where2.0 - Wed 14th May (9am - 10.15am)

Day 2 begins at 9am with...

Disaster Tech: What is Working and What is Coming
Jesse Robbins (O'Reilly Radar), Mikel Maron (Mapufacture)

How innovative tools can make the bridge between consumer tools and saving lives.

"It's difficult to innovate, but there is a way...".

The key seems to be a step-by-step iterative pattern. Within this space:
1. Disaster happens
2. Three is ad-hoc adaptation of some tech tools
3. After the event the better ideas are championed
4. Thereby providing ideas for iterative improvement

An interesting example from New Orleans. Red Cross were looking at Google Maps and assuming the aerial view was a 'live' image whereas a the I-90 bridge (for example) was actually destroyed and no good for supplying aid.

Open mapping, such as OpenStreetMap, could provide better solutions to this problem by allowing users to provide more frequent updates.

Importantly "people who are trying to save lives have very little time" so the role of the champion is crucial to illustrate the positive role of new technology in helping with emergencies.

"Be champions".

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Your Memories: Here, There, Everywhere
Jef Holove (Eye-Fi, Inc.)

A clever gadget - basically a memory card in a digital camera - that uploads from the camera to a number of web services, or the PC, via wi-fi... i think there's something about geo-tagging in there as well.

A unique set of considerations/limitations that helped drive the product development:
- the camera is unaware that this is happening
- no user interface
- network authenticates card automatically
- connectvitiy, upload status

Geotagging - (Geotagging is an onerous chore with todays technology - Stephen Shankland, CNET). "What is the issue? - It is time consuming, cumbersome, expensive, slow, limited".

The solution needs to work with no user interaction, be quick, work indoors, and have minimum impact on battery life.

So...
- The card is inside the camera using wi-fi to detect surrounding networks
- Card uploads photos and geo-data at home or wi-fi hotspot
- Eye-fi service processes network IDs

I like this... I want one.

A good quote to finish:- "Advanced (technology) is simple. Really advanced is effortless."

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Merian Scout Case Study
Jennifer Kilian (frog design inc.)

"Marion wanted to create their own GPS device with premium content and experience for European travellers."

I think this explains the final product.. and this.

It's a physical, electronic device, slightly smaller than a blackberry, which works as a kind of digital Lonely Planet, but using the possibilities available due to the electronic format - GPS, audio content, etc

Think of it as a hand-held Tom-Tom device full of tourist information.

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GeoDjango: Web Applications for Geographers with Deadlines
Justin Bronn (CartoAnalytics, LLC)

From the website - "Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to build GIS web applications and harness the power of spatially enabled data."

"Why? 80% of enterprise data has a spatial component."

GeoDjango is made up from MTV - that's Models, Templates, Views - not Music Television.

Lots of mentions of MySQL, Python, KML, GML ... oh, and we're off into lines of code on the powerpoint slides., ouch!

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Your Car Gets an API
Chris Butler (Dash Navigation)

Dash is the first two-way navigation device available in the car and announced today is a dynamic search API for the product.

Some examples are shown to demonstrate the potential... a weather bug application, a way of accessing radio playlists (mediaguide), and something called Trapster, which shows you were the nearest police presence is and allows you to add your own police sightings to help other users.

People sitting around me seem to like this last idea.

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The Future = Location
George Filley (NAVTEQ)

Talking about the "Mobile Information Revolution".

"The future is here... in Quarter 1 this year, 43% of downloaded services were Location Based Services."

The end user expectations can be summarised as:
- I want to be able to access it anywhere, anytime
- I want to be able to share the information
- I don't want to pay

Connectivity cost is dropping and device capabilities are increasing... and there is "strong advertiser demand for new and innovations advertising forms."

The focus here is on how to monetize and create revenue in this space.

A slightly scary quote about developing local services to the point where a stranger can walk into a neighborhood and know more about the place than someone who lives there.

Or is it just me that finds that slightly scary... and slightly pointless. As a user, would I actually want, or be able to consume, that amount of information?


... and it's morning break and more coffee.