Not surprising, participation in social networks strongly correlates with social origin. The following charts about a recent Facebook poll (clever polling btw, Facebook knows the basic information as age, gender, etc. of users who respond to polls) shows that Facebook is mainly a young white thing. Well, originally it was developed as and a good part of it still is a college student network.
Whereas in that case I’d rather say that white can be substituted with the term “(upper) middle class”. Without being aware of any detailed research, I suppose the overall picture about the Web 2.0 audience here in Europe wouldn’t differ a lot from this basic Facebook poll results.
So, the question popping into my mind was: are social networks increasing the Digital Divide instead of narrowing it? Are social networks an exclusive toy for (upper) middle class people?
One of the most compelling arguments for Web 2.0 are the low barriers of entry. So, where is everyone? Or maybe it’s because members of a family of six sharing a 50sqm apartment have other things to worry about than updating a blog.
However, I’m quite convinced that being familiar with social software (blogs, wikis, networks, etc.) will be a crucial requirement for future work environments. Just like as it’s now naturally to know how to perform a Google search or handle Email correctly. Thus I think it’s time for politicians to start a discussion about how to bring this knowledge to socially disadvantaged people. Students and other well-skilled people will learn this anyways over the next years…
Today the EU and US announced their agreement on the GPS-Galileo common civil signal. So future (civil) devices will be able to communicate with GPS and/or Galileo satellites.
Interoperability usually is a good thing and especially in that case it’ll help Galileo to literally take off because GPS is widely adopted.
However, a few questions remain…
A strong driving force behind Galileo was to become independent from US-operated GPS. In an earlier agreement the US already ensured that Galileo can be regionally turned off for security reasons. Does the current new interoperability agreement have any effect on the earlier “US veto” agreement? What happened to the independence argument in this new agreement?
One of the main advantages of Galileo over GPS was its higher accuracy (it was said to be to function even indoor quite well). As far as I know positioning accuracy depends on frequency and signal interference (I’m no engineer, so correct me if I’m wrong). If GPS and Galileo use the same signal, what happened to that advantage? I would assume that GPS and Galileo achieve the same accuracy then.
To say future devices will, based on the agreed interoperability, support both systems is kind of a weak argument. I guess they would’ve done so anyways. Putting two chips in one device shouldn’t be a problem until 2012 (when Galileo is supposed to start).
Since private companies left and the financing of Galileo is very likely done by public funding, which somehow shows that the private sector doesn’t really trust in future Galileo business opportunities, the “supporting European LBS business” argument is slightly disappearing too.
So where is the point for Galileo? Or why should the EU not drop Galileo, license, build and operate it’s own GPS satellites instead and probably save a lot of tax money?
I just tried to find a second opinion or review about a new restaurant I’d like to go and went therefore across some local recommendation sites.
Qype, the European version of Yelp, was one of them.
One thing on Qype, which I visited for the first time btw, called my immediate attention: the geocode in the address bar, where a 5-digit NUTS code followed by a place name showed up.
NUTS (Nomenclature d’unités territoriales statistiques) is a geocode standard for referencing the administrative division of countries for statistical purposes in Europe. [Wikipedia]
First of all I found it rather fascinating that a trendy 2007 Web 2.0 company, in times of folksonomy and the semantic web, makes use of an old and dusty statistical classification standard developed during the 1980s.
The second thought was already that, since we are dealing a lot with those region codes because it’s the only way to homogenized European statistical information, I can dynamically link our regional databases directly to Qype sites without having to deal with place name, spelling and search accuracy issues.
Considering that option, Qype is probably one of the best resources for a general overview of NUTS regions. Other regional information sites usually provide different, mostly national, views and definitions of regions. Actually I’m not aware of a resource where you can go through all European NUTS regions and get for each a homogenized picture and description.
An amusing detail is that you even can search by NUTS codes instead of place names in Qype: for instance looking up “pizza” in “AT130″. The local search any hardcore statistician ever dreamed of came true in Qype!
The restaurant was I Carusi btw, anybody been there yet?
Ed Parsons, former Ordnance Survey CTO, joined Google as Geospatial Technologist for EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). A brilliant move and Ed is surely a tremendous asset to Google.
It’s important for Google to have someone with his visions on board and bring traditional geospatial industry and neogeography closer together.
Congratulations!
While it’s good to see that the European Commission cares about consumer rights, I don’t understand why they worry so much about entertainment industry (cf. Times). As if there weren’t other problems in the EU than varying music prices. Besides, I doubt Apple came up with the idea of separate iTMS for each European country by itself.
What’s next? Cars are in UK more expensive than in Spain too, and they even have the steering-wheel on the wrong side!
Has Google silently extended the geocoding service in Europe? Or did I just miss the announcement?
Until today I thought Google’s geocoder doesn’t cover Austria (and some other European countries too), but while trying the new XING features I was surprised to find Google maps based on address searches as well as driving directions within Vienna.
Since end of January one of the largest projects I’m currently involved in is online and open for public access. We decided as first step to publish it silently before the official announcement and receive more user feedback as well as reserve some extra time for fine tuning.
It’s a national atlas (ÖROK-Atlas online is the official name) containing socio-economic information, mainly focused on the Austrian territory but providing a European perspective as well. The entire application is based on 100% Open Source software like MapServer, PostGIS, GDAL, Proj4 and other usual geo open source suspects.
You won’t find any fancy AJAX driven user interface or high-res imagery to sneak a peek into your neighbor’s garden. Instead you’ll be able to visualize a comprehensive collection of predefined maps as entry point to a large database of socio-economic data and indicators relevant to regional analysis and spatial planning. An important user group, already involved in the development process, were decision makers and other administration departments (ministries, federal states).
Traditionally the atlas was published annually on paper. It was one of the main challenges of the project to transform those rather complex printed maps (most of them containing multiple socio-economic information layers, multidimensional signatures, etc.) into an online application in terms of retaining the same information content.
We’re still working in the background – the English version isn’t 100% completed yet, data and maps are extending continuously and some bugs need to be fixed – so please be patient if something isn’t working as expected.
As response to the conspiring thoughts brought up yesterday, an employee of Spot Image assured today that the Google deal won’t affect any other clients so far. Such deals are a matter of heavy economic pressure and Spot Image currently faces strong US competition.
However, concerns about possible input data shortage in European research programs as a result of “American commercial interests” were expressed during the discussion too. It was not the intention to blame anyone, just to stress a new situation Europe has to deal with.
So please US enterprises, play nice with European R&D initiatives…
Don’t know how many PowerPoint presentations I’ve seen today, definitely too many, I hope after that PowerPoint overdose I can keep it out of my dreams tonight.
Anyways, one talk ended with some interesting conspiring thoughts about the recent Google – Spot Image deal (without knowing any details of course): What if Google bought multi-annual exclusive rights on Spot’s high resolution imagery?
Not only they would have excluded their direct competitors like Microsoft or Yahoo! from using the same imagery, no, such a deal would have impacts on the work of some European agencies (e.g. EEA) too. High resolution imagery data is also used as basis in research projects on environmental security (e.g. GMES). So, on the one hand Google would deliver the data to any Google Earth user for free, but at the same time such a deal would possibly constrain development of EO based products, often used as basis for decision-making in spatial and environmental policies for instance.
That was indeed a very interesting point brought up today. If I had to choose either view exciting backround layers and bird views in Google Earth or enable scientific projects in order to improve environmental security, I would vote for the latter…
Another interesting news today was the freely (open source principle) available and revised SRTM data at the JRC Soil Portal.
Google acquired Endoxon, a Swiss based mapping company, today. According to Google, Endoxon’s technology will enhance Google’s geo products Google Maps and Google Earth.
On the one hand, this move means good news for European Google Maps and Google Earth users, because Google owns now with Endoxon a mapping team focused on the European market. So there is a good chance that we’ll see some improvements in Google’s geo data and services on this side of the pond.
On the other hand it’s interesting because Endoxon’s technology powers, among other things, Google’s main competitor on the German market: GoYellow.de, the German version of Google Local.
Endoxon will of course fulfill its obligations of existing contracts. But still, how much effort will a company like Endoxon, now part of the Google empire, dedicate to development and support of its competitors?
If I were a company depending on Endoxon’s technology, operating a service very similar to one listed in Google’s portfolio, I would check out some alternatives on the market now. Looks like Google made some room for new Endoxon successors. (via The Map Room)
Btw, congratulations Greg and good luck with your 20%-project!