All Points Blog

Pachube: Share Your Real Time Sensor Feed

(Adena Schutzberg) — Thu, 3 Jul 2008 10:59:18 -0500

"Pachube (pronounced "patch bay") is a web service available at http://www.pachube.com that enables people to tag and share real time sensor data from objects, devices and spaces around the world." For now feeds are findable via a Google Map. Symbols link to the source and nature of the feeds, just a few for now and many are noted as "tests." Some are real world, others are from Second Life. This is, to me, a bit of a Web 2.0 solution for OGC's SensorWeb efforts. It uses, underneath, Extended Environments Markup Language (EEML).

- via Wired

AND Looking for Money; Buyer

(Adena Schutzberg) — Thu, 3 Jul 2008 09:35:20 -0500

GPS Business News reports that Bloomberg reports that the company is looking for an injection of capital or a takeover. I guess having both the Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ acquisitions go through did not play out for the smaller data company.

SatNav's a Treasure Trove for Detectives

(Adena Schutzberg) — Thu, 3 Jul 2008 08:22:52 -0500

Unsuspecting criminals with GPS devices are sharing far more than they may think in their satnav devices. Deleted data, it turns out, is not deleted in some cases, meaning detectives can track past destinations. Further, if used in conjunction with a cell phones, the devices may store old phone records of incoming and outgoing calls. TomTom was not aware of London's Metropolitan Police reporting on the use of devices in crime investigation in a scholarly journal (Digital Investigation). The company states they only turn over data with a court order.

Also of note: Met detectives learned the tricks of the trade from GPS wikis that detail how to share POIs and the like.

- New Scientist

Poizner May Enter California Governor's Race

(Adena Schutzberg) — Thu, 3 Jul 2008 07:40:33 -0500

I heard that on the NPR national news last night, though the main story was about San Francisco Mayer Newsom considering tossing in his hat. Poizner is known in our industry as founder of Strategic Mapping and SnapTrack. (Wikipedia) His website is up and word is getting out. Poizner currently serves as the state's insurance commissioner.

Voice Search for GMaps on Blackberry Pearl

(Adena Schutzberg) — Thu, 3 Jul 2008 07:04:26 -0500

Basically you set the map extent and speak a term to search. And, typical map search results pop up. It's the same technology used in Goog411. It's not completely hands free as you need to push a few buttons to get it to work. For now its "experimental" and will likely mature as more people use it.

- IntoMobile

Update: State Licensing Board "Censors" GIS Article

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 13:58:00 -0500

Update 7/2/08: See comment below from PS Editor Tom Gibson for the further details.

---- Original post 6/30/08 -------

Back when I read more print magazines, I always relished the editorials. Wow, I thought, a whole page for the editor to tell you what was on his or her mind. My favorite editorial writers back then where Roopinder Tara at Cadence (who I wrote for at that publication, then worked for at Tenlinks.com) and the then editor of Backpacker, I don't recall his name. Today I still make it a point to read the editorials in print publication in geospatial and related industries.

It's in one of those, Tom Gibson's "editor's desk" (sic) column in Professional Surveyor (July 2008, page 4, not online yet) that I found this statement:

In assembling this issue, we had one company withdraw a feature story because a state licensing board was concerned it depicted GIS practitioners as doing work surveyors should be doing, saying they should be licensed as surveyors to do it.

That prompted a few responses from me:
(1) I wonder how the state licensing board had a chance to read the article.
(2) Does preventing such articles to be published limit instead of encouraging discussion on the matter?
(3) Should Directions Media (and other geopublishers formal and informal) be prepared to deal with this issue? Will we be receiving "take down" notices regarding articles that include descriptions of such work in alleged violation of state laws?

Disclosure: I used to work for the company that publishes Professional Surveyor.

Ask.com Moves to Virtual Earth

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 08:57:05 -0500

Search Engine Land reports that Ask.com has dropped its homegrown mapping app (built on deCarta, if memory serves) and switched to Microsoft Virtual Earth. Story and pics at Virtual Earth, Evangelist blog.

EC OK on Nokia Purchasing NAVTEQ

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 06:53:14 -0500

The deal should close in five days.

- press release

Starbucks Closing Stores; Some too close together

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 06:35:12 -0500

You likely heard the news about a 12,000 person reduction in employees and the closing of some 600 stores. (Seattle Times) Florida and California will be most impacted; they've been hard hit by the economy and credit crisis. Also, "About 200 of those will be directly operated by Starbucks, with the rest managed by other companies like bookstores and airport concession firms."

I try to make sense of the "too close together" aspect of this story from the land of Dunkin Donuts. Here in my city we hold a large 4 mile race on Thanksgiving. The course passes four Dunkin Donuts and that's far from all the ones we have! We have, to my knowledge, just two Starbucks. Dunkin Donuts, either by design or luck, doesn't seem to have the cannibalism problem. I have a hunch about that.

It's my sense that Dunkin Donuts is far more about "take out." The stores here are notoriously near bus stops and many have parking lots of key commuting routes. Besides, when was the last time you spent much time in a Dunkin Donuts? Starbucks, while it does have a good take out business (which is why I find the closing airport Starbucks odd), is about that mythical third place, the one that's not home or work. It's business is centered around "hanging out in a nice place." Dunkin Donuts surely is not (our local stores often have a sign stating how long patrons may stay - typically 20-30 minutes). If that's all true, it seems you'd travel less for a take out coffee/donut, than for a "sit and enjoy" environment of Starbucks. It seems Starbucks was not thinking that way and taking advantage of human behavior.

ACLU and EFF Sue DOJ for info on cell tracking

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 06:27:04 -0500

Matt Richtel notes in the New York Times Bits blog that the suit was filed on Tuesday. Part of the impetus was a story he wrote in 2005 that noted that it appeared the government was doing such tracking without "probable cause" making courts uneasy. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to gain information on how and how often the government tracked cell users. The Department of Justice did not provide an answer, which prompted the joint ACLU/Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) suit.

Adobe Provides Tools to Make Flash Findable: Implications for Geo?

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 2 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0500

" Adobe is providing optimized Adobe® Flash® Player technology to Google and Yahoo! to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines. This will provide more relevant automatic search rankings of the millions of RIAs and other dynamic content that run in Adobe Flash Player. Moving forward, RIA developers and rich Web content producers wont need to amend existing and future content to make it searchable they can now be confident it can be found by users around the globe."

I'm going to suggest that since more and more mapping apps are using Flash, this move may help the findability of geoapps, if not geodata.

- Press Release

The New Gas Conscious, Distance Conscious Marketing

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 08:29:03 -0500

This headline from Ripley Entertainment (yes, the Believe it or Not folks) PR:

53% of U.S. Population Lives Within a Half Tank of Gas of a Ripley Attraction

Too bad there's no mention in the PR of the destination map on the website! Marketing hint: the call to action should be: Visit our interactive map to find an attraction near you!

U.S. BASIC satellite system announcement expected this week

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 07:51:45 -0500

The Broad Area Surveillance Intelligence Capability (BASIC) satellite system is aimed at filling gaps in the government's surveillance. The plan calls for government owned and managed satellites. The program has been delayed as agencies argued about who'll run the program (the National Reconnaissance Office, NRO, won) and who'd have say over what pictures are taken (senior military leaders won that one).

- AP

Web Hits Locate Earthquake

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 07:33:03 -0500

New Scientist reports that visits to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre's (EMSC) website spike when an earthquake hits. Those hits when geocoded can help pinpoint the earthquake, in one case, very accurately within 15 minutes. The technique also highlights where Internet access is not available, identifying potential damage from the event.

We are human sensors!

EveryBlock Adds Philly, Charlotte

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 07:24:17 -0500

Adrian Holovaty's hyperlocal news/local events site EveryBlock adds Philadelphia, PA and Charlotte, NC to the previous list of Chicago, New York and San Francisco. Among the data sources are "geocoded" minutes/agendas of local meetings and for Charlotte, new additions to the library.

- EveryBlock blog