Topix.net is a local news aggregation website programmed a high degree of geo-sophistication. It serves over 32,500 communities with local news by aggregating news from all over the world, analysing the feed with a complex set of algorithms to determine the area the news relates to, down to the zip code level, and serving it to the right audience. Rich Skrenta, the co-founder and CEO of Topix LLC, a hacker himself, reveals some of the magic behind the website that is rapidly replacing local newspapers.
Tags: technology
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As location-based services become ubiquitous, so will government demands for location information as part of criminal and intelligence investigations. Real-time location tracking of cell phones by the government, and subpoenas for cell phone records indicating location, are already routine investigative techniques. EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston discusses these issues and …
"It's beautiful science." Patrick Hogan, Program Manager at NASA Learning Technologies, describes World Wind, NASA's incredible free open source application that provides access to terabytes of imagery collected by NASA's satellites. It lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, and virtually travel to the moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, …
While it is true that the last few years have seen an explosion of geo-related innovation, Chris Spurgeon reviews some of history's other geo hacks. He surveys some of humanity's cleverest solutions in its attempts to answer such basic questions as "where am I?" and "which way should I go?" …
KML is a file format used to display geographic data in an Earth browser, such as Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google Maps for mobile. KML uses a tag-based structure with nested elements and attributes and is based on the XML standard. Brian McClendon and Lars Rasmussen of Google give …
The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) is a GIS that supports both raster and vector based image processing. Originally developed for Unix by the US Army Construction Engineering Research Laboaratory (USACERL), it is now an open source project supported by thousands of developers. In this technical presentation, UC Davis …
The Google Earth project has the ambitious goal of creating a 3D model of the entire Earth. In recent years, advances in mapping have made this goal attainable within a reasonable period. John Hanke & Brad Schell - Product Directors for Google Earth - discuss and demonstrate Google Earth and …
GeoRSS allows location information to be added to an RSS feed. This gives more context to a feed by allowing it to be searched based on location or to be used by a mapping API. Mikel Maron relates how GeoRSS evolved from the W3C's Geo vocabulary and how it continues …
Despite being around for over ten years, the functions and actions of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) remain a mystery to many of us. Raj Singh, who runs the OGC Network, delivers a quick and lively overview of the consortium's contribution to Google Maps, MSN Maps, and the mapping software …
Data is a fundamental part of geolocation. However, most of the extant data is proprietary, incorrect, out of date, or any combination of the three. OpenStreetMap is addressing these problems with open sourced GPS data gathered through an active wiki-based community. Steve Coast introduces OpenStreetMap and discusses some of its …
Co-chairs Nat Torkington and Brady Forrest deliver a concise overview of the major topics covered in the wide variety of discussions and presentations in this year's Where 2.0 conference. They also look back at the changes and surprises seen since the first conference in 2005. This is a perfect introduction …
Geospatial veteran David Sonnen sparks a discussion with three other GIS practitioners on bringing development tools out of the labs and onto the Internet for broader use. These new tools are enabling geospatial capabilities to be embedded in web services and web sites. In an informative session they debate the …
The mobile phone has the potential to put location-based services and applications in the hands of a global audience but the road for developers is not always straightforward. Russell Beattie is joined by a panel of expert developers, data service providers, and mobile carriers in a conversation that examines the …
The "architecture of participation" is a key theme in the evolution of location-enabled services. Paul Levine - General Manager of Local for Yahoo! - reveals how his company is encouraging users, merchants, developers, and publishers to participate in Yahoo!'s local services and contribute to a grand strategy of expanding the …
Entrepreneur Geoff Palmer knows that what counts is location, location, location, but he's no property developer. Palmer introduces uLocate, which uses location-aware technologies to let you track your pet, check your teen's driving speed, or even find the spot where you took that wonderful photograph -- all from your cell …
Using public data online is often a challenge, and made all the more frustrating when the data you need is either inaccessible or verifiably incorrect. How hard would it be, for example, to change incorrect directions to your house as displayed on Google, or to combine your address with public …
Jack Dangermond has been at the forefront of evolving geographic information services (GIS) for nearly 40 years. In this talk, and in a subsequent discussion with Tim O'Reilly, he outlines his vision for the geospatial industry, reviews emerging geoweb technology, and imagines future directions for the GIS community. [Where 2.0 …
Our society is becoming increasingly reliant on GPS signals for outdoor location positioning and tracking, but these signals don't reach indoors or into urban canyons. To resolve this problem, a new location technology using commercial broadcast television signals provides reliable location information to augment or replace GPS. [Where 2.0 audio …
The military often uses overlays on top of satellite images for strategic purposes. However, the same images can also be used for civilian purposes, in cases such as monitoring reconstruction activity in regions hit by disaster. JC Herz discusses how these "Flickr for satellite" images are used in combination with …
The increasing availability of free map and imagery data and services comes at a time when GPS and other location sensors are becoming ubiquitous. This has brought geospatial applications programming within reach of a growing number of developers and the results, exciting in themselves, point the way to a fully …