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Virtual Earth in NYC Transit Application

Virtual Earth For Public Sector — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:01:39 GMT

Just ran across this article written about the Virtual Earth powered Trip Planner for the New York City Transit in my Outlook inbox and want to quickly share. Regular readers will remember that I blogged on this some time ago, but this makes an interesting read and my Virtual Earth colleague, Kevin Adler, is quoted. NYC Transit Uses Digital Maps and 3-D Modeling to Help Travelers Jun 20, 2008, By David Raths I live in a suburb of Philadelphia. This morning as I planned a business trip to New York...(read more)

Stop Kicking, Start Teaching

Oliver Bell's weblog — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:42:25 GMT

So far it has been a pretty educational week for me here at OSCON in Portland, it has been great to meet new people as well as an opportunity to catch up with old friends. As I mentioned in an earlier post the week started for me with Participate08, an open discussion about several aspects of [...]...(read more)

Virtual Earth Image Updates in July 2008

Virtual Earth For Public Sector — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:24:36 GMT

This month's imagery update was not quite as large as usual but still quite impressive (14TB) and demonstrates the diligence of the Virtual Earth production team to provide global basemap imagery to bolster your business intelligence applications. Take a look: USA Aerial Views (15 cm) · Elizabeth, NJ · West Allis, WI · Paterson, NJ · Pasadena, TX Europe Aerial Views (20cm) · Tournai, Belgium · Aalst. Belgium · Verviers, Belgium · Sint Niklass, Belgium · Hasselt, Belgium · Genk, Belgium · Mouscron,...(read more)

Virtual Earth Hi-Res Aerial Imagery: the UltraCamX

Virtual Earth For Public Sector — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:52:25 GMT

In my last blog entry from Beijing, I focused on the UltraCamX large format digital aerial camera that was highlighted at the ISPRS conference. The UltraCam is a big part of the Virtual Earth story, providing the high resolution aerial imagery found in Virtual Earth (and the Live Search Maps consumer site that it powers) and enables business intelligence applications to bring clarity to customer data by allowing customers to view their data within the context of its location and surroundings. Mark...(read more)

Heading to OSCON 2008

Oliver Bell's weblog — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 06:43:18 GMT

I’ve been attending Microsoft’s annual global sales meeting in Atlanta this week and now find myself in a painful situation where I now have only a week before I need to be in Redmond for several other meetings, including the DII Workshop on SP2 and ODF. My colleague Bryan Kirschner, Microsoft’s Director of Platform Community Strategy, [...]...(read more)

What about the future of the PC?

Oliver Bell's weblog — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:09:14 GMT

As a long term employee of Microsoft you start to notice that several of the arguments involving the company are a little cyclic, they come and go but rarely seem to evolve all that much. One bell that seems to toll every three of four years involves somebody declaring the death of the PC as we [...]...(read more)

Entering The United States

Oliver Bell's weblog — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:59:49 GMT

I have a question that one of my readers might be able to answer, nothing whatsoever to do with technology or technology policy, just something that I have been curious about for a while. I’ve been traveling to the USA on a pretty regular basis since the late 1980s and apart from the eight years I [...]...(read more)

environmental transformation in the UK

Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:18:00 GMT

I see that the government is announcing today its aim of making the UK the first government in the world where IT use becomes carbon neutral over the next four years. Part of this is the release of an 18 point checklist, confirming some of the initiatives that many CIOs have been already implementing as good operational practice. As the recent Climate Group study demonstrated, better use of technology can play a key role in helping reduce CO2 by as much as 15%. Springboarding on the back of today's...(read more)

soundbites from a roundtable on interoperability

Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:17:00 GMT

A lively session on interoperability here in London yesterday, with a good turnout from Members of Parliament, CIOs and other senior folks from across private and public sectors. After some opening presentations from Dr Andrew Hopkirk of the NCC , Andrew Voysey of Novell and then myself, the table opened up to a wide variety of perspectives and observations. Here are a few of the soundbites I captured (all errors in transcription are entirely my own work): "... interoperability is a headache...(read more)

Gamesfest 2008

UK Academic Team Blog — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:21:55 GMT

Hello Everyone, I thought you might like to hear about Gamefest 2008 which takes place on 6 th August at Chelsea Football Club and particularly, I thought you’d like to know about the early bird savings on registration if you book before midnight on 25 th July 2008 . Gamefest 2008 is a full-day game technology conference with a keen industry focus, including a Gamefest Expo of exhibiting Games Tools and Middleware Companies together with Authorized Test Vendors and is aimed at key personnel from...(read more)

DII Workshop on Office SP2 and ODF

Oliver Bell's weblog — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:16:39 GMT

A quick mention. Doug Mahugh is outlining a workshop that will be held on Microsoft’s Campus in Redmond on July 30th, principally looking at some of the document format interoperability work that will be going into Microsoft Office SP2. We’re holding a workshop in Redmond on July 30 to talk about our ODF support in [...]...(read more)

towards the manifesto for technology

Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:43:00 GMT

I blogged in " will technology win the next election? " that I want to explore the potential of a " manifesto for technology ". Specifically, how we successfully move technology to the heart of policymaking rather than it continuing to be seen as an add-on after the fact. In setting out some initial thoughts to seed debate, I'm going to draw upon a wide variety of ideas and initiatives I've encountered in over 20 years of working in the technology industry across both private...(read more)

Imagine Cup 2008 Round Up

UK Academic Team Blog — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:31:00 GMT

Like a computerised steamroller driven by 400 students, the Imagine Cup has left a considerable impression. Once again, the Imagine Cup pitted the best against the best in 9 categories of technology and digital arts challenges - and the winners have been crowned , and then let loose on a Paris night club. Despite taking three teams across the channel, the UK came home empty handed - c'mon guys! But there's always next year... Rather than waffle on about the event, I'm going to pull my usual...(read more)

Will The Connected Internet Model Scale To The Next 5Bn?

Oliver Bell's weblog — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:42:55 GMT

Over the last few months I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it really means to “be connected”. One of the things I’ve learned while I’ve been in Asia is that we (or maybe just me) tend to evaluate the things around us based upon our own values, the values that we learned [...]...(read more)

ISO Approves PDF

Oliver Bell's weblog — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:15:16 GMT

As part of the ongoing publication of document format specifications, IDG’s Elizabeth Montalbano has an article published on ComputerWorld about PDF’s approval by the ISO as an international standard; The ISO has approved Adobe Systems Inc.’s widely used Portable Document Format as an international standard, and the organization is now in charge of any changes made [...]...(read more)

Virtual Earth at the ISPRS Congress in Beijing

Virtual Earth For Public Sector — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:33:57 GMT

In Beijing this week for the XXI Congress of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS). This event occurs once every four years in a different international location and brings together delegates from government, commercial and academic organizations from across the globe, eager to learn about the latest developments in photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information services. While Microsoft is participating at this event primarily to support its photgrammetry...(read more)

New Silverlight Videos

UK Academic Team Blog — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:05:00 GMT

Hi, For those of you with an interest in Silverlight I thought you might like to take a look at a series of 'how to' videos available from the Silverlight team. You'll find everything from the basics through to best practices and even a series of tips and techniques. For example, Todd Miranda shows how to dynamically add markers to a video at runtime and Peter Bahaa shows how to handle the back and forward buttons, all in Silverlight 1.0. To browse the library of videos click here . All the best,...(read more)

will technology win the next election?

Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:27:00 GMT

I'm beginning to wonder, quite seriously, whether the party that really "gets" technology will win the next election. And I don't just mean the current escalating efforts to see who can do a better job of crime maps and other types of mash-up using the likes of Virtual Earth and Google Earth . After all, none of this is new: the idea of opening up public sector data and providing open interfaces dates back to at least the 1990's and over the years many of us have tried to chivvy things...(read more)

grid computing for a greener planet

Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:26:00 GMT

Grid Computing Now! has launched a new competition, " Grid computing for a greener planet ". The competition invites participants " to harness the power of grid to help minimise the environmental impact of human activity ". More details are available here and here . This is the second grid competition with which I've been involved and I'm confident that it will provoke even greater interest and participation than the original did back in 2006. Last time around the competition...(read more)

re-writing history

Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:24:00 GMT

A recent piece in a magazine I was reading about an "alleged fraudster" reminded me of how fragile our collective memory is likely to become in the digital age, unless we intentionally re-design the ways that we capture and preserve information. The article reported how the "alleged fraudster" had forced online publications to retrospectively remove information they had published about his activities, including a genuine fraud conviction in another country. The issue was less...(read more)

NTOUK and the Computer Weekly blog awards

Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:02:00 GMT

So this blog has been nominated in the Computer Weekly blog awards ... and voting is now underway. Of course, if you enjoy reading this blog please feel free to vote for me (in the "IT Law and Governance" category). But also it's worth checking out many of the shortlisted blogs across all the categories since they represent a great selection of thought-provoking examples of what the best of the blogosphere is all about. If you follow issues of identity and privacy in particular (which to...(read more)

Virtual Earth Based NYCT Trip Planner Surpasses 10K Daily User Milestone

Virtual Earth For Public Sector — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:50:24 GMT

Not too long ago I posted an entry about the adoption of the Virtual Earth platform by the New York City Transit to power their Trip Planner . The service allows visitors and residents to get walking directions for their travel itinerary within the City and, since February, features Virtual Earth maps for a much richer visualization experience. The NYCT recently issued the below announcement boasting the success of the easy to use site due to positive customer experience. MTA NYC Transit Trip Planner...(read more)

Using SMS to call a Taxi

Oliver Bell's weblog — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:50:55 GMT

Ages ago I talked about the regional fascination with text messaging and how it reaches into every corner of life in countries like Singapore, changing communication in ways that were almost unimaginable when I lived in the USA. (maybe not quite so much for my European friends and relatives) One of the SMS based services that [...]...(read more)

Kim Cameron’s Seven Laws of Identity

Oliver Bell's weblog — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:43:50 GMT

A conversation yesterday moved into the realm of Digital Identity management, a topic that I know won’t be alien to a lot of people who read this blog. As a follow on to that conversation I thought it might be worth refreshing myself on a piece of work that was published a few years ago [...]...(read more)

Technical Documentation Published for Office, Exchange and SharePoint

Oliver Bell's weblog — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:39:20 GMT

Big steps today towards meeting the commitments that the company has made to interoperability with our high volume products. You’ll find the details in a press release here; Highlights of the actions announced today include: posting Version 1.0 releases of technical documentation for Microsoft protocols built into Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft [...]...(read more)