Sony designs Subway Maps


For an advertisement of their Network Walkmans Sony traced the subway routes of different cities with their earphones.
There are maps available for the cities New York, Sydney and London, as far as I know. In my optinion its a good marketing gag, since listening to music during travelling with the underground is very popular.

In the picutre above you can see the subway lines of New York on their ad poster. As you can see now Geoinformation become an important field also in advertisement and marketing.

[via gizmodo]

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Create a 3-dimensional Environment with your Photos


We explore our surroundings, with every technology we have. From text to audio to maps to photos. Now there is a new technology freely available to represent place - Photosynth. Photosynth comes from Microsoft and you can build up your own 3d environment with your digital camera and the Photosynth software.

This is how it works:

  1. You make a lot of photos of your surrounding with as many overlapping as possible. Walk around and change zoom and angle.
  2. Go to http://www.photosynth.net and download and install the software plugin in your web browser.
  3. The software automatically compares all your photos and finds out how they go together and uploads them to the web.
  4. The result is a 3d virtual representation which can be seen by anyone via the Internet.

The optimistic overall goal of the developers is to create a 3d photo-realistic representation of the whole world.

Still there are some limitations and drawbacks:

  • Creating a good Photosync takes patience and practice.
  • Every spot in the environment has to be included in at least three photos.
  • No Mac version until now.
  • You cannot create a private version of your composed photos.
  • Alternative Quicktime VR (available for years).

[via David Pogue, NYT]

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Multi Layer Paper Maps


The company Urban Mapping has developed a new kind of paper map, which allows to visualize different layers on a co called Panamap. With their so called MapAction Technology the user can change the view angle to look at different layers of the map.

This is how it works according to their homepage:

  1. Artwork for three views of Manhattan is created and optimized for visual performance. This requires a detailed understanding of typeface, line orientation, color contrast and a host of additional subtle but significant design concerns.
  2. The three Images are interlaced by alternating horizontal strips from each. The resulting compound image is calibrated to a specially designed polymer lens substrate. Lenses contain between 60 to 200 micro-lenses per inch, depending on the desired outcome. This is mounted to a backing, die cut and packaged.

  3. The underlying technology essentially fools the human eye. By rotating the map, the angle of viewing is changed and one of the resulting three layers can be viewed (as demonstrated in the Flash demo at the top of the page).

A flash based demonstration and a video can be found on the official homepage of Panamap.

[via Panamap]

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MyPhoneExplorer 1.7 - SonyEricsson PC Suite now with Symbian Support


With this blog entry I’d like to introduce a new version of a great piece of software: MyPhoneExplorer. It is an alternative to SonyErricssons offical PC Suite and has a lot of functionality. The actual version (1.7) comes with Symbian support. And the best of all - its a freeware

The changes (from the offical homepage):

  • full compatibility to UIQ3-Phones (P990i, P1i, M600i, W950i, W960i, G700, G900)
  • read/write access to notes on the phone
  • SMS-Chatfeature
  • universal filesync with filteroptions
  • its now possible to add exceptions in ruled events
  • its possible to create a backup also if the phone is not connected (Offlinebackup)
  • besides this there were alot of other changes and bugfixes which do not have enought space here

Link: http://www.fjsoft.at

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Android in a pre 1.0 version available


Google recently released a pre 1.0 beta version of the Android SDK.

“This is the first release of the Android SDK that is formally on the path to Android 1.0.”

This let assume at first handset devices are comming soon.
As Google clarifies this is the first serious version of on the way to Android 1.0. Previous releases were considered very early looks at the SDK. This release should be fully compatible with Android 1.0 and all applications build with this release should run on final Android 1.0 devices.
The differences between this release an the final release are expected to be small and no major API changes are planned.

This beta SDK contains a large number of bug fixes and improvements form the early SDKs.

Some important changes include:

* new standard applications like arlam, calculator, camera, music, photo and messages where added.
* inprovements of the developer tools, e.g., preview of the XML layout.
* changes and impreovements withing the API
* new “Home” screen.

The relase notes, change overview and API Delta Report give a complete overview about all changes and extenstion of the SDK.

Now some issues from these documents related to “GEO”:

Location (Geo)

* The android.hardware.Sensors class has been replaced by android.hardware.SensorManager and android.hardware.SensorListener.
* The SensorManager class now notifies SensorListener objects of sensor changes, rather than firing Intents. The registerListener and unregisterListener methods are used to add and remove listeners.
* There is a new constant SensorManager.STANDARD_GRAVITY that may be useful to interpret accelerometer values.
* A method LocationManager.getProviderNames() has been added that
* returns the names of all providers, including ones for which the caller lacks permissions.
* The LocationManager class now notifies LocationListener objects of location and status changes, rather than firing Intents.
* The requestUpdates method has been renamed to requestLocationUpdates and now takes a LocationListener object rather than an Intent.
* A new requestStatusUpdates method has been added, also taking a LocationListener object.
* The removeUpdates method now takes a LocationListener object.
* The LocationManager.request*Updates methods must be called from a Looper thread, such as the main thread of an Activity. Additional method variants have been added that take an explicit Looper argument to allow for use outside of a main thread.
* A number of constants have been added to the LocationManager class.
* The LocationProviderImpl class has been removed.
* The Address class has several addtional fields and accessors in or order to better describe real locations.  Several incorrectly named methods have been renamed.
* The Geocoder class contructor now requires a Context parameter.
* The Location class now includes information on the estimated accuracy of a fix. It has new reset() and set() methods.

MapView

* New required MapView attribute: android:apiKey. Just like the traditional Google Maps API, you will be required to provide an authentic API key for your Android application. For now, the value of this can be an arbitrary string, like “myapikey,” but will need to be changed in order to work on actual devices. A process for acquiring a key is coming soon.
* MapView.toggle* replaced with set*. DeviceType removed from all Overlay methods.
* OverlayController removed, replaced with direct access to the Overlay List, with MapView.getOverlays(). The recommended practice is to use the new ItemizedOverlay class to manage map Overlays.
* Adds support for “map pin” child view that marks a given geo-location on the map. Such a view would stay in the correct place as the map is scrolled and zoomed:
* MapView child views can now be positioned relative to the Map or to the View.
* MapView child views can now be aligned relative to their position point.
* MapView no longer has a showMyLocation attribute; all methods referring to location are removed from MapActivity, MapView, and MapController. The new way to display location on the map is by creating a new MyLocationOverlay, enabling it, and adding it through the OverlayController.OverlayController.doZoom() is removed.
* MapController.setFollowMyLocation() no longer accepts a zoom.
* MapView.PixelCalculator was moved out into its own class PixelConverter, and its methods were renamed and changed to
* use android.graphics.Point objects instead of int arrays.
* Point renamed to GeoPoint

Google Maps

* New Maps menu alphabetic shortcuts This adds four invisible menu items:
menu+I - zoom in
menu+O - zoom out
menu+J - previous result
menu+K - next result
* Add a new style attribute to enable/disable MapView’s My Location feature. By default it’s disable meaning no extra location based permissions are required for developers wanting to write a Maps based app.
* Move Overlay.PixelCalculator -> MapView.PixelCalculator and added a MapView.getPixelCalculator.
* A new GestureDetector to help detect common gestures.
* The OverlayController, MyLocationOverlay and MapController classes are changed to final

Release Notes
http://code.google.com/android/RELEASENOTES.html

Overview of Changes, m5 to Android 0.9 SDK
http://code.google.com/android/migrating/m5-0.9/changes-overview.html

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