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Brady Forrest

Brady Forrest is Chair for O'Reilly's Where 2.0 and Emerging Technology conferences. Additionally, he co-Chairs Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Berlin and NYC. Brady writes for O'Reilly Radar tracking changes in technology. He previously worked at Microsoft on Live Search (he came to Microsoft when it acquired MongoMusic). Brady lives in Seattle, where he builds cars for Burning Man and runs Ignite. You can track his web travels at Truffle Honey.
Tue
May 19
2009
MapstractionAPI Sandbox: For Trying Out Multiple Providers
by Brady Forrest | @brady | comments: 0
For their workshops on Mapping APIs today Evan Henshaw and Andrew Turner created the Mapstraction API Sandbox on Google App Engine. Mapstraction (Radar post)is a Javascript framework that abstracts many different mapping APIs. The sandbox is no different. It will let you play with code samples from Microsoft's, Google's, Yahoo's, Mapquest's and OpenStreetMap's APIS (and many others for a total of 11 major providers). The Sandbox also has hooks into data services such as geocoders and Geonames.
Websites depend on their mapping providers (like Google or Yahoo). However the API calls are proprietary so the sites are unable to easily switch between providers. Mapstraction provides a very easy way to do that if a provider was down or the TOS changed. Mapstraction is in use by several companies including Reuters and Swivel. If you're not sure if Mapstraction will work for you check their Features page.
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Mon
May 18
2009
More Geo-Games: Ship Simulator on Google Earth
by Brady Forrest | @brady | comments: 2
At Google I/O 2008 the Google Earth API was released. It brought Google Earth's 3D capabilities to the web (with the help of browser extensions). Since that release they've started supporting Macs. One really nice part of the Google Earth API is the ability to create games in the 3D world. One of the sample apps was the game Milk Truck. Since the release there have been some games, but now the day before Where 2.0 there's a new one that been released.
Frank Taylor of the Google Earth Blog just posted about Ships, a new ship simulation plugin that uses the API (Frank's movie review). It's one of the Plugins he's going to dissect in his Google Earth workshop at Where 2.0 tomorrow (use whr09rdr for 20% off that last-minute registration).
PlanetInAction.com has released the first version of a fantastic free simulation game which leverages the browser-based Google Earth plugin as the primary graphics engine. The game is called "Ships" and lets you take the helm on ships - barges, cargo ships, container ships, and even a cruise ship (the QE 2). Everything is in 3D, you can drive the ships anywhere in the world, there are sound effects, physical modeling, and realistic visual effects that makes this a wonder to behold. Not only that, but the author - Paul van Dinther - has created some great camera tools to make it easier for people to follow the action and see the sights. This is the best example of the Google Earth API I've seen to date.
Ships uses the Google Earth API, Flash 8.0, and Javascript. He also used Soundmanager 2 for sound effects, and SketchUp for the 3D models. Not everything is physically modeled (the anchor doesn't stop the boat).
Google Earth and its API are ripe for this type of game play. Google maps is the UI for the PS3's Last Guy (Radar post). However, after seeing creations like this I am going to hold out for Last Guy on Google Earth. While I'm asking the internet for things, I'd love to see a Katamari Damacy on the 3D plugin. In the meantime I'll have to make due with these Frank-Taylor-endorsed Satellite Debris Simulator and Paragliding games.
We still haven't seen the 3D API rear its head on Google's own site -- I/O 2009 is next week, perhaps there? I think that when that occurs more users will download the extensions and sites will have an incentive to implement the API and there will be a chance of me getting Katamari Damacy.
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Mon
May 18
2009
Ignite Google IO Line-Up; 5 Passes to Give Away
by Brady Forrest | @brady | comments: 15
I will be hosting an Ignite at Google IO on 5/27 from 4:15-5:15 at Moscone. I did an open call for speakers and I'm happy to announce the following will be joining me onstage:
Leo Dirac - Transhumanism Morality
Why only geeks and hippies can save the world.
Michael Driscoll - Hacking Big Data with the Force of Open Source
The world is streaming billions of data points per minute. This is Big Data - capital B, capital D. But capturing data isn't enough. We need tools to make sense of it, to help us better understand -- and predict -- what we click and consume. We want to make hypotheses about the world. And to test hypotheses, we need statistics. We need R.
Pamela Fox - My Dad, the Computer Scientist: Growing up Geek
Tim Ferriss - The Case for Just Enough: Minimalism Metrics
Looking at how removing options and elements gets better conversions, etc., looking at screenshots of start-ups I'm working with and real numbers. Some humor (I hope) and fun, both philosophical and tactical.
Nitin Borwankar - Law of Gravity for Scaling
Why did Twitter have scaling problems? I spent 6 months thinking deeply about this and derived a simple formula that a high school student would understand. It demonstrates where the center of gravity is moving in the "Next Web" and why this aggregation of CPU's is even bigger than Google's. And oh yes it explains how to build a service that scales to 100 million CPU's.
Kevin Marks - Why are we bigoted about Social networks?
Andrew Hatton - Coding against Cholera
I'll examine what IT life is like on the front line with Oxfam, a humanitarian agency, and how good code can make a real difference to people's lives in all sorts of ways..some of them surprising..
Robin Sloan - How to Predict the Future
OK, back in 2004 I made a video called "EPIC 2014," predicting the future of media (and Google). It turned out to be 100% CORRECT. No, just kidding. But it made a lot of people think, which is really the point of talking about the future. Turns out there's a whole professional discipline of future forecasting. And there are certain ways you can think about the future that will give you better odds of being right than others.
Kathy Sierra - Become Awesome
Everyone who submitted a talk has a pass already so I am left with 5 free ones to give away. Google will be releasing a lot of products and APIs in the next two weeks between Where 2.0 and Google I/O. Put your wishlist in the comments by Wednesday morning. My top 5 will get the passes.
tags: google, ignite
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Wed
May 13
2009
Come to Ignite Where & Launchpad
by Brady Forrest | @brady | comments: 2
Every year we kick-off Where 2.0 with a combination Launchpad and Ignite event. This year is no different. So far we've got 11 geo-oriented Ignite talks paired with 5 product demos spread across two sets. We'll be starting the show at 7PM and will conclude by 9PM on May 19th at the Fairmount in San Jose. Bar opens at 6:30.
RSVP @ Facebook. RSVP @ Upcoming.
First Set (Starts 7:00)
Demo: Andrew Weinreich - Xtify
Xtify is a location-based services platform offered to website developers. Xtify is able to abstract location without the involvement of wireless carriers.
Demo: Brian Trussel - Glympse: Socializing LBS
The next generation personal location-based service products should be much more like sharing a phone call and a lot less like forming a baseball team. Sharing location is impulsive, like text messaging and it needs to be instant, simple and clean.
Demo: Noam Bardin - Waze
Waze drivers are building the first dynamic driving map reflecting the roads right now. Driving with waze mobile client lets users passively and actively share real time data and receive the optimal route to their destination. This level of dynamic information can only be achieved by drivers participating and sharing real driving data. Waze is all over Israel and will be coming to the US (currently Android only).
David Troy - Election 2008: Mapping Voter Experiences with Twitter Vote Report
With irregularities in the election process widely reported in 2000 and 2004, the 2008 election represented one of the first opportunities to use technologies like Twitter, SMS, and cell phones to document and map the election process. Twitter Vote Report was the result of work by activists and technologists, and created a permanent document of the 2008 election.
Sam Hiatt - Implementing Web Services for NASA's Terrestrial Observation and Prediction System
The ecological monitoring and forecasting lab at NASA Ames Research Center produces daily global estimates of parameters related to ecosystem condition. Implementing web services has increased accessibility and greatly improved the usefulness of our data products. We present the TOPS data gateway and show how it is being used by the US National Parks Service to assist resource management.
David Felcan - A Crime Early Warning System: Using Spatial Statistics to Detect Changing Geographic Patterns in Crime
Large quantities of spatial data can be as much a burden as a boon without the tools to properly tease out important details. For police, HunchLab enables early detection of changes in crime patterns, pulls information automatically out of millions of incident records, and provides the means of detecting and stopping crime spikes earlier than they would be found through more conventional means.
Adam DuVander - How Open Should Mapping APIs Be?
Google Maps is innovative, but also proprietary. Yahoo, Microsoft, and Mapquest also have equally closed platforms, while the open source JavaScript library Mapstraction ties them together with a single interface. This panel will discuss whether there should be a standard for interoperable mapping APIs, or whether there's more benefit and innovation to remaining proprietary.
Michelle Bowman - Here There Be Lions: The Cartography of the Future
A new breed of maps is emerging that are revealing breakthroughs in our understanding of biology, neuroscience, ecology and the physical world. We’re now able to map not just physical geographies, but genomes, neural pathways, emotions, social networks - even the global movement of ideas. These new maps tell powerful stories about the changes that will shape society over the next twenty years.
Second Set (Starts 8:15)
Demo: Tom Link - Product Launch: SpatialKey
SpatialKey is a next generation Information Visualization, Analysis and Reporting System. It is designed to help organizations quickly assess location based information critical to their organizational goals, decision making processes and reporting requirements.
Demo: Ahmed Lacevic & He Huang - Demographic Data Mining Using Social Explorer
We present a very powerful new tool for mining current and historical demographic data online. We will show a quick and easy way to find the data, visualize change over time using beautiful thematic maps, create slide-shows with a click of a button, exploring everything from income to rent affordability to slavery in 1790.
Peter Batty - Social Networking Based on Future Location
This presentation talks about the challenges in building a fine-grained model of a person's future location, and about the range of powerful applications that can be built off such a model. Many applications focus on the current location of a person and their friends - future location is harder to handle but arguably more useful.
Ariel Waldman - Space Hacks
From creating remote-sensing cubesats to analyzing aerogel: how the public is hacking into space exploration.
Tim Waters - MapWarper, An Open Source Online Map Rectifier
Utilising open source tools, a website is presented enabling a user to upload an image and rectify it. Maps can be rectified by the crowd. Rectified maps can used as WMS or packaged and downloaded as tiles. Metadata regarding provenance and licensing is captured. All maps are searchable, resulting in a library of user submitted maps. The application is free and open source.
Ian White - Got Smarts
The coming wave of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) has been underway in the world of public infrastructure for over 10 years. Few are aware of the vast implications--fuel efficiency gains, lessened congestion, on-time trains, decreased accident rates/fatalities, the list goes on...But few outside the public sector are aware of what this means and how it will affect the morning commute.
Martin Flynn - OpenGTS - Open Source GPS Tracking System
OpenGTS (Open Source GPS Tracking System) was first made available in January of 2007 and is now in use in at least 33 different countries around the world for tracking vehicles, trucks, delivery vans, ships, people, phones, etc. This session will be an overview of the features and capabilities of the OpenGTS System available on SourceForge.
Eric Gundersen - Washington, DC's Government Push for Open Data and Map Mashups
This session will provide an overview of the Washington, D.C. government's recent decision to open up many of its public data streams for easy public use and the contest they sponsored to highlight the usefulness of this data.
tags: geo, ignite, where 2.0
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Tue
May 12
2009
History of Fonts on the Ignite Show
by Brady Forrest | @brady | comments: 3
Bram Pitoyo gave a great and informative talk on the History of Fonts at Ignite Portland 5. It's this week's episode of the Ignite Show. Enjoy!
Subscribe to the Ignite Show via iTunes
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Mon
May 11
2009
What is the Right Amount of Swine Flu Coverage?
by Brady Forrest | @brady | comments: 6
Dr. Hans Rosling (Gapminder) has posted a short, but effective video comparing the coverage of Swine Flu to a more constant killer like Tuberculosis. He decries the fact that Swine flu has generated many orders of magnitude more coverage per death than Tuberculosis.
Dr. Rosling has a point. The media could be said to be disproportionately covering Swine Flu. However, how can the media not be expected to cover Swine Flu? It is new. It is spreading quickly. It is something that will potentially impact the daily lives of their readers (and themselves). Tuberculosis, while on the rise (see the chart to the right), is a known, is relatively contained and there is a vaccine.
Which should the media focus on? Which would you expect them to? While the media coverage maybe overblown (and I questioned putting this post up at all) I think it is understandable to want to track this potential new threat closely.
[Tuberculosis Growth Chart via Wikipedia]
Updated:I realized that this post was incomplete without checking some trend data to see how people's interest compare. Here's the Wikirank comparison chart:
And the Google Trends comparison:
For "fun" I included H1N1 to see if the name change was working. Based on search volume it does not seem to have been effective use of re-marketing dollars.
It's clear that the news is driving a lot of interest in Swine Flu and that there is very little residual interest in Tuberculosis. Whether this is the tail wagging the dog remains to be seen.
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Mon
May 11
2009
Vine, Disaster Tech From Microsoft
by Brady Forrest | @brady | comments: 5
Last week Microsoft will started inviting users into Vine, a public-service tool that will be especially useful during disasters. In case of an emergency or everyday life, Vine will be a multi-platform, ad-free method of staying in touch with networks. Once Vine is launched it has the potential to become a very powerful communication platform. Last week I had a phone call with Tammy Savage, the GM of Microsoft’s Public Safety Initiative.
Vine's primary goal is to connect you with a small group of people, reach them wherever they are, and allow you to determine what conditions are like where they are. Vine will do this by letting you connect to it as you desire. Initially that means Facebook, LinkedIn, email, SMS, and the Vine Windows client.
Vine has three main functions and many supporting features:
Send An Alert - You can send a message to a pre-constructed group via its own email address and SMS keyword. All replies go to the group and the messages can later be found on the group's report.
Post A Report - You can also post to the report. This is structured info that can be shared It's also a way to share information. You can "Check In Safe and Well", "Report Upcoming Plans", "Report a Situation", or share "General Information". Each option is associated with a timestamp, a location, and provides different data fields (for example "Check In Safe and Well" has a toggle for "Okay"/"Not Okay"; "Report Upcoming Plans" includes a date range). Tammy said that this isn't blogging , however it seems like it will be very similar.
Research News and Safety Info - On Vine you can search for news and alerts in a geographic area. You you will be able to include GeoRSS feeds from around the web. It provides situational awareness in cases of emergencies.
Vine will need to support many different platforms. In my discussion with Tammy she said that there will be web access, Twitter integration, and access for non-Windows users and mobile users. Tammy would not make a commitment to any platform however the most logical ones are Mac, Windows Mobile and the iPhone. An API is under consideration. Right now is a time of experimentation for the group. After they see their users' behavior the team will start making decisions about how to expand access.
Vine is a mashup made into a product. It uses a combination of eleven Microsoft services. The ones that I am aware of include: Live Search (for alerts), Messenger (for chat), Live ID (for identity), Hotmail/ Live Mail, VE Maps and SQL Server on the backend. In the future we can expect Tellme's voice recognition to be added. The Vine Windows Client will use the new Windows 7 Location and Sensing API in the future.
Vine will not have ads. The team is rightly concerned that ads could be distracting in a crisis. Instead they will add on premium services, but their will always be a free version. I would bet that premium services will be web services (not clients). Enterprises and governments will also be interested in hosting their own version.
Vine is going to start testing in the Seattle area. I asked Tammy if this meant that there would be staged emergencies (ala Strong Angel) to test; there won't be. Instead they want people to use it in their daily lives. Over that time they'll see how people integrate Vine into their lives.
In times of crisis people fall back on what they know. Twitter has quite famously been used during emergencies, but it does not have all of the functionality necessary to be the only method of communication used. Vine will use Twitter's powerful ability to to broadcast bits of information to many people from anywhere and supplement it with social networks, news reports, research ability and location-awareness. Tools like Twitter and Facebook need champions to make them suitable for disaster relief scenarios. Hopefully Vine (and InSTEDD's GeoChat) can create a platform that can and will save lives.
For more on Disaster Technology champions watch Jesse Robbins and Mikel Maron in their talk on DisasterTech at Where 2.0.
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Thu
May 7
2009
Eat Fast, Get Fat?
by Brady Forrest | @brady | comments: 18
As someone who fights with quick hotel and airplane meals as a part of my livelihood I found this chart unsurprising. It's known that eating fast doesn't give your brain time to get the "all full" signal so you can eat more calories - especially if you are eating calorically-dense fast foods. This chart was created by Catherine Rampell of Economix who describes her methodology:
Here I've plotted out the relationship between time the average person in a given country spends eating and that country's obesity rate (as measured by the percentage of the national population with a body mass index higher than 30).
There was no cartogram of this data. However, I felt this cartogram of 2004 McDonalds restaurants (which serves calorically-dense foods) from Worldmapper certainly helps us understand the US's high-ranking.
There are other fast food chains and sources of calories around the world so the cartogram doesn't support Catherine's other findings. I really debated including the cartogram in the post as I don't want to confuse the data sets. Let me know if I made the right decision.
(via the ever-excellent PSFK)
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Wed
May 6
2009
Ignite Show: Lisa Katayama on Japanese Gadgets and Toys
by Brady Forrest | @brady | comments: 0
Lisa Katayama is a tech journalist and an expert on Japanese culture. She combines the two in her Ignite talk this week where she demystifies Japanese gadgets and their society's fascination with them.
You've probably read Lisa's writing before. She is the author of Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan (a fun book that I got for Christmas this past year). She currently writes for BoingBoing Gadgets and has written for Gizmodo and io9 in the past. You can follow her blog Tokyo Mango to keep up-to-date on new gadgets.
You can subscribe to the Ignite Show on iTunes or YouTube.
tags: ignite, japan
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Wed
May 6
2009
That Was Fast: Mapme.at Uses Latitude API
by Brady Forrest | @brady | comments: 1
Yesterday location-sharing startup Mapme.at took advantage of the Latitude API (Radar post) to get their users' location. Now you can share your Latitude-enhanced location with your Mapme friends, track your location and update Yahoo's FireEagle (which in turn can update many other services).
To use the new method Mapme users have to enable the Latitude blog badge and then copy the JSON Latitude URL from the bottom of that page. Then you just add that URL to your Mapme account's Source page.
Once shared there is no way to undo Mapme's access to your location other than turning off Latitude. In the future I expect Google to implement OAuth which give user's more control, but for now be aware that once your Latitude ID is shared it is "forever". (As this is a Developer Release and obviously not intended for widespread use Google gets a pass on this.. for now, but user's should be aware of this limitation).
I wrote more about Latitude's nascent API in my post: Google's Sneaky Launch of Latitude's Location-Sharing API
tags: geo, google, mapmeat
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Recent Posts
- Google's Sneaky Launch of Latitude's Location-Sharing API on May 6, 2009
- Swine Flu Tracker on May 5, 2009
- Jack Dangermond Interview 3 of 3: The Geoweb on May 1, 2009
- Where Week 2009 on May 1, 2009
- Ignite @ Google I/O; Submit Your Talk on April 30, 2009
- Jack Dangermond Interview 2 of 3: Sharing Government GIS Data on April 30, 2009
- Jack Dangermond Interview 1 of 3: Web Mapping on April 29, 2009
- Ignite Seattle (and elsewhere) Tomorrow, 4/29 on April 28, 2009
- Locavore's Open Data on April 23, 2009
- Windows 7 Starter Pushes the Web and IE on April 23, 2009
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