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Souvenirs from Where 2.0 2007

Flickr

Flickr has about 20 millions geo-tagged photos in its database, meaning millions of tags attached to millions of GPS coordinates. That's a lot, and there is certainly a way to build useful services on top of that.

For instance, Geocodr is a mash-up using Flickr's API to identify the possible location of  anything. Type "Eiffel tower" in the entry box, and you get the exact location of the famous French monument. Type "Celine Dion",  and you get Las Vegas.

But Yahoo! is taking it seriously with it's prototype : Zurfer. It's a mobile location-based photo browser. With Zurfer, you will access your Flickr pictures and browse the entire database of pictures taken around your current location. You therefore access user-generated geolocalized content from your phone.

Sexy shoes

One project caught the attention of most delegates at the Where 2.0 conference.

It's called the Aphrodite Project, and it's about shoes. Sexy shoes. Sexy shoes for sex workers. No kidding.

A prostitute using these plateform shoes would benefit from an embedded GPS for localisation in case of assault, an alarm, a button to call 911, and a storage compartment to store money and condoms.

In addition, on one side of the shoe is positioned a screen with loudspeakers, to attract and entertain the potential clients. And it's not April fools' day...

Do you know Fatdoor ?

Fatdoor launched its service yesterday at Where 2007. The service consists in helping you get to know your neighbours, and build communities.

When you register, you enter your address and Fatdoor displays your neighbours: the ones they collected from the US White Pages  and, increasingly, the ones who registered on Fatdoor.

From that point, you can enrich your profil, or the profil of your closest neighbours, like in a wiki. Of course, if you bad-mouth about your neighbours, you will soon be banned from Fatdoor's community.

You can also create groups of interest, based on hobbies, political interests, etc. And soon, at least that's what Fatdoor is betting on, you'll know you neighbours and share your interests.

Business model ? Nope. But one day, local advertising :-)

Google's Street Level new feature

Today at Where 2.0, Google announced its new Street View feature. Included in Google Maps, it comes as a visualization option next to Map/Satellite/Hybrid.  Street View provides a street level immersive photography within the maps. Try it in San Francisco, where lots of roads are already covered ! Here is a video :

Garmin opens its devices

It's something we've been expecting: Garmin has decided to open its devices to developers. The news was released this morning, right at the start of the Where 2.0 conference, here.

Garmin will provide a number of software tool kits on a dedicated web site, allowing to transfer information back and forth with Garmin GPS devices, and to format POIs. However voices are not mentioned in the press release.

It's a very good news for companies like Navx, which will seize the opportunity and expand their content offering to the millions of Garmin customers.

Have a look at GpsBusinessNews, where Ludovic Privat provides extensive additional information.

Where 2.0

The Where 2.0 conference is taking place this week in San Jose, California.

550 people are expected to join, which is small compared to the 2.0 expo last month, but on a sharp increase compared to last year.

 
It officially starts on Tuesday, but an Ignite session was organised Monday night at 7 pm. What is an Ignite session ? I love it: a number of projects are presented, each one has 5 minutes to catch your attention and interest. You don’t have time to get bored by a presentation, it’s already moving to the next one !

18 projects were presented. Out of them, we found 5 of them particularly interesting:

• UpNext: a 3D cityscape, incredibly fast, interactive and fluid. Only for private beta testers.
• Twittervision: great mash-up, providing location on top of Twitter
• GeoCommons: a tool to upload geographic data and generate maps
• dopplr: an online service for frequent travelers. Allows you to store and share your travels. Only for private beta testers.
• Fatdoor: a social network to help you know your neighbours, and possibly connect with them. Still in alpha.

More about the conference tomorrow. The program is promising !

GeoFeed : Flickr Photos

Dan Catt from Flickr is working on a way to subscribe to a feed of photos taken at a given lat/long. His latest post includes London and San Francisco as examples of Geofeed. Interesting.

technorati tags: Geotag Flickr GeoFeed

The secret behind Angelina's tattoos

According to Daily Mail, the tattoo on Angelina Jolie's left arm has a very geospatial secret: It's list of lat/long coordinates showing the locations where her four children were born :

1. Cambodia : Maddox
2. Ethiopia : Zahara
3. Namibian beach : Shiloh (Brad's baby)
4. Vietnam : Paw Thien

Click here to see the exact locations.

Paparazzi p.s: Yes, it looks like an old tattoo that was covered up. Dave says that the new tattoo is located where she used to have Billy Bob tattoo on her arm :)

BBC GeoStories: Tagging the news

BBC is experimenting with tagging stories, sounds, photos and video to its location on a map.

First exemples can be seen at GeoStories : Those taking part in the project were equipped with a Nokia N-series phone, and a Garmin GPS device. The aim was to explore a kind of storytelling fixed to geographical locations.

Find here the story of GeoStories.

technorati tags: geotagging mashups GepStories