, July 2. 2009

Everyblock Source Code Now Available

Just as we vote on some of the most influential people in geospatial, one on our list has a big announcement: Adrian Holovaty explains on his blog that as his Knight News Challenge Grant comes to an end, the code behind his project, Everyblog is now being released under an open source (GPL) license. The two year grant has ended, but Holovaty assures the world the site will continue, under the direction of a private company.

via @timoreiily and Brady Forrest

Thursday, June 25. 2009

Coming for the iPhone: Old Map App

There are a few reasons to look at the video of Old Map App. First off, it's got some lovely old maps of New York (Library of Congress). Second, it shows of a nice interface that allows moving between different maps to look at the same area or moving from old map to modern street layout. Third, that modern street layout is from OpenStreetMap. And, finally, it uses something called Route-Me (open source code from Google for slippy maps on the iPhone) as its core technology. It's just a demo now, you can sign up to be a beta tester or be notified when the app is available from the App Store.

via @TimOreilly

Friday, June 19. 2009

Garmin Linux Phones: One and Done

Remember the promise of the new Garmin phones? (Feb coverage in APB.) Remember how Garmin was to use Linux and even open sourced the OS for its regular nuvis (2008 coverage)?

Well, the Linux love affair is over at least on the phones, per C|net.

When asked about the potential of Garmin-Asus' current Linux platform for future devices, [regional director for Southeast Asia sales, Hektor] Tung revealed that this will be used only in the G60. Future smartphones will either come with Windows Mobile like the M20 or be based on the Google Android operating system.

Thursday, June 18. 2009

Best Maps of Tehran? User Generated

Brady Forrest at O'Reilly Radar studies the map portal's maps of the area and concludes:

"Looking at the images below [ Yahoo, Mapquest, Google, and Bing] it becomes very clear that user-generated maps win in hard to reach places."

Flickr has even swapped out Yahoo Maps in favor OSM (something they've done before).

Tuesday, June 9. 2009

Podcast: Spatial Databases: A Commodity?

This week's question: Is the spatial database a commodity? With all the big database players storing and querying spatial data and several open source offerings in the market, is spatial no longer special when in comes to the database world? Is it time to "stop getting excited" about the addition of spatial support and simply use the technology?


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Thursday, June 4. 2009

Update: LA Times Offers Neighborhood Map for Its Own and Your Use

Word from the LA Times that the map has now "arrived" at least for now. It includes 113 neighborhoods. Here's the article that the Times offers on its blog to introduce the map and an article from editor Doug Smith.

Will every paper from a city of seasonable size undertake this sort of project?