Google Gets Patent on “Environment” Based Ads (including the Use of Background Noise)

The patent is titled Advertising based on environmental conditions. It's quite simple, per the very short abstract:

Information about an environmental condition of a remote device is received, the environmental condition being determined based on a signal output from a sensor of the remote device or a sensor coupled to the remote device. An advertisement is identified based on the environmental condition, and the advertisement is provided to the remote device.

So, in theory, if it's raining, you might get ads for raincoats. This is already done to some extent on weather webites. High allergy day in your area? And ad for Claritin appears! It's also possible to sense background noise - say that of a concert - and based ads on that. The patent was applied for in 2008 and granted on March 20.

The privacy folks are concerned of course and there are the requisite comparisons to Minority Report. Google for its part notes it patents all kinds of ideas; some never are implemented in products.

- BBC

- Atlantic

Apple Changes Mapping Data In Lastest iOS Apps

Update (2;30 PM EST): The OSM Foundation Blog reports on how OSM is used and that apporpriate attribution is not yet given in the apps. (How can a huge company like Apple NOT know to do that???? Do you know how to attribute CC content? No? Time for some homework!)

- OSM Foundation Blog

--- original post 8:00 am EST ---

Wednesday night was full of excitement from the geospatial fans of Apple, which anounces its new iPad and apps easlier in the day. The upshot seems to be:

Apple's new iPhoto uses OpenStreetMap data for much of the world outside the US. How about that for #switch2osm?

-  @openstreetmap

James Fee suggests that U.S. data is simply TIGER.

Apple's been acquiring mapping companies over the last few years and its no secret that at some point the company would begin to break ties with Google which is becoming a rival on many levels.

There's still a bit of confusion on what mapping data, geocoding and other tools are used in different parts of the world and in different apps. 

- Apple Insider

- GigaOM

- Ars Technica

- 512Pixels

- (James Fee's) Spatially Adjusted (1, 2)

- Thread at OSM-Talk listserve

GIS Algorithm Cup and other GIS Competition News

With the goal of encouraging innovation in a fun way, ACM SIGSPATIAL is hosting an algorithm contest with winners to be announced at the ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS conference in November 2012. Contest participants will submit original computer programs to be evaluated by the contest organizers on a common dataset. The first place team will receive US$ 500 plus one NVIDIA Quadro 6000 (or similar) graphics card. Second place will receive US$ 400 plus one NVIDIA TEGRA tablet device. Third place will receive US$ 300 and one NVIDIA TEGRA tablet.

The 2012 contest will be about map matching, which is the problem of correctly matching a sequence of location measurements to roads. 

- contest page via @michael_d_gould

How about a game based learning contest? Ideas for teaching spatial literacy and/or geography would be valid!

In an effort to circulate innovative ideas about integrating electronic gaming in the classroom, the NEA Foundation, in a partnership with Microsoft U.S. Partners in Learning, is hosting a competition for the best ideas on "how interactive technology and game-based learning can improve teaching and learning," according to the Foundation's website. Game-based learning can mean anything from understanding physics through the popular Angry Birds app to delving into the structure of society in the computer game Minecraft.

The Challenge to Innovate (C2i) competition is open to educators, students, parents, or anyone who has an idea and has registered for free as a member of the U.S. Department of Education's Open Innovation Portal, which acts as a public forum for improving education. Participants post their gaming idea to the portal, and other registered members—most of whom are educators and parents—award points to the ideas they think are most innovative and helpful.

- US News

Aim: The main aim of the OneGeology Best Application competition is to demonstrate the wide range of potential applied uses and applications that the OneGeology Portal, and geological data/services that it provides, can offer for easy discoverability, access and use.

...

The registration of the applications developed for this competition will be accepted until the end of May 2012.

...

The winner of the competition will receive a free registration for the 34th International Geological Congress, Brisbane, Australia (August 2012) and will also have the opportunity to present the new innovative application during the Geoinformation Symposium/ OneGeology Session at the conference.

You must be under 35 to enter.

- website via @jeffharrison

Through their Google+ page, Google Maps announced the inaugural Map Your University competition for all students in the U.S. and Canada. Through the use of Google’s Map Maker, Google is asking current students to create detailed maps of their campuses that will be viewable on Google Maps and Google Earth. Winners of the competition will be award fun Google-y prizes such as Android tablets, phones, GPS devices, and more.

- Web Pro News

New York City kicked off voting today in its third annual BigApps competition, which rewards apps that use some of the city’s open data sets to build apps. But one of the most popular resources appears to be Foursquare, which is in use in more than half of the top apps in early voting.

- GigaOm

Google Public Alerts and other LBS News

Google announced a Public Alerts page on Jan 25. The idea is to keep you informed of emergency alerts for floods, tornadoes, winter storms, and other dangers that may be headed your way. But, it's completely query driven, not location-based in this first attempt. Google is seeking feedback. Mano Marks noted on Twitter he'd worked on this project in the past.

- Google Blog

MapQuest launched an HTML5 client.

- press release

Adam Sadilek of the University of Rochester has developed a tool to predict one's location based on friend's locations known through Twitter. How well? It can locate you to within 100 meters with up to 85% accuracy.

"You can actually infer a lot of things about people, even though they are pretty careful about how they manage their online behaviour," he reports. 

- New Scientist

Google Open Sources Sky Map and other LBS News

Google is open-sourcing Google Sky Map, an app created by employees at Google's Pittsburgh office who wanted to put the sensors in Android phones to the test. While the app has seen more than 20 million Android phone users since 2009, the app will now be used in student projects at Carnegie Mellon University.

A number of other apps and API are to be shut down entirely.

- eWeek

Hertz Global Holdings Inc. has acquired from Thales Navigation the remaining 35 percent of Navigation Solutions, the operational arm behind its in-car global positioning systems, known as NeverLost.

- AP

The highlight of the [latest ChaCha] upgrade is the exciting all-new Real-Time Map feature, which allows users to see questions recently asked by others using the application. For the first time ever, ChaChees will visually see on a real-time map what questions are being asked where.

Why "visually see"? Why not just "see"?

- press release

Rentenna.com -- the free, groundbreaking rental tool that condenses everything a renter would want to know about a rental building into a single score -- releases its interactive "Rentenna Score Map" to the public today.