My geotagged Flickr photos
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).
iPhoto may support geotags and Google Maps
Certain configuration properties in iPhoto 6.0.5 have led to the speculation that iPhoto may soon to support geotags and display photos on Google Maps. This story was first reported on mactelchat.com, and later was submitted to digg.com.
An evidence offered by the iPhoto hacker (javaster) is that in the iPhoto configuration file, the property key “GPSMapURL” is defined with a Google Maps marker display URL. This URL seems to be related to the “Show” button that is part of the Photo Info dialog box in iPhoto (see below).
Flickr teachs you how to geotag
Flickr announced a new feature that allows users to geotag photo — i.e., annotate photos with location information such as latitude and longitude coordinates. Unlike typical keyword annotation where users manually enter text strings of keywords, Flickr geotag allows users to annotate location information by simply drag-and-drop photos onto a digital map.
Since most Web users are comfortable with online mapping applications (Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps), for them to learn to use Flickr geotag shouldn’t be too difficult. Flickr even produced a short video that teaches users how to geotag photos and set privacy protection.
I think Flickr has done a great job building this new feature. First, there is little mention of GIS vocabularies in the whole tagging process (e.g, you don’t have to know what lat/lng is before you can geotag). Second, it has built-in privacy protection. This gives a greater comfort to those who put information on the Web. Flickr users will be in control of the information and not Flickr. Third, the geotag map UI looks better than the one in Yahoo! Maps. To me, it seems to have a cleaner design with less clutter.
Spotted on Anything Geospatial
On designing a geotag digital camera
Recently I bought a new digital camera. In addition its basic features for taking digital photos, it’s also loaded with features that make my photography experience very enjoyable and fun.
If I can wish for one more feature in my new camera, that would be geotagging. I wish my camera can automatically annotate digital photos with location information. In this blog, I discuss the design of a geotag digital camera that I’ve been thinking about.
If you have any insights on this subject, I’m happy to hear from you.
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Geotag Photos With GPS-Photo Link
GeoSpatial Expert, a company specializes in developing software for GPS cameras and geotagged digital photos, announces the release of GPS-Photo Link 4.0 that add Google Earth functionality.
A key business of the company is selling GPS camera bundles. For example, their GeoExplorer Bundle comes with a GPS camera and software for processing geotagged photos. The GPS camera supports wireless communication over Bluetooth (i.e., receiving GPS signals from a Bluetooth GPS module).
As location-based technology enters the mainstream consumer market, I think we will see more wide usage of GPS cameras and applications of geotagged digital photos. Though I think many people (including me) would be interested to buy a set of those GeoExplorer Bundles, but I think its price ($3000-$6000) is a bit too expensive for an average consumer.