tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84709950593843905712009-11-26T23:40:52.641-07:00Thoughts on geospatial and location technology from Peter BattyPeter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.comBlogger194125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-67103447861774145492009-11-25T12:21:00.009-07:002009-11-25T14:26:17.727-07:00

The past few days I have been playing around with flook, a new "location browser" application for the iPhone, and I like it. You can access some aspects of it in a regular browser, but it's really focused around the iPhone application. The basic idea is that users create "cards" with a photo, title and brief caption, together with a location, and you can browse for cards that are close to you.

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-55206476037012659542009-11-18T08:39:00.006-07:002009-11-18T10:27:57.981-07:00

So as I talked about in my previous post, Ordnance Survey is going to make its small scale data freely available. I think that in many ways, OpenStreetMap has been a major influence in making this happen. The growth of OpenStreetMap has increased the awareness of the benefits of free geospatial data, and it was becoming apparent that there would no longer be a significant market for the Ordnance

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-84255715649859474672009-11-18T07:07:00.010-07:002009-11-19T08:01:31.716-07:00

So yesterday the UK government announced that some data sets (not all) from the Ordnance Survey (the UK national mapping agency) will be made available for free - 1:10,000 scale data and above is included (so this includes popular OS maps like the 1:25,000 and 1:50,000, in digital form). The more detailed maps (1:1250 and 1:2500) are not included - but I believe that issues related to derived

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-13102715320532084352009-11-17T09:12:00.003-07:002009-11-17T10:00:41.819-07:00

Boulder-based startup PublicEarth, a free wiki for places, has gone live today. I've been on their Advisory Board since they started last year, so am excited to see them launch - congratulations to founder Duncan McCall (pictured below talking at WhereCamp5280), Chairman David Hose, and the rest of the team.Duncan talks about his original vision for PublicEarth here:So the idea for a wiki of ‘

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-3127289263867371962009-11-16T15:26:00.006-07:002009-11-16T15:50:29.214-07:00

I recently came across a nice flickr search tool called ViewFinder (for Mac), which makes it very easy to search flickr for photos with appropriate Creative Commons licenses, and then download a suitably sized version and insert it into a Keynote presentation. There's a way to copy attribution information too, though that's not done automatically with the "insert Keynote slide" function -

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-18131790141075765542009-11-09T10:37:00.005-07:002009-11-09T12:29:40.571-07:00

I have been meaning to blog for some time about how useful I find the transit information in Google Maps on the iPhone. It's been around for a while, but I have been using it quite a lot recently and haven't blogged about it before. For those who haven't used it, when you calculate directions you can pick one of three options: driving, public transit, or walking (you also have the same options on

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-86794930886539097272009-11-05T10:16:00.005-07:002009-11-06T09:27:10.391-07:00

So the discussions about the great Google map data change in the US rage on, and we are seeing more and more reports of significant data quality issues. I wrote about how Central City Parkway was completely missing, and I reported this to Google to see how the change process would work. I posted later about how it had been partially fixed, with a new geometry visible but not routable, and with

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-68995733531200455672009-11-04T11:06:00.005-07:002009-11-04T12:18:03.185-07:00

Today it was announced that I've joined the new Advisory Board of FortiusOne, together with Jeff Harris, who has a very distinguished background in the Intelligence world, and Michael Frankel and Wolf Ruzicka, who bring great expertise in Business Intelligence and enterprise software. We actually had the first Advisory Board meeting just recently and it's a great group.I've followed the

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-60071930751296182592009-11-01T17:08:00.005-07:002009-11-02T08:23:21.535-07:00

I talk at quite a few conferences, as regular readers will know, and have been experimenting with videoing some of my presentations for a little while now. I thought I would share some of my experience on techniques I've tried and how they've worked. Basic ApproachesOf course a basic option is just to take a single digital video that includes the speaker and/or the slides. Options include setting

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-15019915653219147422009-10-26T17:46:00.004-06:002009-10-26T20:04:00.392-06:00

Here is a video of my recent keynote talk at the Minnesota GIS/LIS conference in Duluth, which was an excellent event. There were about 500 people there, which is great in the current economic climate. It was mainly a "traditional GIS" audience, and I got a lot of good feedback on the talk which was nice.I talk about current trends in the industry in three main areas: moving to the mainstream (at

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-1506994906469632032009-10-25T22:07:00.004-06:002009-10-26T09:09:56.879-06:00

I reported previously that I found that Google Maps was missing Central City Parkway after their change in street data provider (they are now providing their own street data rather than using Tele Atlas). I reported the error to Google and said I would report back here when it was fixed - Google is aiming to fix errors within 30 days. This evening Tom Churchill commented on my previous post to

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-43719667691228342302009-10-19T21:08:00.007-06:002009-10-19T22:20:26.262-06:00

The AGI in the UK is currently carrying out a "Foresight Study" to look at where the geospatial industry will be in five years' time. They have asked several dozen people to contribute short reports on different topics, and I was asked to write about Location Based Services. I thought I would publish the current working draft here, and I encourage you to contribute comments and suggestions that I

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-66893077067546434712009-10-15T09:35:00.005-06:002009-10-15T10:33:32.066-06:00

I'm a little behind on this - you may have already caught this video of me doing a "georant" at AGI GeoCommunity via Jonathan (who kindly said it was "rather funny") or GeoCommunityLive (who said that the audience were in hysterics, and "at the same time Peter had some serious points to make about the potential pitfalls of the 'free' model"). I basically discuss the fact that many people

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-19235248582848971062009-10-14T13:19:00.002-06:002009-10-14T13:26:32.471-06:00

I loved this quote from Paul Ramsey, commenting on Paul Bisset's blog post about the "Google data earthquake":Right, a black hole isn’t “evil”, but that doesn’t change the fact that it massively distorts the shape of space-time everywhere it goes, which can be a bummer for any object in its immediate neighbourhood.That summarizes rather nicely concerns I've expressed in recent posts.

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-60376956785245855632009-10-13T22:33:00.004-06:002009-10-13T22:44:20.991-06:00

Just a quick post to say that I will be doing the opening keynote talk next week (Thursday October 22nd) at the 19th annual Minnesota GIS/LIS conference, in Duluth. It should be a fun and interesting event, so if you're up in that part of the world I encourage you to stop by!http://www.flickr.com/photos/clairity/ / CC BY 2.0

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-6990822745824758602009-10-13T07:13:00.003-06:002009-10-13T07:31:26.843-06:00

Following on from my previous post about Google shaking up the geospatial data industry, Steve Coast invited me and James Fee to join him for a discussion on the topic. James' blog post on the topic has 138 comments at the time of writing, which is a good indication of the interest in this change! You can listen to the podcast on the "Google data earthquake" here.One topic I talk about in the

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-51068332681632937982009-10-07T17:10:00.005-06:002009-10-13T21:25:33.151-06:00

Well, the big news of the day is that Google has dumped Tele Atlas as the main data provider for Google Maps in the US, and is providing its own map data from a variety of sources (presumably also including its own Streetview teams). They've also added the ability to point out errors in the map, another addition to the crowdsourcing techniques they've been using. The announcement has caused a

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-39782138720447771082009-10-07T16:59:00.002-06:002009-10-07T17:07:16.259-06:00

In my previous post on GeoDesign (and Shakespeare), I was curious about why (it seemed to me) ESRI was positioning design in GIS as something new. Their position was clarified by no less an authority than Jack Dangermond in the comments - I thought that Jack's thoughts deserved a new post of their own rather than being hidden away, so here they are ...Thanks for noticing our efforts in GeoDesign

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-49804863446770167262009-09-17T22:50:00.005-06:002009-09-17T23:12:44.853-06:00

I've been trying to figure out why ESRI is suddenly trying to make such a big deal of "GeoDesign" - this announcement talks about introducing "the first generation of geodesign concepts, technologies, and tools". But people have been doing design in GIS for decades - the first release of Smallworld in 1991 was really all about design, with features like version management to enable you to analyze

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-15727107958001901622009-09-16T13:37:00.009-06:002009-09-17T09:30:53.240-06:00

I spent the last few days at the Autovation conference in Denver, which is focused on Smart Metering and the Smart Grid, an area that I am becoming increasingly interested in and one where Enspiria is doing a lot of work (where I work part time as Chief Technology Advisor). It was a very interesting conference - there is certainly lots of activity and energy in the space, especially since the

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-72827351547615405912009-09-06T12:56:00.004-06:002009-09-06T16:42:45.889-06:00

I'm very much looking forward to the AGI GeoCommunity conference which is coming up in Stratford upon Avon in a couple of weeks. Apart from Stratford being the birthplace of Shakespeare and a great place to visit, it's also very close to Leamington Spa where I used to live when I worked at IBM UK many years ago, so it will be a chance for me to catch up with old friends. It will also be the first

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-18495444243177409722009-08-24T09:59:00.007-06:002009-08-24T12:54:52.980-06:00

Daratech has published its annual analysis of the GIS industry. I thought there were a few interesting things worth commenting on there. First I should say though that I am generally somewhat skeptical of these type of reports - there is a lot of subjectivity in what gets included and what doesn't. One illustration of this was when Bentley suddenly jumped to the number 2 position ahead of

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-13222704886066387902009-08-19T10:58:00.003-06:002009-11-07T16:46:21.257-07:00

Here is the second (of two) short video presentations on what the Smart Grid is, at a high level. This follows on from my previous one on why we need a Smart Grid - you should watch that one before watching this one.In future installments I'll talk more about some of the IT challenges in making the Smart Grid happen, the impact of geospatial technology / GIS on the Smart Grid and vice versa.The

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-78875415307601979012009-08-10T20:58:00.004-06:002009-08-10T22:07:29.202-06:00

As I have posted about previously, I'm helping to organize a cool, and FREE, "geo-unconference" in Denver called WhereCamp5280 (5280 = the altitude of Denver in feet, for those not from round here!), which is now almost upon us - it's this Friday and Saturday, August 14-15. We've been really pleased with the response - check out the list of likely attendees and potential talks (being an

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470995059384390571.post-1061154453156889722009-08-10T20:42:00.005-06:002009-09-24T01:15:18.324-06:00

In my role as Chief Technology Advisor at Enspiria Solutions, I've recently been researching the Smart Grid. I've found that even a lot of people working in the electric industry have somewhat fuzzy ideas about it, or understand some aspects but not others. I've put together some short presentations on the subject. The first two you might call "Smart Grid 101" - the first one, below, talks about

Peter Battyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10803273537153805225noreply@blogger.com4