Idea Lab

Google News Layered in Google Earth

by Leslie Rule
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

At the Where 2.0 conference in May, Google announced Google News would be now be accessible and located in Google Earth. As Brandon Badger, Product Manager noted in his Lat Long Blog entry The launch of Google News on Google Earth is a milestone in the evolution of the geobrowser. By spatially locating the Google News' constantly updating index of stories from more than 4,500 news sources, Google Earth now shows an ever-changing world of human activity as chronicled by reporters worldwide. The amount of content available Google Earth is astounding, but even more interesting is the ways in which...

• June 2, 2008
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Seero Makes Location the Center of the Story

by Leslie Rule
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Seero, a new startup, is a "live on location," geo-broadcasting online app that mixes gps and video streaming by broadcasting and mapping in real-time. With the service, you broadcast live video, geo-tagging the content in real-time as you go. If folks are logged on to the site, they can follow in you in real-time; or if they aren't online at the moment, the content, including the geo-tag is archived and accessible. The application highlights exploration. And to date, their most prominent geo-broadcasters are those journeying the world, but as with any broadcast, it's only as good as the content. I've...

• April 27, 2008
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News That Moves

by Paul Lamb
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

More and more cities are begining to offer digital maps to help tourists navigate their way around and locate points of interest via a mobile device. The city of Stuttgart, Germany for example, rents Stuttgart2Go - a Pocket PC device with GPS capabilities that allows a visitor to locate and map tourist attractions while on the go. As you physically approach a particular point of interest more historical information appears on your device about that site. Such devices and software like PocketMap are very useful for tourists and others needing to find their way in an unfamiliar environment. But wouldn't...

• February 10, 2008
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A Private Picture is Worth How Many Words?

by Paul Lamb
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

For those of you who attended the Consumer Electronics Show last week, you may have seen this new "TV Glasses" gadget that allows you to watch a movie played on an MP3 player or cell phone. It appears to be the next evolution of what began with the Walkman and personal digital devices toward the further privitization of the public media space. While old schoolers might compain that the "iPodization" or tuning out of our culture is bad enough as it is, others might argue that such devices are no worse than someone reading a book or checking their blackberry...

• January 19, 2008
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Old World Meet New World: Exploring History with New Media Tools

by Paul Lamb
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Here's an interesting post about a mobile game called Amsterdam 1550 that was designed to teach local students about the old city of Amersterdam. "The game uses 3G cell phones and network to allow students to compete in finding answers to questions about the old city of Amsterdam, for history class excursion and assignment. Frequency 1550 explores the social potential of location-aware devices, inspired by the use of tracking technology and wireless media, human relationships, movement and identity; the project seeks to extend and re-appropriate the functions of locative technologies by exploring ways in which they can be socially constructive...

• November 18, 2007
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