Crowdmap from Ushaidi !

The guys at Ushaidi have been busy working on a new concept : a platform to automatically instanciate the Ushaidi software for a specific deployment. Just create our account, select a deployment name and your own Ushaidi server will be instantly online !

Great ! You are now ready to :

1.     Collect information from cell phones, news and the web.
2.     Aggregate that information into a single platform.
3.     Visualize it on a map and timeline.

The OpenStreetMap Mug and the tag concept

Last week, I have received my OpenStreetMap Mug !

The mug serves as a reference for the most important and most popular tag/value combinations used on ways and nodes within the OpenStreetMap project. While it cannot explain the fiddly details it serves as a reminder and a quick help while mapping. Here is a complete flat view :

The tag concept and the fact that it is completely free and easy to expand is a key concept for OpenStreetMap. It enables the OpenStreetMap community to map anything they encounter anywhere in the World ! For example, among all the very popular tags displayed on this mug, a new one has been added : "amenity=mug, access=private".

You can buy the mug from Kernel Concept and a donation will be made to the OpenStreetMap Fundation ! For more information on OpenStreetMap tags, visit the Wiki !

FOSS4G in Barcelona !

I was at the last FOSS4G (Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial) Conference in Barcelona. It was a fantastic conference with more than 800 participants from all over the world and 3 days of technical talks and trainings. It was great to meet major figures of the Open Source for Geospatial like Paul Ramsey (founder of PostGIS - see http://blog.opengeo.org/) or Frank Warmerdam (founder of GDAL).

Speeches during the plenary sessions were all about the spirit of Open Source and the sense of Community. Ivan Sanchez made an interesting comparison with the game theory showing that in software development the only winning move was to share. The conclusion was that happiness rather than money helps people create better products because it helps them to take better decisions :-)

During the closing session, Helena Mitasova received the OsGeo 2010 prize for her implication in Open Source and GRASS. She presented how GRASS has been used over the past 20 years to develop the geospatial research and education. It was inspiring how she spoke greatly about the community and about the energy that it gives her.