June 07, 2006

Summer Update

Its been pretty quiet in Blue Puddle land. Each of the researchers is scattered around the globe, but in August we will all come together once again, with new volunteers and fresh ideas.

The big question is hardware. When will location-aware picture phones become commonplace, and how can we get our website to work with them?

I am currently serving as Scholar-In-Residence at the Center for Knowledge Societies in Bangalore, India, which is keeping me quite busy. However, I think the CKS staff is pretty excited about BP, and I will be giving a demo and brainstorming possibilities this week with the team.

Other than that we got another shout out on WMMNA- thanks Regine! Although, to be fair she called us "ingenious young guys" which is really sweet, but I think the gals might feel excluded.

Also, if you haven't already, go read HEADMAP, which was one of the original inspirations for this project.

Enjoy the sun, and take lots of walks if the weather is nice in your part of the world.

Posted by zcd at 03:38 AM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2006

Blue Puddle In Barcelona

Blue Puddle has been slected to appear at the SONAR advanced music and multimedia arts festival from June 15-17 in Barcelona, Spain.

The website will be part of an exhibit of Google Map and Google Earth Hacks curated by Regine Debatty of We Make Money Not Art.

Posted by zcd at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)

April 24, 2006

Google Presentation

Today we had an opportunity to present our project to Chris Dibona who is Open Source Project Manager at Google.

This was the power point we showed him. We only had 20 minutes for the Power Point and the demo.




Urbanism is the opportunity for chance encounters with people who are different than yourself. The maps for each city are mash-ups that include 3 different ‘feeds’: popularity, most recently updated, and a random seeding ensuring the dense and information rich environments are created at the city level.


No one reads on the world wide web, they engage in pattern recognition. As ubiquitous and mobile computing help the internet permeate the built environment, it is important to figure out how images and icons will be situated spatially.
We are designing this site to have synergies with GPS enabled cameras and cell phones, under the assumption that they will be ubiquitous within a 2-3 years, as they already are in Japan.



Right now blogs predominately organize their information based on time. What would happen if information was organized spatially as well?






Spatial geoblogging may be particularly appropriate for cataloguing, and community GIS projects. Here Zack documents electricity outlets in alleyways for a quick charge to your cell phone or to put on an impromptu DJ show.

Posted by zcd at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2006

Angry Planet

Online Map and hiking tour of White Collar Criminals and Corporate Ne’er-Do-Wells in the Suburbs of Detroit and suggested gifts to give them.

Posted by zcd at 11:20 PM | Comments (1)

March 26, 2006

Wireless Access Points in Ann Arbor

Over the past week or so I've been really interested in finding all of the wireless access points along the paths I travel. Here's a Google Map I made with the data. Check out some of the things people name their access points. This could be a really cool Blue Puddle map mashup. Some of the best names could go on their own map.

Wireless Access Points in Ann Arbor

Posted by mulka at 06:49 PM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2006

Map Ideas

Maps You Could Make with Photographs:

-Photograph all of the trash you pick up as you walk. What does this tell you about the places where you walked?

Posted by zcd at 08:55 AM | Comments (0)