High Earth Orbit

State of the Map US

2010-08-09T13:08:52Z

Unfortunately I missed State of the Map in Girona, Spain this year. I seem to be making every other one – which means I’ll be attending the first State of the Map US being held in Atlanta this coming weekend.

The United States had a much later start in OpenStreetMap than Europe and other parts of the world – but we also have a long history of open-government data that created less of a demand or need for grassroots mapping. However, the benefit of this culture is that the US government, from the local and state levels, all the way to the Federal level, are interested in utilizing OpenStreetMap and connecting with the community.

I’ll be speaking on Sunday about the necessity, and benefits, of moving beyond merely open data to instead focus on collaborative data gathering and mapping. Through our work on GeoCommons, OpenStreetMap, and deployments of data sharing to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Haiti and how citizens with organizations need to engage together in dicussing the need for data, methods for collectively gathering, and ways to open share and capture feedback in order to improve the overall quality as well as impact of open data.

OpenStreetMap has understood this from the beginning in promoting through “mapping parties“. These parties had the explicit goal of mapping a region and training new mappers, but implicitly they created a community of like-minded local citizens that self-identified their desire to spend time and energy in working together to gather and open data. It is basic initiatives like this that are vital at the local and regional levels.

If you’re near Atlanta, or can come by to the conference, hope to see you there. And regardless, think about how you can connect within your community of interest to start a dialogue and collaboration around open data.

Tags: openstreetmap

Á la carte Media

2010-08-07T19:39:36Z

In 2000 I cancelled my phone landline because I was carrying a cellular phone that antiquated my physically fixed, low-tech, voicemail-less and (at the time) expensive land-line. Amongst my friends they considered an interesting, but quirky idea to only have a cellphone. Today one in four households in the US are strictly wireless.

So back to media. Why should I pay a 200% cost to view media on a fixed schedule – even though I have a cable DVR for an additional $15/month that still adheres to an antiquated idea of recording only when a program is shown. I have the ability to access on demand, mobile, high-quality media when and where I choose to watch it, free of time constraints.

In addressing this potential, the concept of carrying forward the “rental” model, in both price and usage restrictions, is laughable. If I can’t sell or lend the media, why not just stream it to me on demand and ensure that your licensing costs are met on volume.

Of course, my options on what I can subscribe to are limited. Through NetFlix I can watch movies and some television series – Hulu has another set of programs and Hulu Plus will make older archives more available through more devices. But as we approach the Fall season and popular US based sports start – ESPN allows me to watch some sporting events online – but will they start charging? Will home cooking shows, or other nice networks start their own online subscriptions – each for $10 per month?

We could quickly end up paying much more in á la carte programming if we pay per subscription – something that “cable packages” tried to address by bundling together stations at a discount price. However they suffered from the choice to toss in the lesser watched channels to encourage the edge customers or beef up station count numbers for advertising.

So while we’re entering a time of on-demand, individualized stations we have the liklihood of higher overall costs. I already pay much more in internet access across all of my devices than I ever did for cable alone. But the improved access and enjoyment of that media will allow me to choose and indicate the value of accessing that media – when and how I choose to.

CrisisCommons and Congress

2010-07-15T15:53:51Z

A little more than a year ago, a small group of volunteers coordinated to host the first CrisisCamp in Washington, DC. At the time, we just wanted to pull together first responders, technologists, government, NGO, and interested citizens to discuss crisis mitigation, response, and humanitarian relief efforts. The two-day event was a complete success in connecting these communities in dialogue and projects that led to field deployed projects. In the last meeting of CrisisCampDC we discussed the potential future of these camps – and on a whim I registered crisiscommons.org, installed MediaWiki and Mikel provided a logo.

For the next 9 months, side projects occured and interesting conversations continued, but without a single coherent focal point. What happened in early January completely changed how we thought about volunteer crisis response. In the hours and days following the Haitian earthquake thousands of volunteers around the world began brainstorming and contributing to projects that would hopefully have a positive benefit to the response and affected communities.

CrisisCampHaiti

By Thursday we had decided to host a CrisisCampHaiti in Washington DC and very quickly similar groups decided to hold events in 4 other cities. The CrisisCamps provided a focused venue for developers, volunteers and organizations to coalesce and collaborate on developing needed solutions and information that would assist on the ground efforts.

OpenStreetMap had already been identified as a key resource in the response – starting first with the use of unclassified 1990’s paper maps, and then increasingly with the availability of high-resolution and up-to-date commercial satellite imagery. This provided for a very simple task for general volunteers with a computer and internet connection to begin tracing road networks and infrastructure. Videos like iMapHaiti.com got new volunteers up to speed and mapping within 10 minutes.

The technical expertise brought to bear was powerful. Mobile phone apps such as Tradui for translating between Kreyol and English; We Have We Need, a place where relief organizations can quickly post their most urgent needs and have them matched by generous donors during a time of crisis, and more.

Developers conceptualized and created green field applications, others worked on adapting existing tools to new uses or connecting them together – such as an Ushahidi to OpenStreetMap bridge that would allow for people on the ground to send mobile messages that could update the actual map data.

The outpouring of effort was amazing. In essence, the realization was that people wanted to contribute. And instead of sending $5 via a text message they wanted to donate their even more valuable time and expertise to provide true value and support.

Crisis Continuity

These efforts have been widely discussed, and the power of thousands of connected, capable, and caring technical and helpful people immediately pointed at a problem is compelling. However, what is not immediately apparent is that these efforts, tools, and communities are not completely ad-hoc and spontaneous. They have evolved through joint experiences, social networks, technical exchanges, and personal needs. The tools were developed around an initial kernel of a problem, and then modified, evolved, cajoled, and carried from one event and use to the next. Jesse & Mikel have espoused this concept before.

It is this continuity through many experiences and efforts that forges the applications and organizations. Following the initial surge, a core component of the community continues to talk about lessons learned, how to expand the tool, integrating with other workflows. An interim solution in one event slowly becomes more integrated as part of a response with new features, languages, and capabilities along each step.

This is primarily possible through openness: open-source, open-data, open-collaboration. Open Source software means that any solution developed can be reapplied and improved upon as new requirements and capabilities are needed. Open data guarantees that there is a free flow of information before, and during an event that can reach to any and all responders and volunteers as appropriate. Unforeseen needs can be met by modification and analysis of the data. And finally Open Collaboration means that people freely exchange needs, solutions, and ideas that ensure best options are available.

The continuity is further expressed in the tools and data remaining in the affected areas for citizens and government to utilize. There is less of a vacuum remaining after organizations withdraw as local groups can take ownership of the tools as well as stay connected with the community to build capacity.

CrisisCommons

What has been missing is a community that provides support and coordination of these various efforts. New projects will start and be deployed. But how do NGO’s and response communities identify which tools are available, reliable, and meet their operational requirements? How do they work with the volunteer communities to identify needs, provide ideas and specifications and adopt these tools as they are developed, tested, and supported?

A goal of CrisisCommons is to provide this role. Through international communities as well as local and regional organizations and camps that understand relevant risks and responses to provide for pertinent and continued support.

Organizations such as the World Bank, MapAction and others clearly have identified the potential of working with organizations such as CrisisCommons that can be an interface to the moving surges of volunteers, companies, and tools that they can leverage in reconstruction efforts.

There is a change in how the public is engaging and supporting in crisis response. They are able to augment capabilities and provide surge support. But it is necessary to recognize that the capability to respond and engage quickly and effectively occurs through continuous evolution. In preparation, prevention, and mitigation of disasters we can apply our tools and knowledge. In reconstruction we can modify and integrate the viable solutions into sustainable operations.

CrisisCongress

There are still a number of questions that have yet to be answered about this type of model. This week the first international CrisisCongress is convening with individuals from around the world to discuss the models of volunteer crisis response and technology. Through our discussions, shared experiences and problem solving we will have a clearer vision for how to continue the successes we have had and grow the capability for people to respond and help in moments and places of crisis, whether across the globe or in their own community.

Peek at the Sky

2010-07-14T00:54:45Z

So far 2010 has been incredible, and hectic. There have been numerous great projects, collaborations, and work that have prevented me from taking the time to blog. As I’ve noted in the past, Twitter defuses just enough of idea sharing that I don’t readily go to write articles. However, while these micro-messages relieve the immediate pressure of a concept they lack the general feeling of satisfaction that a more expressive and coherent article provides.

In quick summary of what I’ve been up to – as a means of providing a sort of excuse, preview, and immediate alleviating of the overwhelming feeling that “I haven’t posted in a while, so it’s difficult to start again”:

Besides a two week trip to India with Corrie, I gave a plenary lecture at the Library of Congress on Neogeography and digital preservation of geospatial data that will soon be online, spoke at the UK Socio-Cultural workshop on the use of community and citizen generated geospatial data in crisis response and development work. There is also some hopefully soon news on new countries opening up data.

At FortiusOne we’ve been fortunate to work with many great partners this Spring and Summer in providing open collaborative platforms that we’ll soon be able to share with everyone. In addition, we’ve been heads down building out a host of new features to GeoCommons that will really open the GeoWeb and provide more than just visualization. We also participated in the OGC testbed that experimented with the sharing and annotation of authoritative and crowd-sourced data, much of the lessons and capabilities that are already exemplar in GeoCommons, but we’ll be adding more features to enhance the interoperability.

DC continues to be an interesting place to live – and I’ve definitely had more exposure to government than I ever expected. The area is surprising in the innovation and connectedness that is definitely worth sharing.

While we’re about to launch a number of new capabilities, I’m also able to come up for a bit more air. My aim over the next few months is to dramatically increase my posts. Consider this one as a way to poke through the shroud that will enable more regular posting.

Corporate Social Responsibility – #thepromise

2010-06-10T11:22:55Z

I’m heading up to New York City for the day to hobnob with Edward Norton as well as ThinkSocial, PepsiCo, TED, and others at The #Promise conference, sharing our experience in corporate social responsibility and the potential impacts of using social media and technology in affecting global awareness and positive change.

I discussed our efforts more in depth on the FortiusOne blog – especially about our entire culture of open sharing and collaboration in GeoCommons as well as supporting communities like OpenStreetMap and CrisisCommons.

Next week I will be in London and Swindon in the UK at the Socioculture knowledge workshop discussing our work in a more academically rigorous venue.

World Bank Data released

2010-04-20T13:05:10Z

Announced today, the World Bank is openly releasing all of their indicator data. Previously, the World Bank had provided an API, but the full data downloads is a welcome move in the realization that access to raw data can enable many possible projects and analyses that a simple interface cannot.

The World Bank’s Open Data initiative is intended to provide all users with access to World Bank data. The data catalog is a listing of available World Bank data sources.

It is clear that an organization as wide reaching and impactful as the Bank has a vast amount of data across many organizations and groups. Pulling these data together, normalizing, and sharing them is a noble, and well done, effort.

Besides just the data catalog, the World Bank has provided an excellent inspection by country and indicator for actually moving through the data without having to be a developer. For example, the Central African Republic demonstrates the depth of information on economics, social welfare, health, business development, and the environment.

I also believe I see the indelible fingerprint of the excellent work of Development Seed on the design, and layout of a complex catalog of data, indicators, and communication. Having also worked with the World Bank on several projects, it’s interesting to see a large, multinational organization embracing innovative tools, open data, and information sharing in the pursuit of global development. There are also some more great announcements coming in the future.

And don’t forget to get your World Bank Data iPhone Application.

GITA CrisisCamp Phoenix

2010-04-19T17:18:43Z

Next week I’ll be at Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) conference joining a panel of illustrious peers that should result in quite a rousing discussion on open data, standards, viable business markets, and good ol’ neogeography. Peter Batty is moderating and includes James Fee, Ron Lake, Steve Coast, and myself.

I’m also giving a talk in the afternoon on Tuesday at GITA about crowd-sourced and volunteer crisis response. I will be discussing the history behind GeoCommons as a means for fast, collaborative map production and analysis, and the amazing work by the global communities such as OpenStreetMap, CrisisMappers, CrisisCommons, Ushahidi, and others as it applies to the advancement of geospatial technology and where it’s leading.

Camp Time!

In talking with the GITA organizers about the communities that responded to Haiti, and in general the ground-swell around technologists in crisis response, they were interested in supporting a CrisisCamp as part of the Conference. So I’m excited to say that there will be a CrisisCamp in Phoenix, Arizona on the Sunday, April 25th before the conference at the convention center. You can register at the EventBrite page

Obviously with so many geospatial people around, it’s going to be very map focused. It’s a great opportunity to look at some of the possible integration of the crowd-sourced data and community tools into more traditional, and analytic, platforms. In CrisisCampDC, volunteers such as Scott Broo did a slope analysis of LIDAR data in analyzing IDP camp placement and potential flood areas. How would GIS experts coordinate with the larger CrisisCommons community to identify and support these types of efforts. What are the other potential uses of LIDAR, remote imaging, surveying, mobile reported data, field analysis and paper map printing. And beyond just maps, we’ll be picking up on the number of CrisisCommons projects that continue to grow and evolve. And if you have ideas, suggest some or discuss on the CrisisCamp Phoenix Wiki page.

If you’re a technologist, volunteer, geospatial expert, NGO, government, or just interested, sign up and stop by and join the community! I hope to see you at CrisisCamp GITA Phoenix, or at the conference itself.

Where2.0 that matters

2010-03-31T18:41:53Z

Last night I spoke at Ignite Where2.0. The community and ecosystem of Where2.0 continues to utilize cutting-edge technology to provide consumer and business services and needs. You can locate activities, friends, stores, media and more and have it integrated into mobile lives and online personas.

These are all great advancements, and are blurring the lines between the online digital data and our interaction with the real world. However it’s vital that we realize the real potential application of these technologies and what our legacy is on the entire world. How can we engage with global citizens, understand their needs and desires, and collaborate on building channels of information and tools that serve our individual and collective goals.

Where2.0 That Matters

Almost two years ago I moved from Michigan, with stints in California, to Washington, DC. I moved at an auspicious time in our nation as the highly contentious presidential election approached at the same time concerns on transparent monitoring of democratic elections and process loomed. Social media and streams such as twitter, smartphones, voice technology and visualization provided the components to demonstrate how we can enable citizens to share their experiences, their problems, and for us to openly see problems and victories as they occurred.

This same concept applies just a well around the world. Open platforms such as Ushahidi have helped bring citizen reporting in elections in India, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan – each to different outcomes – but still in a way that harbinges a more open and transparent government process.

Now through my experiences with CrisisCommons, working with multinational organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations, and the federal and local governments, it’s clear to see how the leading edge of the Where2.0 community can have an amazing and unparalleled impact in providing understanding and change in global and local issues: Environment change, food security, humanitarian development, education, and disaster response.

In looking at the various open government initiatives, the questions arise in looking past the press release to the realized value of sharing data with businesses and citizens. I was struck my the foresight of the Arkansas AGIO team in the realization of how sharing data as broad and wide as possibly helps mitigate their vulnerability to disaster by enabling responders open access to vital information that would assist in response.

This concept is apparent in how OpenStreetMap was successful in Haiti. With the lack of official, government supplied data the best solution was to crowd-source the information from varied sources and rebuild the national data infrastructure, external to the government itself. While it has been unpredictably successful, the value continues to be the open access of the data by any and all organizations, and the eventual adoption by the government itself in rebuilding its capacity. The hope is that the government continues to openly collaborate with the global community in managing and maintaining this data so that the situation doesn’t need to reoccur.

In summary, the community is making a difference. The tools we develop in WhereCamp, IRC, open-source communities, and from companies are changing the capabilities of crisis response and development. My message is to urge the larger community to continue to think how their solutions can have a more broad impact.

If your technology can help a consumer find a great $4 latte, that’s good for your business. If it can also help a child find clean water near their village, that’s good for the world.

OpenSearch-Geo updates and test viewer

2010-03-26T13:06:38Z

Progress still continues with the broad adoption of the OpenSearch-Geo extensions written at WhereCamp just about 3 years ago. The current OGC OWS-7 testbed is considering many ways in which to integrate OpenSearch-Geo into catalog services and part of the official OGC architecture.

Specifically, Pedro and Jo have done great work getting the community supported specification written into OGC format. You can read his excellent article outlining the proposed modifications. Simple modifications include changing the geo:locationString to geo:name and also adding a geo:geometry to use more complex geometries than a simple polygon.

If you want to chime in on the conversation, join the OpenSearch mailing list, leave a comment here, or come to a WhereCamp, such as the one in Mountain View next weekend, to discuss it with the community.

Namste from India

2010-06-13T02:13:32Z

As may be apparently from some of my twitter’s, I’m currently traveling across northern India. Corrie was presenting at the Indo-US Frontiers of Engineering Forum in Agra about her work on sustainable energy and policy. We’re traveling from Agra, to Jaipur – the pink city, onto Varanassi along the spiritual Ganges river, and then to Delhi before heading back to Washington, DC.

It’s been very enlightening so far. The best comparison we have made based on our experiences is that it is the density and working density of China, with hints of Kenya. There is such a vibrant buzz about daily life and activities, with a fervor for interaction, color, and food that permeates the entire social landscape.

You can follow along with the map of the trip.

Platial and the Neogeography of the Web

2010-03-03T18:01:33Z

Over four years ago, as I experimented with the emerging broad tools for location, mobile, and the web, Platial arose to be the new place to easily share location information. Utilizing the increasingly popular GoogleMaps platform they made it clear that people were going to engage in new and comfortable ways with geospatial technology.

I remember being impressed by Platial and the goal of providing a way for anyone to easily annotate places that mattered to them.When I originally pitched the idea of a “Neogeography” book to O’Reilly it was with the inspiration of Di-Ann’s drive to citizen access to geospatial tools that I considered how people should be able to map their genealogy and share their trips.

As Mikel and I built Mapufacture, we partnered with Platial on several projects. Platial had attempted to make a local information aggregator that never really took off, and so we discussed how to utilize the geospatial data aggregation platform in Mapufacture to provide and aggregate content for Platial. I even helped build and test the Platial developer API using the first iterations of AtomPub and OpenSearch, the results of which can now be seen in Mapufacture’s and GeoCommons’ APIs.

In looking at specifically the GeoWeb landscape, Platial definitely provided a necessary capability of easily allowing people to annotate and share locations. It is the more explicit version of more recent location-sharing tools such as FourSquare, BrightKite, or Latitude that merely ask where you are, not what’s important to you. When Mapufacture was acquired by FortiusOne, the combination of the large head of geographic data in GeoCommons, combined with the very long-tail of aggregated sensor and streaming information provided for mixing disparate datasources and understanding of context and relevance. Users want to collaborate around all types of data, and share insights, find out relevant information, share this with friends, family, coworkers, and their government.

Clearly geographic data is not merely limited to traditional map sources or cartographic outputs. Location is being integrated across all platforms and recognized as a primary component of any data. What differs is the means by which users will interact, create, and use this information depending on their needs, context, and capabilities.

As has been widely reported by the news, GeoCommons is archiving the Platial user data and maps. Users can find their data by visiting the GeoCommons Platial Source page and searching for their username or maps and freely download them or build new maps and widgets. Along the way, perhaps users will also realize the capability of combining their personal information with relevant geographic data – because for example, you should know great surfing spots combined with wave heights and approved recreation areas.

Where to Surf? View full map

Di-Ann, Chris, Jason, Jake, and the rest of the tremendous Platial team have provided an amazing lead in the future of user contributed mapping – and while Platial itself is currently on hiatus, we’re excited that GeoCommons can provide a role in continuing open access to Platial users’ data and easy to use tools for them to visualize, analyze, and share their experiences and insights.

Updates from Haiti

2010-02-18T18:03:22Z

Tom and Schuyler are wrapping up their first deploy with the World Bank to Haiti. They’ve been doing amazing work in connecting the various participants on the ground in sharing data and providing them with lightweight tools and data from the broader web, CrisisMappers, and CrisisCommons community.

Schuyler has been writing up his experiences but due to connectivity and the large amount of work, they’ve been utilizing Twitter: @schulyer and @buckley_tom, continuing to keep the world up to date on their progress, safety, and insights. They have even managed to get out video discussing the use of OpenStreetMap by UN OCHA and other reconstruction efforts.

The USB Drives and USB Sticks that we sent down have seemed to be incredibly useful. The ability to utilize dynamic information and map interfaces in an offline, or semi-disconnected environment is empowering, while also allowing people to still print their maps with the data. We’re now working on deploying these same tools to Afghanistan and other areas that there has been a large amount of data gathered but not broadly distributed.

Tom and Schuyler head back to the U.S. tomorrow, but the job is far from done. Mikel’s Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (H.O.T.) is looking to deploy at the end of March to provide continue logistics support and begin training Haitians on building and utilizing the maps – much like the MapKibera project. Haiti has perhaps an excellent opportunity to leap-frog the use of open data and technology by empowering the government and people with tools they can use in reconstruction.

The platforms continue to evolve, incorporating lessons learned from user needs, to new data sources, and working in varied environments. We’ll continue to provide data and maps through GeoCommons that are usable by everyone, and distribute tools to anyone who needs them.

Data Dissemination to the Haiti Government

2010-02-08T15:09:42Z

In a joint project with the World Bank, USAID, and numerous other partners, there are now 6 TB hard drives on the ground in Haiti with mapping tools and satellite and remote imagery data being shared with the Haitian government. Read more about the project on the FortiusOne blog.

Schuyler Erle and Tom Buckley will be heading down on Tuesday to provide on the ground support between the government agencies and the community.

A tremendous thank you to the numerous individuals and groups that helped and provided tools or data: World Bank, San Diego State University / Calit2, Internet2, Georgetown University, DigitalGlobe, Delta State University, Sahaha, Crisis Mappers, OpenStreetMap, NOAA, Ushahidi, DevelopmentSeed, TelaScience, STAR-TIDES, CrisisCommons, USAID, GeoCommons, OpenSGI, GeoEye.

Grassroots Crisis development organization

2010-01-18T19:21:20Z

On Saturday, CrisisCamp Haiti was a revolutionary step that was indubitably a success. Within 3 days of an idea a small group of people helped coordinate and run a series of CrisisCamp Haiti code-a-thons across 5+ cities, over 400 participants, and at least 20 continuous hours of work. At least 6 projects were started, and many more existing projects added people to their community, taught new skills, and built out new features.

In general, the last week has involved a whirlwind of grassroots organization and development of numerous projects. This change of realtime engagement and response by volunteers and non-traditional organizations through internet has no doubt raised the hackles, or at least the concern, of traditional responders, agencies, and government. There are often voiced considerations of causing confusion, providing technology that will have no use, and lack of organization and hierarchy.

Even within these grassroots participants there are calls for centralization, and building chains of responsibility that are somewhat antithesis to the very mechanism by which the project started and how it acts. Many of these projects formulated from simple ideas, growth through passion, an aligned community, and freedom to explore ideas and vet these within the organization. Over time the best ideas crystalize and become part of the long term project and others spin out to new projects.

It’s about the Mindshare and Multiplied Resources

In the beginning of a Crisis response there is an intense desire for people to engage and provide some type of resource: money, time, guidance, knowledge, contacts. At the same time, there is the alternate side of organizations seeking these vast, and limited, resources. Aid agencies put out SMS shortcodes for donations, PayPal links, matching funds. First responders need time, physical labor, and fortitude. Technology projects seek knowledge, translation, testing, documentation, data, integration.

Perhaps uniquely, technology has the possibility of multiplying any individuals efforts. By providing code, or data, and aggregating that data out, my contribution can feed into numerous other projects – whereas time or money is nominally a single use resource. It can buy water, or work for an hour moving rubble, and that’s all that resource can do for that time.

So a perceived problem is in bifurcation and redundancy of efforts and confusion. This can largely be mitigated by open collaboration, and easily sharing data through interchanges. Projects like the People Finder is slowly converging on this type of solution through the use of PFIF exchange and common aggregation points with API’s.

We’re working on improving the CrisisCommons.org site and wiki in order to track active projects, aggregate similar efforts and point volunteers to project homes to join their individual communities.

Haiti Mapping

2010-01-15T12:56:09Z

The last 2 days have been filled with coordinating various efforts in gathering information and volunteers responding to the massive Haiti earthquakes of January 12. The analysis team at FortiusOne has put together a news dashboard highlighting the event and current response efforts.

There have been several tremendous groups that have actively been contributing data and tools both with remote developers and responders on the ground. CrisisMappers, CrisisCommons, Ushahidi, OpenStreetMap, just to name a few.

Many data providers have been making their data freely available. This is most notable when looking at Mikel’s screenshots of OpenStreetMap before the quake and after volunteers began tracing over historic maps and newer satellite imagery from Digital Globe and GeoEye.

Other efforts:

Ushahidi Haiti is crowd-sourcing reports. You can send a text message to 447624802524, send an email to haiti@ushahidi.com, or send a tweet with the hashtag/s #haiti or #haitiquake.
The CrisisCommons Wiki has a list of available data and organizations
Sahana has a form to list offices and organizations that are working on the ground
GeoCommons search for Haiti has all the datasets and maps that people have contributed for download as Spreadsheet, Shapefile, KML, and more
OpenStreetMap’s Project Haiti has a list of datasets and people tracing data

excited about in 2010

2010-01-07T13:20:02Z

As always, each new year brings a refreshed feeling of excitement. Perhaps its the long holidays and copious amounts of food, family and fun, or seeing a magic new number on the calendar that makes it feel like “The Future!”, or just a desire to take advantage of an allowed re-emergence of self and goal setting. Of course, time isn’t discontinous, so 2010 isn’t disconnected from the current continuum of development and trends – but it’s still worthwhile to take the time to step back and consider where we are and where we’re going.

Mashable and James, amongst many others, have excellent predictions that will and won’t happen in 2010. Generally they are good insight into trends in the geo and mobile space, although I will take up counterpoint to some of his suppositions on File Formats, Interfaces, OpenStreetMap and Augmented Reality.

File Formats and Interfaces

Geo is definitely becoming mainstream – everyone in my family has a PND, uses Google Maps, and are asking about various location sharing applications. In the next year we’ll see geo become part of the assumed infrastructure, like the timestamp on a post or article, the location will be embedded.

I don’t think TAG (Twitter, Apple Google), as James puts it, will be the only location sharing services. They, along with even more used Facebook, will definitely be the general public interface to location query and sharing – but just because of this reason alone they will have to be very generic, leaving room for specialized location based services to still thrive in niches. FourSquare offers ‘gaming’ or Flickr visual media, and others for music, drinking, sight-seeing, and house finding. They will leverage TAG, or at least TG.

Apple is like the Nintendo of consumer technology – more interested in providing an integrated, compelling experience, and privacy, before full open-ness and engaging with the developer or geek. They’ll still have API’s, but not something like OpenSocial, GeoRSS, or FireEagle integration.

The iPhone, and to lesser extent Android, have been revolutionizing mobile devices. They are truly providing windows into the rest of the web of data combined with the real world. It’s natural for geopatial tools to move into these interfaces, but like any good user experience it won’t be the same capabilities you find on a desktop or browser application. The utilities will be specialized for the small screens, finger inputs, and out-and-about tasks.

For file formats, the Shapefile, unfortunately, isn’t near EOL. Too many tools only speak shapefile, and there is numerous legacy data that is still only available in Shapefile. Sites like GeoCommons offer alternate formats for all the data, but that still won’t remove this basic format. Only when there is a truly open, license free, API to File GeoDatabases (FGDB), and every off the shelf tool can talk that API or Spatialite, will Shapefiles begin disappearing out.

GeoRSS and/or KML, on the other hand, will be in every service that does anything Geo. Looking at any iPhone App review that includes KML (or doesn’t) brings up this point. Near enough everyone has Google Earth on their desktop, and Google is making big pushes in the utilization of Google Earth Plugin for in-browser virtual globes.

Visualization Technologies

To date, we’ve been stuck with either Flash or JavaScript DOM magic (and yes, Silverlight is out there too) in order to do data and geospatial visualization in the browser. As I mentioned, Google has been pushing Google Earth Browser, but also more generally they released O3D, a modern incarnation of X3D, providing for more general capabilities for creating 3D browser experiences. VRML lives!

More recently, there has been a resurgence in vector graphics that don’t rely on proprietary technologies or additional plugins. SVG and Canvas support is pretty widely supported except in the infamous Internet Explorer (which I hear is still being used even today). Examples such as ProtoVis, Cartagen and Tom Carden’s experiments definitely demonstrate that SVG is just on the cusp of being able to do a majority of compelling visualizations capabilities.

Another driver for alternative visualization platforms is the drive to mobile device integration. I don’t see Apple allowing Adobe onto the iPhone anytime soon, and even Android doesn’t have support. What types of visualization make sense is still a very open question – but whatever they are will be done with something like SVG.

Geo Data Skirmishes

James suggests that OpenStreetMap “won’t dominate”. While it won’t dominate, I disagree that it won’t continue to be extremely successful.

Google has recently moved to gathering their own data. They still have a long way to go, with many, many errors in roads, areas, addresses, and businesses and they’re using the crowd to help clean it up. Google is in fact proving the crowd-sourced model. It will be successful. Google is doing it with Google’s data, so there is no positive external benefit to that work – so to the industry it just looks like another data provider. However, with this proven model OpenStreetMap will succeed since any effort built into OSM has a positive benefit to anyone else.

However, there is a major difference in the trajectory OpenStreetMap is taking in the United States compared with Europe and other regions. In most other countries, the governments had very draconian licensing and as such OpenStreetMap was creating data from blank areas – starting from scratch, and building a community of volunteers along the way.

By contrast, in the US a vast majority of the data is free, and becoming more available everyday under the new administration. Therefore the US has a broad coverage of decent data without having first built the user community. So the difficulty here is both in building out community, as well as engaging companies that can do the same thing on their own while retaining proprietary rights to the data.

What’s fascinating, and what signals the ultimate long term success of OpenStreetMap, is that US state, local, and federal government agencies themselves are engaging with OpenStreetMap. They are investigating how to put their data directly into OSM, and possibly even re-incorporate updates and modifications back to their own infrastructures. Some are even considering using OSM toolset as their infrastructure. OpenStreetMap is going through some growing pains with respect to licensing, maintenance, and community – but all necessary steps in moving from a small cadre of hackers to a global, public project.

As we see an increase in open government, specifically driven by the US Administration’s directives, as well as other initiatives such as INSPIRE, this embrace and utilization of open platforms, and repositories, for sharing, federation, and syncronization of data will increase.

And as for augmented reality, it won’t be as big as you think… yet.

OpenSearch descriptions for Flickr, GMaps, BBC

2009-12-08T04:23:23Z

Some of the sites I use most don’t support the very nice feature of OpenSearch discovery links. Among these are Flickr and Google Maps – so I first have to navigate to Flickr, then search rather than doing it straight from the browser quick search area.

Fortunately, someone has provided this for me. Just go to http://mvinetwork.co.uk/opensearch/ and click open your OpenSearch discovery and add whatever engines you want!

Hopefully more services that already can support OpenSearch templating add the necessary and simple descriptions and discovery links.

For extra credit, you could extend the OpenSearch definition for GMaps to support location name: http://maps.google.com/maps?q={searchTerms}&hnear={geo:locationString?} – and even Flickr supports (and was the model for) OpenSearch-Geo box search.

Who owns Arunachal Pradesh?

2009-12-04T13:12:23Z

I received an email the other day from a reader of my blog with a very interesting question:

I was looking at a certain area in North East part of India ( State called “Arunachal Pradesh”) which is integral part of India.

Both URL’s have different take. [Google Maps] shows it as Disputed Territory ( with Dash lines) and [Google Ditu] shows it altogether as part of China!

So, that got me unruffled and to question validity of both these sources. How does Ditu differ from Google maps? Whats association between the two and does Ditu has autonomy to change the boundary of the maps as per its wish.

Arunachal Pradesh is a border region between China and India – with 70% of the land being claimed by the Chinese as South Tibet. The border in question was decided in 1914 and called the McMahon Line, but never agreed upon by the Chinese. The Google Ditu vs. Google Map views.

Comparing Google Maps (background) with Google Ditu (foreground tinted red)

Territorial disputes are definitely not a new thing – however what is perhaps alarming is that there are two different representations of reality from the same vendor and data providers. So this is entirely a representational decision that is most likely driven by business and government pressures.

What’s particularly interesting here is that primarily these definitions of boundaries derive from the data providers. You can look in the bottom right corner for who the data providers are. For both versions the providers are the same: TerraMetrics, Mapabc, and Europa Technologies.

So it seems that the cartographic designers at Google Ditu have decided to represent it a certain way. Unfortunately, the map has no additional metadata. As broad consumption of maps increases, there is a commensurate interest in the why and what behind them. Who said these are the boundaries, when were they set, and why are they shown in this language?

And I don’t mean the long reams of unreadable metadata that are the current standards in the geospatial community, I mean human understandable descriptions of the various aspects of the data, while allowing additional discovery to deeper data.

One place that you can look at the data behind the source of the map is in OpenStreetMap. Arunachal Pradesh is shown similar to Google Maps version, and a user could optionally download the data to see the attributes, edit history and sources. Alternatively I can look in GeoCommons for the GADM Admin boundaries of India and see pertinent data on who provided the data, sources, and so on.

Boundary disputes in a bi-directional medium

The representation of boundaries is obviously a very contentious issue in mapping. Maps are perceived, and often do inform, territory. There is a long history of map representation being used to influence, coerce, and force land rights.

Unfortunately, even in a “Web2.0″ world of bi-directional sharing and collaboration, with maps we’re still often forced to accept a particular viewpoint. They have on-the-ground meaning and political impact. A well known example of this were the first “edit wars” in OpenStreetMap with the names of places in Cyprus. The resolution was to by default abide by the on the ground signage, but also store both versions and allow users to provide their own personalized perspective.

Understanding, awareness, and discussion about these issues is the reason for projects like OpenStreetMap or GeoCommons where you can download the information, build and share your own maps that represent your perspective.There

There isn’t an easy answer here – with companies such as Google there are obviously market, and government, forces that direct how to represent contentious issues. The best solution is to offer background, open data, and alternative perspectives. Without a voice, citizens are relegated to discussions by officials they may, or may not, have elected – and no meaningful way to illustrate their interpretation.

Geography Week and GIS Day at UVA

2009-11-17T16:42:09Z

This week is National Geography Awareness Week. Hopefully you’re celebrating it your own way by enjoying a map, thanking a cartographer, or even doing some mapping yourself! It’s clear that mapping and geo have entered the mainstream – everyone is engaging with maps through navigation systems, friend location finders, and virtual globes. The next step is to make people aware of the potential for them to personally engage with place and location for personal interests, business uses, and community building.

This Wednesday, I will be giving the GISDay plenary talk at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. My talk, “Neogeography: from Tower to Town Hall” will discuss how the movement to broad, public engagement and collaboration, particularly around geographic contexts through web maps, mobile devices, and open data can build stronger communities, improved research, representative government and better livelihoods of people. (link to the UVA Calendar)

Around Washington, DC you can join the OpenStreetMapping party in Bethesda, MD on Saturday, or you can check out the large list other activities at GISVirginia. Whatever you do, spread the word and encourage people to go out and map something.

Want to be a GeoCommons Engineer?

2009-11-11T16:08:18Z

It’s time for the FortiusOne GeoCommons team to expand again – and we’re looking for an incredibly bright, hard working, and team oriented engineer to head up our operations team.

GeoCommons is unique among most web applications – it isn’t just deployed to the public web, but also to intranets, the cloud, and to the field. We have servers running in Jalabad, Afghanistan and Nairobi, Kenya, we help develop technology solutions within the Federal government and Intel, and work with Academia, disaster response, and major corporations.

Are you an engineer who likes playing with new technology and solving hard problems? Do you love writing Linux scripts that can deal with massively horizontally scaled servers or compressing systems to run on USB sticks? Do you have a passion for open data, open-source software, collaborative government, and cutting-edge technologies that help the world? An interest in mapping is obviously a plus.

Ping us through the blog, twitter, LinkedIn, email, or stop by our offices in Arlington VA to chat directly. And no, we don’t need any recruiters.