I had a quick play earlier and as TechCrunch noted, it’s a little light on features right now! If nothing else, the current beta gives a glimpse of how they will manage the privacy issues surrounding a “always on” awareness of your location.

I might see what I can hack together to use it while doing the Trailwalker Challenge later this year!

I recently started doing a Project Euler problem a day as a fun diversion. I found the geohash algorithm intriguing, so it became my “Euler problem” for the day!

Having done it, I’m not sure I’ll find a use for it myself, but if anyone else finds it handy, do let me know!

Download it here.

That is a map of worldwide KML and GeoRSS feeds indexed by Google. But look, the British Isles are on fire! Could this be Geograph’s infamous warm glow at work?

Pictured right is Geograph’s current coverage map (click for an impressive 1km per pixel version). Each red dot is a 1km grid square where we have at least one photograph.

It certainly looks like there is some correlation between those maps, and shows that our 500,000+ web pages are being well indexed by Google.

Onwards and upwards!

ZoneTag can suggest your location and tagging information based on cellphone tower, zipcode or latitude & longitude. The last piece of the tagging system I’m working on is the suggestion engine, so this was of great interest.

I gave it a quick test run, and predictably, it’s a case of feast or famine. A request for my home town of Baldock in the UK produces two results – “Plinston Hall” and “Letchworth” – so not entirely useful. More fruitful was a request for the location of the London Eye – you’re deluged with a plethora of data – here are the “venue” tags it suggests:

Waterloo, cleopatra’s needle, Eurostar, Downing Street, Eagle, London Eye, Guard, Waterloo Station, Parliament, Somerset House, Whitehall, Westminster, Memorial, skyline, Big Ben, Embankment, Thames, graffiti, Hungerford Bridge, Dali, SW1, horse, Eye, Banksy, train, Trafalgar Square, National Theatre, St Martins Lane, trains, station, Ferris Wheel, bridge, river, Guards, church, SE1, pub, Waterloo Bridge, Protest, IMAX, Horse Guards Parade, Wheel, River Thames, Charing Cross, Underground, View, sign, Southwark, House, Tube, Palace of Westminster, Horse Guards, Red, night, London Aquarium, Victoria Tower, england, sky, UK, Lion, long exposure, blue, statue, Trafalgar, Lambeth, Millenium Wheel, Demonstration, Peace, Anti War, Bus, Elephant, Europe, Clock, Nelsons Column, Street, Oxo Tower, Guess Where London

Perhaps a few too many there, but still, not a bad result. As it’s an experimental beta, not sure we can use it directly for Geograph, but it might serve as a useful comparison for our own suggestion engine. We could even offer a compatible service based on our own data too…

I’d love to throw it at some Geograph squares – some of the more touristy squares have oodles of PhotoSynth fodder.

Over the next fews days these are getting trickled up to the Geograph servers, and then Barry Hunter will perform the integration work. You can probably expect to start seeing some basic integration of maps into photo viewing pages before Christmas. This will really enhance the educational value of the site, something we’ll be building further upon in the new year.

Coincidentally, Ed Parsons offers a tantalising glimpse of OS Openspace today. Can’t wait to see that reach a public release…