8-Bit City Love
Jul 8, 2010 @ 10:49 AM by Kumiko Yamazaki -- game mapRemember the fantastic 8-Bit NYC map we saw earlier? Brett Camper has continued to design and develop similar maps for other cities. The list now includes:
New York
Amsterdam
Austin
Berlin
Detroit
London
Paris
San Francisco
Seattle
Washington, DC
Check them out! I can’t help thinking these will be great base maps for any sort of location-based gaming. Somebody, get on it :)
Future cities will include Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, Portland (Oregon), Oakland, Boulder, Oklahoma City, Rome, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Nijmegen, Kyoto, Shanghai, and Singapore!
Vancouver Interactive Digital Week
Jun 15, 2010 @ 7:32 PM by Britta Ricker -- game ipad iphone location: conferenceMapkist was fortunate enough to attend Vancouver Interactive Digital Week (VIDWeek) organized by Digi BC. (I am late blogging about it but this is definitely an event worth blogging about). I was the moderator for a panel in the Wireless Business & Innovation Track: You are Your Location - location and enhanced experience.
We had a stacked panel that led to a rich discussion covering topics related to location-based gaming and services.
Let’s meet the panel…
Jereon Mol, Co-Founder, buzzAR (Holland)
buzzAR is a Dutch company that has developed a new visual search platform and an augmented reality tool for smartphones. Jereon offered a unique perspective on “location-aware” search and devices because his apps use image recognition and are not bound by location. buzzAR is taking a context aware approach to Augmented Reality, not just location aware.
Dan Walton, Co-Founder, Retronyms
Retronyms – GeoSeek; games in the great outdoors. These guys make really cool apps for multiple platforms. They are specifically skilled in developing location-based games and music apps. Their coolest game is Seek ‘n Spell…think location based scrabble where you have to run to collect the pieces you need to form a word. Super fun. They also develop musical apps for the iPad. All of our lunch buddies got a kick out of these apps. Highly entertaining.
Ben Hesketh, Founder, Compass Engine
Compass Engine and Ben are currently working on an app called Catch the Canary. Ben invited me to come visit him at work in beautiful Gastown in Vancouver last week. It was really cool to get to preview his location-based game that will be launched soon… I will likely blog about it when it is ready.
Vladimir Savchenko, Founder, Sound of Motion
Sound of Motion - creators of an app (VeloComputer) that transforms mobile devices into cycling computers that can track speed; lap and trip distance; acceleration and altitude. It also records trip data on the phone in CSV files and can be uploaded to a spreadsheet for training analysis or Google Earth for tracking. This computer can be used for more than just biking too!
Here we are!
If you have any questions about this panel session and what was discussed… give us a shout or comment below… would love to keep the dialogue going!
Quick AAG review
Apr 28, 2010 @ 3:32 PM by Britta Ricker -- game geoweb google earth review web2.0I was fortunate enough to attend and present at the AAG conference (and meet Kumiko’s new iPad) in Washington DC earlier this month. The AAG is always a great time to be introduced to new ideas, reconnect with old friends and put faces with names. The problem with the AAG is that it is sooooooo BIG! I never feel like I have been to enough talks. I am only going to blog about a few here.
In no particular order, I will first report on the session titled: Geovisualization, Geovisual Analytics, Cognition, Behavior and Representation I: Navigation and Spatial Cognition organized by Kirk Goldsberry and Sara Fabrikant (note: I got here late, it started at 8am). I was really interested in Sandra Metoyer’s talk. In short, she did a study testing interactions among geovisualization tools to measure spatial thinking and student learning. She found that interactive web based maps really helped students learn about complex spatial issues. Horray!
Another session that I found very stimulating was: Global Dialogues for Emerging Science & Technology Africa: Results of two years of collaboration between US Department of State, AAG, and EIS-AFRICA
This panel was chaired by Lee R. Schwartz – who holds the title THE GEOGRAPHER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! What a title! He is the head geographer for the U.S. Department of State. I was interested in attending this talk because it seems that Mr. Schwatz has his finger on the pulse of Neogeography and Web 2.0 and is trying to think of new ways that these tools can be used to help in the developing world. At the AAG last year I was fortunate enough to talk to him about his interests in incorporating new geospatial tools and software for a more inclusive process with state department work. Therefore when I saw this panel I was very excited to see what Mr. Schwartz has been doing! It seems like he is teaming with key players and they were all there to present their initiatives.
Panelists included:
Nathan Heard - U.S. Department of State
Charles Sebukeera - United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP)
Rebecca Moore - Google Earth Outreach (my personal hero! Read more about her and Google Earth Outreach to see why)
Carrie Stokes - USAID
Carmelle J. Terborgh - Federal/Global Affairs Team Lead, ESRI
Discussant(s):
Robert Swap - University of Virginia
I understand that panelists had a very limited time to present, but it seemed each shared a laundry list of projects that they were working on without actually explaining any of them in detail. They made it clear that they were “training the trainers” and not simply putting expats in Africa to do the job. Each speaker announced the need for a working organized Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) but they did not address how they were developing one and if Africans were involved in this the process. I did ask at the end and I was told they were going to discuss that in the next panel and made reference to the UN. This to me sounds like a top down approach to SDI development and participatory GIS. No one used the term public participatory GIS. There were very few academics in the room (I know this because they passed around a sign in sheet). Despite these minor let downs it was still great to see ESRI, Google Earth and the government working together to use their expertise and valuable tools to help Africa with issues such as public health, sustainable development, water resources management and a host of other vital challenges facing the African content.
Finally, my session was titled: Participatory Governance via Web 2.0 II and was organized by Dr. Renee Sieber of McGill University. There were several exciting panelist sharing their work harnessing the Geoweb for community engagement. All of the presenters were associated with the Participatory Geoweb research group funded by GEOIDE and the Canadian Government. My talk was titled: The potential for location-based services and serious gaming to enhance participatory governance and education. See my slides here.
TED talks worth Watching
Mar 30, 2010 @ 1:17 PM by Britta Ricker -- game geoweb visualization web2.0: mashupsThere were a few TED talks over the past few weeks that were really interesting and informative. Really, what TED talks are not interesting and informative?
First…Tim Berners-Lee talks Mashups. Tim Berners-Lee gets excited about open data and resulting mashups. He shows us amazing visualizations of Volunteered Geographic Content popping up all over the digital globe. He also talks about the role of this resource for disaster management. You can see in our portfolio some of the cool mashups Kumiko has made with open data.
Second… Jane McGonigal tells us about the potential for collective online gaming to save the world…not just the world of war craft.
Third…Bing Maps using augmented reality and photo synth, oh my! Although we do not use Bing Maps here at Mapkist, that may change in the near future. Check out this video to see why.
Enjoy!!
Flash Madness
Mar 17, 2010 @ 10:08 AM by Kumiko Yamazaki -- game mapThe madness begins tomorrow and offices around the U.S. are expected to lose billions of dollars in worker productivity. They don’t call it March Madness for nothing, you know.
Over at ESPN, they have apparently aimed to INCREASE the amount of lost productivity by releasing a Flash game - Map Madness Bracket Teams. Like many map games, you must locate the school’s campus and will be awarded points based on time and accuracy.
Wow I’m terrible — 42,238 pts and I’ve been booted. Winthrop College? Morgan State?? What was your score?
Kumiko Yamazaki: kyamazaki@mapkist.com