Almost two and a half years after it was released, the ZoneTag prototype from the group formerly known as Y!RB is still out there. ZoneTag remains some people's favorite application for geotagging photos and uploading to Flickr (owners of Nokia phones, feel free to try). Interestingly, since launch, ZoneTag had been used on numerous cross-country trips - at least one done on motorbike, and one with a truck - yeah, that one was me.
However, there's a new outstanding achievement in the ZoneTagging-coast-to-coast category. Joe Rehana, aka Joe Trek, has been ZoneTagging his way from San Francisco to Maryland on his bicycle inline skates. No "motor" there. We've been following him since the start of the trek as we noticed (thanks, Rahul) his photos in the ZoneTag stream. Now, Joe is still in California (see his picture map), but at this pace, he's likely to make it to Maryland long before the Democratic primaries are over beginning of the fall semester.
Yes, the future of travel photos is almost here. This is just what Scott Adams wishes for, complete with easy annotation of the photo's content based on your location (click on Joe Trek's photo below to see the tags). The nature of consumer capture and sharing of media is changing these very days. One on hand, the Nokia N95 and other high-end cameraphones and location-enabled cameras now merge high-quality imaging (and video), location awareness, text-input capabilities, and, most importantly, network connectivity (did anyway say Eye Fi?) in a device that's in the hands of millions of, you know, regular people. On the other hand, Flickr and other services offer APIs for posting and adding metadata to photos that help disseminate as well as archive all this content. At the end of his trip, or even during, Joe Trek will have the set of photos geotagged, annotated, explained, and archived till the end of time on the Flickr servers. This should be the experience of every vacationer out there. Why wouldn't it?
p.s. Joe, if you're reading, may I suggest using Fire Eagle to have your location automatically updated on your blog?
[updated: Joe is not biking, he's inline skating with his gear in a baby jogger - holy @$%*!]
Popularity: 43% [?]
I'm here at ETech in San Diego where Tom Coates from Brickhouse has just announced the long-awaited release of Fire Eagle. This developer's beta is now open by invitation.
Fire Eagle is the secure and stylish way for anyone to share their location with sites and services online. We want to make the whole web respond to where you are, and to help you discover more about the world around you, whether you're in Berkeley or Ulaan Bataar.
If you're a developer or geo-hacker who wants to start building an application powered by Fire Eagle, please come join our developer group and check out the documentation on the Yahoo! Developer Network.
And if you want to learn more about Fire Eagle and how it came about, here's a video of Tom's presentation:
Popularity: 45% [?]
Editor's Note: This post was originally written as an entry in GigaOM's Optimism 2008 contest. Om Malik's assignment was: "Tell me, in 200 to 400 words, what you’re most optimistic about for 2008, and why." The writer of the winning entry received a Sonos Digital Music System. Rabble's post, which you can read below, came in second (runner-up). Rabble might still be optimistic about a Sonos system, so let him know if you have a spare.
Difficult question. I know what i’m excited about right now. It’s that cloud computing is becoming a reality. More specifically I’m really impressed and excited by lightweight key-pair databases like CouchDb and Thrudb. Amazon’s SimpleDB is interesting as endorsement of this idea of a database, but not as interesting technically. There are whole classes of applications which are hard to do using a relational database that will be easy to build and scale using key-pair style databases like CouchDb, Thrudb, and SimpleDB. Applications like delicious, twitter, facebook, and flickr are difficult to build on the backend due in large part to a poor match of database storage engines. With that fixed, and it seems like we’re finally getting around to fixing it, we’ll be able to push forward in building social apps which can scale while doing interesting things. Something that has been hard is going to become easy in 2008.
What else? The mobile handset world is going to be interesting. Apple will release an SDK that, if done the right way, will create a fountain of new applications. Android will come along and the creative of mobile apps will spread to more devices, but they won’t be as slick. The iPhone is the Mac of phones: Apple’s one device/one screen size/one interface system will be a massive win for building interesting applications. It remains to be seen if Android will become like Linux, with hackers doing cool stuff but not much end-user acceptance; or more like Windows, widespread but clunky because of the hundreds of devices which need to be supported; or cool like OS/2, but simply ignored out of existence.
I’m excited about computing and watching the net extend to non-computer devices. The dash navigation system is one example, chumby and Kindle are others, there are plenty more. So far they’ve had a hard time getting built and released. Hopefully, in 2008 the net will stop being about laptops, desktops, and servers. The iPhone is a stage along that path, but there’s so much more. Perhaps it’s too optimistic to hope for great new devices in 2008--building physical things requires much longer lead time. Eventually, the device makers will learn what the desktop application makers have learned: tying a device to the net means you can push updates onto it easily and be much more agile.
The last thing I’m excited about is maps. This isn’t new, map development has been going on for a while, but there are neat things happening with maps, geo, and location-based services. I hope there is enough space for people to build apps which are social and useful, rather than just marketer dreams (...yet another app to find the nearest Starbucks).
Popularity: 12% [?]
Evan "Rabble" Henshaw-Plath, January 7th, 2008 on 7:40 pm
ZoneTag is a research prototype from the scientists at Yahoo! Research Berkeley that aims to leverage context from cell phones to create new mobile photography experiences. The application allows you to quickly and easily upload images from your camera phone to Flickr. The photos uploaded can be automatically annotated with the location (usually based on cell tower) in which they were taken. One of the challenges of this prototype is generating tag suggestions that are both concise and accurate enough to be easily handled on a phone interface.
Both the automated location tags and the suggested tags already help users find photos and organize their collections.
ZoneTag should work on most Nokia Series 60 v2 and v3 phones, but your mileage may vary. It also runs on the Motorola RAZR V3x. It may work on other phone models; try at your own risk and let us know how it goes!
Who built it
What people are saying
Finally flawless photos geotagging with your N95, Nokia N95 Users, SuBmArU
"...searching for a solution I discovered ZONETAG, a wonderful service offered by the guys behind Yahoo and Flickr: Zonetag claims to work with my N95, giving the opportunity to geotag a photo and to upload it to Flickr.
I gave it a try: I downloaded the client and installed in on my N95 ... and my jaws dropped down! IT WORKS flawlessly!"
Geo-hackers - The Zonetag API Goes Public, Yahoo! Developer Network blog, Dan Theurer
"ZoneTag is a little prototype that was developed by Yahoo! Research Berkeley. A look under the hood shows that it's built on top of a couple of interesting APIs that we're opening up. Anything that ZoneTag can do, you could do as well. "
Hands-on Hands on with Zonetag v3.0 for Symbian, Yet Another Symbian Blog, Ray Masky
"I would say this app totally Rocks !! Uses very less memory , very stable ..and very very useful !! "
Yahoo! ZoneTag 2-click-uploads location-tagged photos to Flickr, Engadget Mobile, Evan Blass
"Yahoo! has built an evolving database that relies on users manually tagging their stamped-photos with ZIP codes or GPS coordinates to provide a correlation between tower IDs and real-world locations, so the service will get more accurate over time."
Popularity: 13% [?]
Zurfer is a location-based photo browser for your shiny phone. Zurfer shows you photos taken around you, and exposes interesting local highlights. It gives you a way to follow your Flickr friends, follow comments on your Flickr photostream, and access your photos wherever you are.
Zurfer should work on most Nokia Series 60 v2 and v3 phones, but your mileage may vary. It also runs on the Motorola RAZR V3x. It may work on other phone models; try at your own risk and let us know how it goes!
Who built it
What people are saying
10 Of The Coolest, Free Applications For Your GPS-Enabled Nokia N95 Smartphone, GISUser.com, Glenn Letham
"Zurfer is one of those addictive social networking applications that you MUST have! This one actually comes out of the Yahoo! research labs and takes advantage of your position to share photos, see other photos around you, and take advantage of you flickr photos."
Yahoo's Zurfer joins Flickr, mobile phones, CNET News Blog, Stephen Shankland
"The software, which requires a "beefy smart phone," shows photos taken recently in a mobile phone user's vicinity, an example of a so-called location-aware service... Zurfer is one application based on the nascent "geotagging" concept in which digital photos are labeled with location information such as latitude and longitude."
Yahoo! Zurfer – Flicker for Handheld Devices, GPS Technology Reviews
"Zurfer is ideal travel companion as it can show you photos that have been taken around your location providing an opportunity search Flickr and discover what local highlights there are to see. Its possible to access the latest photos posted by Flickr friends and check on comments on your own Flickr photos."
Popularity: 12% [?]
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