Geocoding All Content 171
martin dodge writes "What happens when all content is automatically tagged with the geographical location of its production? We are all used to having a date stamp on documents, but I think adding a location stamp opens up lots of new possibilities. Two recent articles look at many of the interesting possible apps/services which are made possible when you ground cyberspace with location. 'Get Caught Mapping' from Guardian Online and 'The Revenge of Geography' by Tom (writer of The Victorian Internet) Standage in the Economist. I think one of the most exciting is for locating online conversations by geographic proximity. Taking Waldo Tobler's First Law of Geography ("Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things"), often nearby conversations are most relevant and interesting. See UpMyStreet's Conversations for an example."
merely adding more meta data (Score:2)
Wrong category... (Score:2)
OK, the fact that I imagine there's an enemy behind every bush doesn't mean I'm necessarily wrong... :-)
Re:merely adding more meta data (Score:3, Funny)
Prior discussion (Score:2, Interesting)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=26525&thresho
We should avoid using "content" to describe this (Score:2, Offtopic)
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.ht m l
``Content''
If you want to describe a feeling of comfort and satisfaction, by all means say you are ``content'', but using it as a noun to describe written and other works of authorship is worth avoiding. That usage adopts a specific attitude towards those works: that they are an interchangeable commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money. In effect, it treats the works themselves with disrespect.
Those who use this term
Re:We should avoid using "content" to describe thi (Score:5, Insightful)
For [insert deity here]'s sake!
Q: What are you providing as a content-provider for X?
A: The contents of X.
Enough said. There are many important battles to be fought against too-greedy IP and copyright holders. This isn't one of them.
Simon.
Re:We should avoid using "content" to describe thi (Score:2)
Maybe it's because they feel they have to emphatically latch on to any half-brained directives RMS belches out in half-sleep, even when they seem designed solely to inflate his ego.
From that page: [gnu.org]
``Creator''
The term ``creator'' as applied to authors implicitly compares them to a deity (``the creator''). The term is used by publishers to elevate the authors' moral stature above that of ordinary people, to justify increased copyright power that t
What other word? (Score:2)
I understand that the term "author" is more accurate than "creator" because copyright law uses "author", but what word better describes the concept of "works of authorship other than computer programs" than "content"? RMS fails to give positive examples for some of the buzzwords in his "words to avoid" page.
Privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok... now what if I told you that "she" is really a "he", and that the picture "she" game you was off some amateur porn site. Anyone else you'd like to know your real location?
I see this only becoming a privacy issue -- it's removing one of the greatest parts of the internet -- it's anonymity. I've known people like "her" who can express themselves in ways heretofore impossible were it not for the (at least percieved) absolute anonymity of the internet. It would be a shame to see that go, at least from a standpoint of creative expression.
-d
Re:Privacy? (Score:1)
I'd suggest there would be a lot of voiciferous groups bigger than slashdot up in arms about location tagging. Even before they have read the details.
Re:Privacy? (Score:2)
Actually, the one I'd be more concerned about are the real "she"'s. In American society,according to the US DOJ's National Crime Victimiztion Survey data, a woman is raped or sexually assaulted somewhere in the US every 2 to 5 minutes. Although the total number of such assaults has dropped (10% between 1996 and 2001, according to
A few more examples? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ebay Like Feedback Rating (Score:2)
What about Collaborative Content? (Score:1, Interesting)
How will they deal with evolving documents modified by many people in many different countries?
The potential for invasion of privacy also seems extremely high. Think of oppressive governments using any lists to find "undesirable" documents published in their country and taking "appropriate measures" to stop their production. Although maybe The National Security Strategy [whitehouse.gov] will soon take care of such situations (here's hoping :).
Is this a good idea? (Score:2)
Re:Is this a good idea? -Yes (Score:1, Funny)
Think of the economic and status benifits to Antarctician society
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:2)
Not really - it would be pretty easy to spoof location data, or locate the actual data on offshore servers which the law enforcement in question can't touch. I don't see how the use of location tagging can reliably enforced without the consent of the publisher.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:2)
On the other hand I try not to start flames, but sometimes I just get into a trollish mood and post things that perhaps I wouldn't have done otherwise. At least with some annominity I usualy don't have to worry about some wacko stalking me.
Actualy
We already have this for physical objects... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone interested in extending this concept? (Score:3, Insightful)
On a more important note - whilst I don't have a problem with open-sourcing the code for that site, which is a mishmash of C++ and php, who knows anything about attempts to come up with a concept of open source datasets? Somewherenear has a useful collection of data relating to bars, restaurants and accommodation in the UK, but it seems to me that just as a form of GPL for software benefits most users, so would an open dataset licence so that the kind of information stored there. The more geolocated information the world has, the more useful it becomes.
Re:Anyone interested in extending this concept? (Score:2)
I came across somewherenear.com a while back when researching this topic; and you mentioned something about borrowing a technique from a bio-chemist or something!
Would your platform scale worldwide and to millions of records?
Re:Anyone interested in extending this concept? (Score:2)
Re:Anyone interested in extending this concept? (Score:2)
Would this really be hard? Off the top of my head, suppose you had a table in a relational database which had some sort of coordinates in them:
LocationID int
LocationX float
LocationY float
Given an xpos and ypos for a given location, to find other locations by succesive closeness, couldn't you do an SQL query something like:
SELECT
LocationID,
LocationX,
LocationY,
SQRT((xpos-LocationX)^2 +(ypos-LocationY)^2) AS Distance
FROM
Re:Anyone interested in extending this concept? (Score:2)
I meant: WHERE Distance < RelevanceThreshold
Re:Anyone interested in extending this concept? (Score:2)
The idea of a spatial index is to avoid having to perform a distance calculation on every record.
My solution creates a hierarchical index that capitalises on the already efficient hierarchical directory filing systems found in any modern OS.
Basically, a simple function(x,y) returns a starting directory within the index. A second function returns th
Re:Anyone interested in extending this concept? (Score:2)
That lets me do things like
to obtain a list of up to 5 of the closest pictures within 5 degrees of picture #27 sorted with the nearest first
Re:Anyone interested in extending this concept? (Score:2)
E.G. you and another party who is focused on other data collection areas should partner up and share data-sets... periodically updating your share-data sets. Then you not only have an off-site backup, but you have a new set of data to share out.
Finally the answer we've all been waiting for (Score:1)
cell phones and geography (Score:1)
Interesting new twist, though.
Re:cell phones and geography (Score:2)
I think it's interesting that coalition forces are not alowing certain brands of satalite phone to be used on the battlefield because of there position reporting capabilities.
But will content be automatically labeled? (Score:5, Interesting)
This means the end of flamebaiting... (Score:2, Interesting)
But seriously, it's a nice idea as long as it's opt-in. Can't think of too many great uses, though, other than the usual: Where's the next cinema/pharmacy/McDo's?
(If you are in any way offended by this post, please visit me at my home address: Saddam Hussein Boulevard 555, Baghdad, Iraq)
Privacy (Score:3, Interesting)
You then goto another site that pulls up that cookie via some method and they can geo target you. I can see why marketers might like it so they could target ads at your local area
Rus
Re:Privacy and Targeting Ads (Score:2)
See, what you don't realise is that with most grownup marketeers[1], effective targeting means you get less ads, not more, and you also get less crap that doesn't bear even the flimsiest relationship to anything you might actually buy.
If an ad costs me 0.10 to run, why would I run it to people who I don't think are going to buy? If it's for a service only available in some areas, why would I waste money running it for people who don't live there, or who aren't the kind of people who buy it.
Good marke
Reducing anonymity a bit more (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just one more major step in that direction.
Come on people, wake the hell up.. before its too late ( or is it already... i wonder sometimes )
Re:Reducing anonymity a bit more (Score:2)
Knowledge does not equal governmental control--and if it did, we'd still be better off that way.
The worst thing about the internet is the easy anonymnity that snuck in about the time AOL really opened up. When there's no way to tell who's who, the whole shindig degrades into smut and childish flamefests.
Contrast this with behavior where you're identified
Re:Reducing anonymity a bit more (Score:1)
Doesn't seem to have worked for Donald Rumsfeld or Dick "Les" Cheney.
Well, unless you consider "getting away with murder" to be a liberty.
See above.
TWW
Re:Reducing anonymity a bit more (Score:2)
For identifying individuals. The trust level isn't black or white. Post anonymously and no one is likely to take you seriously. Post using the
I dont agree that its 'ok' to be monitored (Score:2)
2 - Knowledge of everyone's action is part of control. if you have total information then you have the ability to control the peoples action ( similar to 'herding' cattle ). while by itself it may not mean control I agree, its part of the process, a
Re:Reducing anonymity a bit more (Score:2)
Furthermore, your "nothing to hide" attitude tells me that you probably don't know what crimes you've comitted. You should probably check that out. It's a lot harder to get away with things when you don't even know what you're supposed to be hiding.
Still furthermore
Interesting concept, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not? And, by the way, make cows fly while you are at it, will you? Thanks.
Case in point: I publish data on a web site located somewhere in North America, using computers based in Europe, through the magic of OpenSSH. And my European ISP does not keep a log of my activities.
Most of the data I publish come from, for example, from web sites published in South-East Asia and China, which is translated by a friend who spends half his time in Taiwan and half his time in Japan, with an occasional stay in Korea.
Now, where on earth is my info created? In Asia, where my friend is, in Europe, where I do most of the web design, or in Northern America, where the web site is officially hosted?
Oh, and I forgot: the information is created using open-source products and a reasonable amount of paranoia, which means all data is anonymized before being posted.
Now, where does my data comes from?
And to those who think this is a silly example: it's actually close to the truth...
Re:Interesting concept, but... (Score:2)
If your data was published by a website in China, translated into English in Japan by your friend, written by you in Europe, and hosted in the USA, _all_ of the above would be included in the document's metadata.
Oh, and I forgot: the information is created using open-source products and a reasonable amount of paranoia, which means all data is anonymized before being posted.
Now, where does my data comes from?
If all of your data is anonymized--and not just with some "hidden sources", but scrub
Thankfully, the Founding Fathers disagreed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember that if it weren't, various whistle blowers would never have brought horrid practices to light.
Remember Watergate?
Re:Thankfully, the Founding Fathers disagreed. (Score:2)
(BTW, anonymous communication is upheld by a lot more than SCOTUS fiat. "Congress shall make no law", and the 1st doesn't say anything about wearing a nametag. Remeber, the BoR restricts the government, not the people, and is not an expression of all rights. Reading up on the history of the bill of rights could do you some good.)
Anyway, yes, please listen, or not, to whatever you like. And the rest of us will continue
No, you're missing the point. (Score:2)
Congress shall make no law.
Think about it for a second. Again, I believe you need to read up on the history of the 1st Amendment.
The bill of rights doesn't say anything about speech while standing on your head, either. It merely states what the government cannot do.
To wit, make a law about speech, whether you're wearing a n
Where in the world... (Score:2)
I kinda like the idea of having no idea at all where online friends are from, unless they care to tell me. Sometimes I can figure it out from little hints (color vs. colour) or if I note that they use phraseology that indicates they use a slavic language to think.
But if I'm gonna play Quake against 'em I guess it's better to pick someone in the same general hemisphere at least.
Re:Where in the world... (Score:1)
However ping times are usually a damn good indication of how close someone is to you geographically. (forgetting dial-ups that is
Regarding the language thing... don't guess too much - I spend most of my day speaking either german or french and by the time I get home in the evening my english is suitably scrambled
Physical location does not mean Logical location (Score:1)
I care what you say, not where you are. (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess I can imagine a few circumstances in which this type of information could be useful... but this smells to me like a way to find the closest wal-mart and other marketing schemes more than anything I might find actually useful.
Really, if you're looking to meet people in your neighborhood, go take a walk outside, if you're looking to hear your own point of view (or that of people just like you), turn the TV off for a few minutes.
Amen, bro (Score:2)
Re:I care what you say, not where you are. (Score:2)
You'd think that they would be better integrated so that I would be pointed to locations that at least had ordered the model or even the general product line there
Why? (Score:2)
-JDF
Atlanta, GA, 30342
Information Arbitrage (Score:2, Insightful)
It is a very easy way to let authority figures restrict all objectional material.
We have embargoed products based on their country of origin (think cigars from Cuba). I don't want the possibilty of that happening to information for any citizen of the planet.
Digital Imaging! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd love to see it built into cameras (both still & video) and audio recorders. And for visual data, add in a compass so I can know both where it was taken, and which direction it was pointing!
I can do without knowing where an email/document/webpage was written, though. Sometimes more data is good... and sometimes it's just noise.
Re:Digital Imaging! (Score:1)
Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that people have complete geographical independence, they want more geographical specific information? I guess it sort of makes sense as people want to expand the functionality of the internet, but what's really interesting about this is not how it's done or whether it's done, but if it focuses the social interest of the internet more inward than it traditionally has been.
Anything like this though is definitely a good example of something that should be optional, not mandatory.
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
What's the first thing everyone asks TeenLuvr16?
age/sex/location
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
But we could use it for Authentication, right? (Score:1)
Anonymity (Score:1)
GeoURL (Score:1)
Simple one-step censorship (Score:1)
Re:Simple one-step censorship (Score:2)
Funky, but I've been doing it for quite some time. (Score:1)
All the "Agg Evil Gov." posts, I really dont get, as with all HTML-metadata it is optional (and almost always under used).
That said, the London 'Bloggers'[1] [londonbloggers.co.uk] page is funky use of the same sort of thing.
[1] I want to kill the prat that started calling Web Logs/Journals "blogs" it is just such a frigging stupid work.
GeoURL (Score:3, Informative)
The GeoURL [geourl.org] service seems to have a pseudo-standard for this. To geo-code your content add the following META tags to it:
<meta name="ICBM" content="XX.XXXXX, XX.XXXXX">
<meta name="DC.title" content="THE NAME OF YOUR SITE">
The ICBM meta-tag there is where you put the coordinates. More info [geourl.org].
Another similar service seems to be GeoTags [geotags.com]
Re:GeoURL (Score:2)
This just goes to show that the real reason for geolocation information in web pages is to make it easier for them to nuke you. Terrorists beware!
Re:GeoURL (Score:2)
<meta name="DC.title" content="THE NAME OF YOUR SITE">
I don't think I want an Inter- Continental Ballistic Missle aimed at my webpage, do you?
I've coded it for error detection, but not for worst-case scenario.
to summarize (Score:3, Insightful)
2. you have those that think this is the greatest thing
Then you have those like myself that see this as just another technology/technique that will find a use or two but in general will just make doing technical stuff more complicated without any real benefit.
Security (Score:2)
FOAF (Score:2)
http://xmlns.com/foaf/
http://www.ldodds.com/f
http://www.perceive.net/pages/page/articles/yea
http://www.sixapart.com/log/2003/01/fun_with_fo
(moveable type stuff)
the censors would love this (Score:1)
there is little doubt that some web content of a fascist nature must be generated in france (where it is illegal), and whilst i disagree with such content i would always choose to allow freedom of speech (such that they could be ridiculed)... but with locational information in meta data, it would be very easy for governments and other interested parties to become more s
Re:the censors would love this (Score:2)
My desire is that each law should only be as strong as where it is weakest. Thus copyright should be only as well enforced as in China, porn as in Sweden, racist virtol as in the United States. If we *HAVE* to live in a world with those annoying arsholes known as censors or other authorities, then the global scope of the net is our best hope for emasculating them. Freedom is good, restraint on information is evil.
Most exciting (Score:2)
Are you sure you want this? (Score:2)
Anonymity is an extremely important part of the Internet - we shouldn't try to lose it. Geocoding has possibilities, but many constitute major invasions of privacy.
PS - Today, the principal of my school pissed me off, so I signed him up for every newsletter I could find. I want the ability to do that in the future - but I bet he doesn't want me
Apache is leading the way ! (Score:1, Interesting)
Apache is doing it already:
[apache.org]
http://cvs.apache.org/~dirkx/sgala.html
Or play with this also http://demo.asemantics.com/wms/asf?styles=emotions &VERSION=1.1.0&layers=rawworld,comloc&width=600&he ight=300&request=getMap&format=png&bbox=-180,-90,1 80,90 [asemantics.com]
. Similar stuff for freebsd is at the same location http://http://demo.asemantics.com/zoom.pl [asemantics.com] and more powerfull www.asemantics.com/showcase/zoom.html [asemantics.com].
FUN!
Re:Apache is leading the way ! (Score:2)
Ideally one would use something like the WMSClient as mentioned on this page. [asemantics.com]
Dw
more nationalism, tribalism, etc. (Score:1)
I proposed this approach at IBM (Score:1)
In the architecture, each master document had actually a 1:M relationship with its geodocuments. The geodocument carried the contents of the document, translated for that geo and also located on a different geo-based server (IBM has a very large network). Every document had to have a version in Simple
Which location applies? (Score:1)
Which location is attached to the document?
Re:Which location applies? (Score:2)
Danger with Tobler's First Law (Score:4, Insightful)
The danger is when one group believes they have a "better perspective" because of location. If you are having a conversation with a person about Iraq and they tell you they are from Pakistan or the United States does it influence how you interpret what they say? Should it? Do you provide their ideas with stronger support if they are closer to you or the event?
As the people of Iraq are closest to Saddam, they are a better judge of the current US/Iraq situation. Equally so, because Americans are closest to their government, they are a better judge of what is right. Now with Americans in Iraq who is a better judge?
While GeoTagging is becoming more popular, it carries a prejudice. You are no longer expressing your opinion you are expressing your "French" opinion or your "German" opinion. Your facts are "Swiss" facts, or "American" facts. Your beliefs are "South African" beliefs or "Australian" beliefs.
There may be value in putting context around what you state, however it may serve just as well to cloud the message by providing context before the message. And that may lead to the question of what is the Truth [att.net] ?
What's the use? (Score:2)
I can only see this is coming in handy in cases where the law is broken (i.e. kiddiepr0n or online stalking etc..). But i cannot see this as a reason to throw away any privacy. It makes it easier to catch the perpetrator but it's not that it isn't otherwise possible. However, if i would like to post something anonimously because of some issues that are political or otherwis
Sometimes useful... (Score:2)
Reuters is already doing this with something they call a "dateline." They also encode usernames with something called a "byline," and summarize content with
DNS can do this (Score:2)
The record is LOC and defined in RFC 1876
Copying a snippit from oreilly's DNS and BIND:
In its basic form, the LOC record takes latitude, longitude and altitude (in that order) as its record-specific data. Latitude and longitude are expressed in the format:
degrees [minutes [seconds.fractional_seconds]] (N|S|E|W)
Altitude is expressed in meters.
Ex.: huskymo.acmebw.com. IN LOC 40 2 0.373 N 105 17 23.528 W 1638m
Notice pretty
Located images (Score:2, Interesting)
This would for instance allow you to produce a map after a holiday showing where you went.
Re:Located images (Score:2)
J.
Can versus Ought (Score:2)
1. Geographical data might be useful
2. Geographical data is unimportant -- it is the quality of communications which matters
3. Technical barriers to creating this sort of information are really fairly trivial
My concerns are that expansion of meta data (essentially what this is) may then lead to greater expansion of meta data. To wit: if geographical data is useful, why not attach the personal identifier as well? The slippery slope argume
Exif file format is ready for it (Score:2, Informative)
This means that a GPS-enabled digital camera could not only store when a picture was taken, but automatically record WHERE it was taken. This could be a great asset for travelers, surveyors, journalists, etc.
Geographic proximity? (Score:2)
Cos yeah - that's a good idea. I can see it now:
* NiceMan (dirtyoldman_1945@dsl4-ak.anyisp.com) has joined #teenchat
NiceMan> Hello little girl, would you like to see my puppies?
Jenny> you have puppees? can I see them?
Location-aware (Score:2, Interesting)
Only one thing bothers me about (Score:2)
The word "all"
Some, or user selctable, but all?
Thank you very much, but I'll pass.
Sounds great (Score:2)
tomahawk (Score:2)
DVD (Score:2)
Here's some stuff that happens. (Score:2)
One thing: Filtering by geographic location. This creates ghettos. It's the electronic equivalent of redlining.
Another: Privacy violations. It's yet another marker useful for identifying an originator that you must remember to spoof or disable if you want to publish anonymously.
One of the most highly touted benefits of The Net is that "no one knows that you're a dog". Your ideas can be considered
Why stop with online content ? (Score:2)
I'd love to know where half the crap that appears in my daily newspaper and every other dead-tree rag was written...
eg.
"Why we must bomb Iraq" - Jim Sneddon (Baghdad 010420030700)
or
"Why we must bomb Iraq" - Jim Sneddon (Florida Keys 010420030700)
BTW, April fools !
Is this the same... (Score:2)
Re:To paraphrase Ross Perot (Score:2, Insightful)
imagine Freenet with content geocoded. Kinda removes the privacy element, right?
Faked Data (Score:2)
same thing for those super market 'discount' cards
I mean, you trust your local politician, don't you?