in the age of geoinformation

You may wonder what interests me about automated geotagging of photos using a GPS.
There are a couple things.
One is that I can see the tracks of where I've walked (or ridden on the train, or flown).
The other is that I can learn more about what I photographed.

I'm walking around Paris, I see a church with a motto GLORIA DEO * PAX TERRAE

That's cool.  Snap a photo.

I have no idea what church it is.

Get home, georeference it automatically, and now I'm in Google Earth

So that's cool, now I know where I was, and I can see the beautiful cross-shape of the church.
But what church?
Turn on Geographic Web... no help.
Turn on Google Earth Community... aha!

It's the E‰glise Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet (website, Wikipedia).

In a sense, physical objects can now tell you about themselves, as in Vinge's Rainbows End.

But it's quite a delayed process.
What I should be able to do is load my phone or camera's multi-gig memory up with map info (or download live info, if I didn't have outrageous data charges) and do this in real time.  But unfortunately Google Maps Mobile seems to have no concept of running as a nice generic Java mobile app that can talk to my GPS (e.g. on my K790 phone using Bluetooth GPS), Google Maps Mobile instead is all locked up with specific carriers and phones, and I don't think it will let you download maps in advance.  j2memap for some reason only pulls in satellite views, not street name views or enhanced geographic info.  Hmm, if only I had a chance to talk to someone at Google...

(This posting for Colin, geothinking author.)

More info and thoughts along these lines in my Mapping category and on my geocoding photos page.

Comments

[coturnix]

Interesting! I thought more about Science 2.0 when I was reading/reviweing Rainbows End:
http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/07/world_20_at_rainbows_end.php