Geospatial Semantic Web Blog

If there is one GIS application that you should deploy in your living room this holiday, it’s the Wii Weather Channel. Nintendo Wii is changing the way we play and being entertained (see my post).

Recently I updated my Wii software and played around with its Weather Channel and Internet Channel. It’s great. Not only you can view weather reports on your TV, but also you can browse your favorite web pages (e.g., GSWB and Google Maps).

Wii’s digital global is more responsive than that of Google Earth and it’s fun to use. I think it can help children and adults to learn about the world’s geography. Check out my video demo (youtube).
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Speaking at a conference hosted by Ordance Survey, Sir Tim Berners-Lee explains how Semantic Web technology can advance GIS information sharing and interoperability. The detail of his speech is covered in this ZDNet article.

Few items mentioned in the article worth our attention.

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RDF (Resource Description Framework) is language for describing the semantics of information on the Web. The Semantic Web is a vision of the future Web that will help to increase people’s productivity by enabling machines to understand the Web semantics. While RDF and the Semantic Web is closely related, but it’s a mistake to think that the realization of the Semantic Web and its success will solely depend on RDF technology.

When building Semantic Web applications, developers should keep in mind that the goal is to develop useful technology to help human users — increase their productivity and ease their computing tasks. It’s a mistake to believe that the only way to achieve this goal is by building RDF applications and by developing applications that are solely based on RDF (its syntax, modeling, data stores etc.).

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In response to my previous post, a reader wrote me an email:

We saw your new entry on data integration for GIS and are not quite sure what you mean. For the most part, coordinate systems can be translated one to another. I’ve been told that is not a problem. So, I wonder what you mean.

It was my fault that I didn’t explain the problem well. It’s true that there are mathematical formulas for coordinate transformation. Software programs and API have been developed for this purpose (e.g., geotools). In my previous post, I wasn’t concerned about whether coordinates can be or can’t be transformed into different CRS but the ability for web applications to explicitly describe CRS and the data integration process that is associated with CRS transformation.

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I enjoy using Flickr, especially its geotagging feature. Not only it helped me to organize photos based on location, but also helped me remember the context in which my photos were taken.

For example, during my recently trip to Paris and London, I took some photos at the Château de Versailles and the Windsor Castle. Using Flickr, I was able to geotag photos in a level of detail that I never thought would be possible. Without it, in the next few months, I probably would have forgotten the exact locations where some of my photos were taken (e.g., this, this and this).

See my photos taken at the Windsor Castle

See my photos taken at the Château de Versailles