All Points Blog

.Tel Sales Open Today; Implications for Location?

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 3 Dec 2008 07:34:56 -0600

The news is covered in many places, but the New York Times Bits blog highlights how .Tel can, in addition to being a holding place for phone numbers, e-mail addresses and the like could also be a holding place for location information.

Individuals can also choose to display their location, allowing their contacts to see where they are at any given time and opening the door for location-based services.

The way this will work, as I understand it, instead of "saving" a phone number in your address book for an individual/company, you'd save their .tel domain. Thus whenever they update anything - phone number in this case - you address book is updated. The same for their location.

For now only trademarked names are for sale; the rest of us can buy (expensively) in Feb and (less expensively) in March.

Latest Navigon Panned

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 3 Dec 2008 07:05:52 -0600

It's the 8100t and both David Pogue at the New York Times and Rachel Cericola at Wired vote a clear "No." This is the first time in a while I've read a sold "don't buy it" review of any GPS. Even the low end ones typically get an "ok for the price" review. The $600 8100T fails on interface issues per Pogue and sluggishness and outdated data per Cericola, not pure GPS tech.

Phone's Killer App: Voice

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 3 Dec 2008 06:55:55 -0600

"These survey results highlight that voice still remains the 'killer application,' despite the growth of some data services," reports Ronald Gruia, Principal Analyst for Emerging Telecoms at Frost & Sullivan after reviewing a survey that highlights how few people, worldwide, are using phones any differently than they did five years ago. The survey commissioned by AppTrigger included 1,850 mobile users across the UK, North America, Canada and China.

- Cellular News

Quote of the Week

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 3 Dec 2008 06:00:00 -0600

"Make copies of the course map; on them, write your anticipated split times. Keep one the refrigerator, at your desk, in the bathroom. Then visualize yourself meeting your goals."

- Advice from The Dallas News FITNESS Blog on prepping for the White Rock marathon, later this month. (I've never received that particular piece of advice.)

Hardware-based "Tourism Radio" for New Zealand

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 3 Dec 2008 06:00:00 -0600

There's quite a push to link GPS and tourism, most notably on cell phones and devices users already have in hand. In New Zealand one hardware/software combo combines a GPS and a delivery system that interrupts current radio to fill in the driver and passenger about landmarks whizzing by. Tourism Radio is aimed at rental car agencies and many have already signed up.

I think we are moving away from "specialized devices" for content and aiming toward a single interoperable solution (even if we must pay for some content). I don't expect this type of solution to last long; it should be part of the nav device or the radio, if not the phone!

- Homes Worldwide Australia

When the Location Pitch Fails...

(Adena Schutzberg) — Wed, 3 Dec 2008 06:00:00 -0600

Ok, I have to give the folks at the PR firm credit, they tried to catch me with this pitch in their e-mail: "Item? Illinois Boasts #11 Rank for Fastest Internet in the Nation - What does that mean for businesses, consumers?" The goal: to get me to write about a survey that found the fasted Internet speeds. The attached PR (already posted on a radio station blog) included a list of how all 50 states ranked.

It took me a few moments to realize the sender tracked the address of this blog to Illinois (that is the Directions Media biz address). But the sender didn't explore our publications to learn that our publications are national/internationally focussed, not local. Oops.

I think the addition of a map along with the raw data would have turned it into a national tech story. Then it could have been pitched that way to tech pubs like ours.

News from AU: Enhanced PDF for AutoCAD Subscribers

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 2 Dec 2008 12:26:40 -0600

That's today's big news. Funny since not too many years ago it was DWF all the time and PDF with a line through it in Autodesk ads... Too bad there's nothing specific for geo folks in the enhanced PDF (that I can see.)

- press release

Company Behind Lauded Westport 3D Model Goes Under

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 2 Dec 2008 10:27:57 -0600

Westport (Ireland) got its share of fame (Google Earth blog, for example) after AMT3D developed a detailed 3D model of the city and posted it on Google Earth. Today, The Mayo News reports AMT3D shut down in November a victim of the economy and fears in the building industry. The good news, a local company has bought up the assets and will honor existing contracts.

"Cold and Flu Companion" Mobile Phone App

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 2 Dec 2008 09:58:38 -0600

Yep, it's branded with a drug name (Zicam) but it's the premise that I want to examine. The app (Android now, iPhone later this month) allows users to get info on local (input ZIP Code) code and flu info.

The Zicam® Cold & Flu Companion mobile application provides greater detail than this service by showing users the percentage of sick people in any given zip code, what types of symptoms are most prevalent and which ones to look out for in a specific area. The application also keeps users updated on the latest cold and flu news.

Source of this info? Not stated in PR. But you can get the same info (apparently) via this website. (The risk in my city today is low!)

Useful? Some would say yes. Another benefit? Coupons to buy (that's right) Zicam plus directions to nearby retailers. Is something like that a viable way to "opt in" to LBS-based coupons/pushes? We'll see.

- press release

Microsoft Eagle 1: R&D Implementation of Integrated Data/ Maps for Emergency Response

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 2 Dec 2008 07:13:13 -0600

CIO Australia highlights Eagle 1, along with other "in development" technologies. This one sounds all too familiar to me after witnessing many OGC interoperability demos.

Eagle 1 pulls information from multiple databases and uses geospatial mapping technology to create an interactive map that would show, for example, all the schools, military bases, hospitals in the affected area. Plus it would show how many people are in the hospitals, current evacuation models and casualties or danger zones, even a plume model that could show where a gas leak is heading.

There's nothing to note what enables access to all those databases, but there's a note that "the process of configuring the data extractions will likely involve a team of Microsoft disaster specialists."

Quotes of the Week from Nokia World

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 2 Dec 2008 06:17:11 -0600

From Nokia World, being held in Barcelona this week:

"Your social location, or SoLo will become your here-and-now-identity."
- CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo

"Combining the real world with the virtual world, pointing at a building with a virtual compass and being told everything about that building." (Coming soon)
- Markets EVP Anssi Vanjoki

"Theres a company that says they can index the world [Google]; we are going to go deeper - we are going to coordinate the world, we are going to coordinate everything on a map. Not just a map that is standard like a Google Map, but a map that is dynamic, with vector graphics, driving all the roads of the world, making sure we have coordinates for everything there is, with Navteq."
- Markets EVP Anssi Vanjoki

- MocoNews

VentureBeat Picks Five LBS Companies to Watch in 2009

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 2 Dec 2008 06:00:00 -0600

Some are the same old, same old: BrikeKite, Whrrl, Mexens Technology. One I'd never heard of: LBS gaming company Orbster. One, Sense Networks, has already made investors piles of money by allowing them to predict store revenues by tapping into traffic coming and going.

Also noted: FaceBook and MySpace, which have yet to do anything with location, but which "would devastate the location-based social networking industry. No other social network is even close to achieving the same user base as these two."

- VentureBeat

$100,000 Rolex Award for Geo-Archeological System

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 2 Dec 2008 06:00:00 -0600

Chemistry professor Talal Akasheh of Hashemite University of Jordan was awarded the prize (one of five from 1,500 applicants) and will use the funds to monitor development in the 2,500-year old city of Petra, which is threatened by natural decay and the impact of increased tourism. "His geo-archaeological information system (GIS) will map the site and track minute details of Petra, monitoring its physical characteristics, the condition of the monuments and the impact of surrounding development."

- AME Info

Podcast: Geospatial News and New/Social Media

(Adena Schutzberg) — Tue, 2 Dec 2008 01:00:00 -0600

How does a geospatial news outlet use new and social media? And, what's in it for readers and listeners? Our editors share how Directions Media is using these tools (including some tips for new users of Twitter and podcasts) and look ahead at better matching content and form to reader needs.

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Missed any podcasts? Want to subscribe via iTunes, Yahoo, etc? Here's the index with all the info.

Free Lecture on History etc. of Geocoding Wednesday in DC

(Adena Schutzberg) — Mon, 1 Dec 2008 12:08:23 -0600

This from Robert at the Library of Congress:

December 3, 2008 at Noon

Lecture: Spaces of Calculation: Street Addressing and the Making of
a Geo-coded World, Reuben Rose-Redwood, Kluge Fellow, at 12:00 PM in
Whittall Pavilion, Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E.,
Washington, D.C.

From the website (more info):

Kluge Fellow Reuben Rose-Redwood will explore the cultural and political history of street addressing in the United States, from the late eighteenth century to the present, including the recent shift from rural route and box numbering systems to 911 addresses. More than a mere technical device best left to postmasters and planning professionals, the spatial practice of street addressing is one of the fundamental mechanisms of the production of calculable space and is, in a more general sense, the socio-spatial equivalent to the mathematicization of nature that has dominated modern thought since the Enlightenment.