You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension - a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.
Google Map Mania continues to go crazy.
- Virender Ajmani’s Google News mashup lets you search local news by zipcode and has added restaurant and movie theater locations to the map.
- Frappr lets you create a personalized Google Map (with photos and friends) and see where everyone in your group is. Great for clubs, coworkers and families, and you can let others put stuff on your map as well.
- MapChatter.com lets you find people looking to chat while Hot People by Zip Code may go further
- Platial.com is a free mashup that lets you easily make your own clickable city map. It’s similar to HousingMaps.com which maps Craigs List. Platial makes it easy to add your own photos (even media files). Francisco-based Wayfaring.com and communitywalk.com, have a similar service but Portland-based Platial is “primarily personal stories.
- Open Source Panorama Software allows you to add 360 degree panoramas on every corner in your neighborhood and oral history in every window.
ShakinDave.com gives you a glimpse into the future. Using a camera mounted on his glasses, Dave Rheingold broadcasts live from the streets of New York and shows you in live time what he’s seeing. He pipes his personal video AND audio to his website so you can tune into the action. He uses a Tablet PC (Motion Computing) with EVDO card, Video glasses, Microphone, USB analog-to-digital video capture board and a GPS receiver.- ComVu enables 2-way live video webcasting from PocketPC phones like Sprint’s 6700. ComVu is working with Modeo, a mobile tv broadcaster, to provide millions of citizen reporters with the ability to broadcast breaking news live to a global television audience. ComVu can send live Windows Media from a camera phone to a Modeo-enabled device.
- Google SketchUp is a free, easy-to-learn 3D modeling program that enables you to build a world in 3D. Once you’ve built your models, you can place them in Google Earth (also free).
I just came back from a concert series that featured Portland music and composers from 1880-1923 (MP-3). Musicians played vintage instruments and told stories. Vintage instruments from the Auroa Colony Museum created music that resembled the soundtrack to Ken Burn’s Civil War (flash clip). The National Music Museum was also featured on Prairie Home Companion this week (audio).
A clickable map using vintage music and historic photos with oral history might enhance a “city cloud”. The cost is low. The Library of Congress has a great collection of music but the talent may be right in your own backyard. Gold is everywhere.
And you don’t need any money. Audacity is a free sound editor while FreeSound aims to release sound clips under the Creative Commons license. Microsoft’s free Photostory application is dead simple to use and enables professional pans and zooms on stills, automatically. It can output high quality streaming content to PDAs & portable players.
The real world is a virtual museum.
Portland’s Radical History Bike Tour, WPA stories, WW II at Home, Civil Defense Films, Great Floods, Native American Heritage, Immigration, and Wisdom of the Elders can be mapped to The Cloud. Make your own history. Music sets the mood.
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