Online Maps

WRITTEN ON Thursday, July 21st, 2005 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Online Maps

Stefan Magdalinski, founder of UpMyStreet and other cool stuff, writes to set out his frustrations about the Ordnance Survey’s commercial policies. I feel strongly about this. OS charges developers £500 even to have a play with any of the data…then you have to share your business idea with them. This policy fails to create any […]


CONTINUE READING - Comments Off on Frustration at Ordnance Survey’s maps policy

WRITTEN ON Thursday, July 21st, 2005 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Online Maps

Who knows about it? I told Bill Thompson, emailed Dave at NTK, and posted to BBC Backstage. Is that everybody? What’s in there so far? g-Traffic info and the UK speed cameras map. I also really liked the urban tapestries, pubs in Folkestone, find the landmark, Mad Max locations, life of Jesus etc but they’re […]


CONTINUE READING - LEAVE A COMMENT (4)

WRITTEN ON Wednesday, July 20th, 2005 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Online Maps

Bill Thompson also argues for an open OS interface – I’d like to see an OS maps API to rival Google, one backed by a guarantee from the government that the service will remain freely available, that the API will be published as an open standard and so not subject to arbitrary change, and that […]


CONTINUE READING - LEAVE A COMMENT (2)

WRITTEN ON Wednesday, July 20th, 2005 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Online Maps

Check out this UK speed camera map by Ben Charlton (slightly cynical 24 year old, engaged, works on IT at Templeman Library, other interests include pies and spam; see all his home photos here). It uses speed camera location data from Pocket GPS World and Google maps.


CONTINUE READING - LEAVE A COMMENT (1)

WRITTEN ON Wednesday, July 20th, 2005 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Online Maps

Not quite the new presentation of government data I had in mind, but I see cult movie fans can now satellite-view all the Mad Max 2 locations with Google earth. In theory they could add useful layers like earthquakes, coffee houses or US congressional districts but there aren’t any around Broken Hill. “You can run, […]


CONTINUE READING - Comments Off on It’s humungus, it’s reasonable, but it’s not a government data mashup…

WRITTEN ON Tuesday, July 19th, 2005 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Online Maps

This looks pretty damn useful. An online map of the whole UK that tells you where the traffic jams are. It’s called g-Traffic Info and it uses BBC and Highways Agency data. The HA provides roadworks and motorway message signs through their QMISS XML feed. It’s supported in some way by BBC Backstage about which […]


CONTINUE READING - Comments Off on First mashed-maps competition entry: gTraffic Info

WRITTEN ON Saturday, July 16th, 2005 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Online Maps

Last night’s post brings in first thing this morning a mail from Urban Tapestries project (man they’re fast). This explored shared location-based discussion in public space – a online manifestation of shared urban intelligence. They did two animations to illustrate the idea: this and this. really clever. Then they have a second two-year research project […]


CONTINUE READING - Comments Off on Weave a tapestry of street smarts

WRITTEN ON Saturday, July 16th, 2005 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Online Maps

Three months ago Stef* was freaking out about the Google maps explosion, we saw the Chicago crime map and Tom F came up with the idea we should run an Ideal Government competition to see who could hack what using public sector data and Google maps. I’d just written up the rubric when we heard […]


CONTINUE READING - Comments Off on Google maps, public services and the Ordnance Survey

WRITTEN ON Friday, July 15th, 2005 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Design: Co-creation, Online Maps, What do we want?

Put publicly available UK data on the map and win a you-centric geographical prize! I’m delighted to announce the first ever Ideal Government prize competition. To win the prize, hack together some government data with a free online map, and send a short description and a link to Ideal Government during July or August. Show […]


CONTINUE READING - LEAVE A COMMENT (7)

WRITTEN ON Tuesday, July 12th, 2005 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Online Maps

Stefan’s excellent tube disruption visualisation has attracted some good comments, eg another ex-londoner Said, June 27, 2005 @ 3:35 pm I also hear that the Japanese minister of Transport appears on television once a year to “apologise” for the 45 minutes (or so) of accumulated delays. This appeals to me immensely as I think it […]


CONTINUE READING - Comments Off on Tube movie deserves a Ministerial apology

Next Entries »