Gary Gale

Next time you head out of London's Waterloo station keep your eyes peeled as you come through the ticket barriers; if you're lucky you'll see one of the small display screens that are usually covered by an opaque lid. At first sight these seem to be a mirror of the larger departure boards on the main concourse but these screens tell the drivers which platform they need to be on for their train before the main concourse screens update.

Why is this interesting? Well, tonight the trains in and out of Waterloo were severely disrupted by something going on at Clapham Junction, no one seemed to know what exactly but the general consensus amongst the station staff was that it was probably related to a train.

Train departures were still displayed on the main board with a platform number, but after it became apparent that the service wasn't going anywhere, each departure cycled through on time, delayed and finally cancelled.

After my train home suffered this fate I trudged to the end of the platform where a member of the SouthWest Trains was looking at one of these driver's display screens and was actually dispensing useful information. Admittedly the information seemed to be "catch the Tube if you can" but that was still useful.

Way, way back in the deep dark past, Autumn 2009 to be precise, myself and several other people with an opinion on matters geo were asked to contribute a paper towards the Association for Geographic Information's 2015 Foresight Study.

The geographic information industry is undergoing radical change. Stimulated by technology and social developments, the balance of power between existing and new players is shifting. Government policy is also undergoing transformation with the publication of the UK Location Strategy, INSPIRE, the Marine & Coastal Access Bill and a new business model for Ordnance Survey. The economic strictures under which the public and private sectors will need to operate, as the UK attempts to handle enormous public debt, are also certain to drive changes in market dynamics.

There can be little doubt that in 5 years the industry will look very different to how it does today.

As the industry association, the Association for Geographic Information (AGI) needs to be sure it can continue to deliver its central mission to serve and represent our current and future members through these changes. In order to do so, we need to better understand what these changes are likely to be and how they will impact the geospatial industry and its customers

In the midst of yesterday's I/O event, Google announced the launch of the long rumoured API for their Latitude location sharing platform; there's ample coverage and commentary on ReadWriteWeb and on TechCrunch and that's just fine because that's not what I want to write about.

When it was launched in early 2009, Latitude was the receipt of some fairly harsh press from the informed tech media and from the uninformed traditional media and I argued for some latitude in the discussions on, err, Latitude.

It may have escaped your notice but London is pretty much map mad at the moment. If it's not documentaries on the BBC it's exhibitions of maps at the British Library.

Which seems an apt and fitting time to organise an ad-hoc, impromptu, totally unofficial gathering of latent geographers, geo-wonks, map-nerds, professional cartographers and anyone else who likes maps.

Fully intending to use the week off that I have between leaving my role in the Geo Technologies group of Yahoo! and starting my role as [redacted] with [redacted] in [redacted], I'm going to be going to the Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art exhibition at the British Library in the afternoon of Wednesday 2nd. June 2010, followed by a few geobeers in a local hostelry and a cheeky curry afterwards.

London seems to have gone ever so slightly maps crazy of recent. Not only is there the Magnificent Maps exhibition opening at the British Library at the end of this month but BBC4 has joined in with two documentary series on the subject, Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession and The Beauty of Maps.

It's all very geotastic ...

We take the art of geographic lookup for granted these days; type a place name into a form on a web site or feed it into a web service API and hey presto! Most of the time you'll be told whether or not the place name is valid or not and, in case there's more than one place with the same name, either asked to choose which one you mean or be presented with the most likely place.

Most of the time ... but not all of the time.

The hey presto bit of the process seems at first glance to be relatively trivial but isn't. Just ask anyone who's had to implement a system that handles place names. Actually, the hey presto part is actually two discreet processes in their own right. First of all we need to identify a place, or whether indeed there's a place at all; this is usually called geoidentification.

To paraphrase both Douglas Copland and The Smiths, Geomob, the highly successful mobile/geo/location/place fuelled meetup for geographers, both latent and professional is on hold. Possibly permanently. As Chris Osborne, the founder and organiser, said in an email to all members of the group:

After a wonderful couple of years doing geomob, and the people powered success that was WhereCampEU, I'm afraid to say that I am stepping down to make way for some new blood.

That does mean that there is an opportunity for one or more of you to step up and continue geomob in the spirit it started - free, non corporate, disrespectful and focused on people doing things.

Get in touch if you want to take on the mantle, until then geomob is on hiatus.

Its been a blast

Consider for a moment the word unlimited; it's an adjective and, if you'll pardon the condescension, it means the following:

1. not limited; unrestricted; unconfined
2. boundless; infinite; vast
3. without any qualification or exception; unconditional

Except in the world of mobile data or mobile broadband, where unlimited means, in a vaguely disturbing twisted, inverted, doublespeak sort of way, the exact opposite.

Most browsers have a variation on the theme of a home page, which automagically loads your favourite web page when you start the browser or open a new browser window or tab.

A lot of web sites try to capitalise on this, offering earnest entreaties to "make me your home page" ... "no make me your home page" ... "no, choose me for your home page, I have so much personalised content".

They're needy and somewhat neurotic entities these web sites, it's not like I can have all of them as my home page.

Most of them personalise their content for you, based on a registration setting or some other insight, to give you what they think is the information your looking for.

This is not creepy.