Thanks to Shuja and Guillaume that are kind enough to let me bug them all the time, I managed to finish the module to position the message on the map using latitude and longitude. It was hard because I had to play with three different reference systems: the canvas, the tile and finally the lat-long Mercator Projection.

To resources contributed to this little success: the first is this web site that allows you to debug a google map application, revealing the tile indexing system and the coordinates references. However, mind that the code offered as example is faulty. On a newsgroup I managed to find the good code that I am posting below. The code allow to convert a Google Map tile index, to latitude and longitude. Additionally, I converted the javascript into python 🙂

Tags: google, map algorithms, maps, Python

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Lyra Nikolovska’s last project is very relevant for our work on Interactive Tables. Her project is reflection on a type of social dynamics that takes place at tables during conversations. Who dominates the conversation?

Two people, seated at each end of the table, converse. As they converse, light emitting diodes (LEDs), embedded along the center of the table, are activated by their pattern of conversation. Two microphones pick up the duration and the volume of the conversation at regular intervals, and trigger light animation from the end where one speaks toward the other. If both people speak simultaneously, the lights start animating from both ends.

As in our technical solution, the table doesn’t parse nor “understand” the nature of the discourse, rather it isolates and brings forward one specific component of interaction at tables. One great point of this design is that the table does not use an “extra PC” for the computational part. Instead, there is a micro-controller embedded in the tabletop that does all the computation. The code is a couple of hundred lines.

Tags: collaboration tools, information visualization, interaction design, interactive furniture, ubiquitous computing

Cool! I was browsing google maps and I started noticing that it now covers Piedmont region, in norther Italy with vector maps! This is a great news for STAMPS …

Tags: google, map algorithms, maps

CampusBeacon is a startup of MIT building a site for campus communities. They intend to replace bulletin boards across campus and become the information center for students, faculty, etc. The website features a service called ePosters, intended to be a “myspace” for campus events and an information page for organizations both within and outside of the university.

They are interested in learning more about how you, as a potential user of ePosters, could benefit from advertising online through our service. You can take a look at a preview of ePosters. They are posing some questions to refine their service:

1. How do you advertise your events/functions on campus?

2. Do you face any difficulties advertising through your standard means (posters etc.)?

3. Do ePosters and its services seem helpful to your organization’s advertising efforts on the campus?

4. If so, how much would your organization be willing to pay for such services?

I would be interested in talking more with these guys because some of the functionalities they are designing are relevant also for ShoutSpace.

Tags: collaboration tools, graffiti, Location Based Services, tagging

Paolo Avesani pointed me on this nice web application that allows the users to share nice alpine walking itineraries. One of the main feature is the ability to see a cartographic support for the itinerary description which makes more easy to follow (although I could not find an itinerary with working map).

The list something like 700 itineraries. I would be interested in knowing some more about it.

Tags: collaboration tools, information visualization, map algorithms, maps

Yes, finally I can see that things are slowly moving forward. I am trying to complete the python port of STAMPS and somethings seems to work. Thanks to the help of Micah Dowty and Korakot Chaovavanich I managed to put together a working prototype. At the moment I enabled an annotation layer that displays a red dot on top of the Google Map tile and that allow the user to pinpoint a specific point on the tile. From here, it should be possible to implement the rest of the functionalities with a “relative” ease 🙂 .  More info soon …

While farting around the net, as Nicolas likes to say, I found this nice map which is quite astonishing. It shows the cables that have been placed under the sea to connect different countries. It is amazing to see how Africa and the North-East of Russia seems to be poorly connected with other continents. It would be actually nice to see also the terrestrials backbones.

(via)

Tags: maps, new technology

CREUZA DE MÄ (1) [url]

Umbre de muri muri de mainé

dunde ne vegnì duve l’è ch’ané

da ‘n scitu duve a l’ûn-a a se mustra nûa

e a neutte a n’à puntou u cutellu ä gua

e a muntä l’àse gh’é restou Diu

u Diàu l’é in çë e u s’è gh’è faetu u nìu

ne sciurtìmmu da u mä pe sciugà e osse da u Dria

e a funtan-a di cumbi ‘nta cä de pria

E ‘nt’a cä de pria chi ghe saià

int’à cä du Dria che u nu l’è mainà

gente de Lûgan facce da mandillä

qui che du luassu preferiscian l’ä

figge de famiggia udù de bun

che ti peu ammiàle senza u gundun

E a ‘ste panse veue cose che daià

cose da beive, cose da mangiä

frittûa de pigneu giancu de Purtufin

çervelle de bae ‘nt’u meximu vin

lasagne da fiddià ai quattru tucchi

paciûgu in aegruduse de lévre de cuppi (2)

E ‘nt’a barca du vin ghe naveghiemu ‘nsc’i scheuggi

emigranti du rìe cu’i cioi ‘nt’i euggi

finché u matin crescià da puéilu rechéugge

frè di ganeuffeni e dè figge

bacan d’a corda marsa d’aegua e de sä

che a ne liga e a ne porta ‘nte ‘na creuza de mä

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I had a discussion with my PhD advisor today on the goals of my PhD work, which I am trying to summarize on this post. The main goal would be to show the effect of location on communication. In details the effectiveness of spatialized search on the information retrieval of spatial notes.

To this extent I am trying to complete an application that will allow me to collect a database of these messages.

K. Dave, M. Wattemberg, and M. Muller. Flash forums and forumreader: Navigating a new kind of large-scale online discussion. In Proceeding of Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW’04), pages 232 – 241, Chigago, Illinois, USA, November, 6-10 2004. ACM Press, New York, NY, USA. [pdf]

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This paper report the user study conducted on the ForumReader, an application specifically tailored to support user browsing of Flash Forums. These distinguish from classical Usenet forums in which the group of participants and the lenght and dept of the conversation is much more dynamic.

Flash forums can be defined after the Flash mobs, which are groups of people that gather in a predefined location, perform some brief action, and then quickly disperse. Example can be Slashdot and IBM Jams.

These kinds of forums present specific challenges to the users because the classical authorship and thread structure of newsgroup is missing in these kinds of forums. Forum Reader tried to overcome these issues providing a visual retrieval interface for the messages of these kinds of forums.

The evaluation of the interface in a 2×2 experiment design, where two groups of users were presented a textual interface vs. a visual interface, showed a positive effect of the visual one.

Tags: collaboration tools, graphical user interface, information retrieval, information visualization, interaction design, map algorithms, maps, spatial clustering, text data mining