O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 is the third annual conference bringing together developments in the location industry. The Where 2.0 Conference News has podcasts. At O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 conference, 18 presentations where held over 2 hours, 6 launches and 12 Ignite talks, covering various aspect of the geo world.

Perhaps the biggest news was Google’s virtual walking tour of cities. Google launched Streetside View using ImmersiveMedia to create a 360 degree view. This is not just a static, A9-style image. It will also let you move along the street in a smooth manner and even more amazing it will let you change your angle and continue moving that way.

Check it out. Here’s San Francisco, Las Vegas and the Brooklyn Bridge and some Immersive 360 degree city tours.

Google also licensed the sensing technology developed by a team of Stanford University that students used in their autonomous vehicle, Stanley, which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. In that race, the Stanford robotic car successfully drove more than 131 miles through the Mojave Desert in less than seven hours. DARPA will hold its third Grand Challenge on November 3, 2007.

Microsoft’s 3-D mapping application known as Virtual Earth has taken the high ground. Microsoft bought Vexcel, and their multi-spectral camera, the UltraCam D used for aerial photography. It then applies an algorithm to extract 3D information, more or less automatically.

Microsoft has been able to create exact replicas of more than 50 cities, including San Francisco and San Jose and today announced new 3-D cityscapes of Austin, Texas, Cape Coral, Fla., Cincinnati, Ohio, Indianapolis, Ind., including the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Northampton, England, Ottawa, Savannah, Ga. and Tampa, Fla. The new maps will appear throughout the day on May 29.

ImmersiveMedia, by contrast, drives around cities with a 360 degree video camera. This detailed, street-side video view should enable a more detailed, accurate view, although it will likely take more time and money to compile 3D models of cities.

Also at Where 2.0, Skyhook Wireless announced Loki 2.0, a WiFi-driven location engine. Loki 2.0 has an updated look and feel, support for the Mac OS, a mobile version and a JavaScript API.

The JavaScript API allows any web developer to location-enable their end user experience by embedding a few lines of JavaScript into their HTML content. Anyone with location-based content - brick-and-mortar store finder applications, friend finders, instant messaging platforms, etc., can develop location-based services and explicitly granted opt-in permission to share their location with a Loki-enabled site. It can automatically get directions and information about their immediate area or any other location-relevant content.

Other announcements included:

• Geocommons, created by Fortiusone, is a tool for giving consumers access to data and allow people to create maps based on it. To encourage sharing the data has to be me available under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Here is an example of Tornado Alleys.
• National Geographic Metalens is a new service and API to integrate maps, media and data. It then allows you to do spatial filtering and temporal tags. National Geographic has a vast amount of authoritative data. The ‘temporal tags’ enable users to select data at specific times.
• Fatdoor is a new location based social network site with a twist. With over a 100 million pre populated profiles, it builds a social network of people living around you. The goal here is to allow you to get to know and interact with your neighbours.
• Swivel launched a new tool called Swivel G which allows you to take Swivel datasets and plot them over geographical maps. Here is a map of electricity usage across the globe from the CIA Factbook.
• dopplr is a tool for people that travel a lot. By inputing your trips into dopplr, it will show you where you are going, and who else is going to be there. It enables serendipity when you are out travelling.
• UpNext showed a 3d cityscape of New York. It allows you to zoom around the space and select what kind of data it show. It pulled in restaurants, nightlife, shopping as well as a mashup from upcoming.org. The question is if consumers will prefer the 3d ability to zoom around, or prefer more traditional 2d maps.
• uLocate announced support for GeoRSS and KML for mobile phone users. Users will be able to view thousands of location feeds including local news wire stories, user-generated travel guides, local blogs, restaurant reviews, and virtual location notes. Their Where widget usually accesses your GPS phone location to determine where you are.

As businesses rush to get involved in Web 2.0, they must think about the security implications of all those blogs, wikis, and social networks, says Dark Reading. “Web 2.0 is all about openness and freedom,” says Kris Lamb, director of the IBM Internet Security Systems division’s X-Force security research organization. “You’re really tearing down the traditional barriers that have kept companies safe.”

Google Earth Blog, Google Lat/Long and Virtual Earth Blog and Google Earth Blog Link List have more tips. Telematics Journal and Directions Magazine have more general news about location-based services.

Related DailyWireless articles include; The Infinite Zoom, Microsoft’s 3D Photo Flyby, Microsoft’s Amazing Virtual Earth, Microsoft Buys Vexcel, Mapping Goes Live, Panoramic Video, Scanners 3D, Vessel Monitoring, Border Surveillence, Gigapixel Imaging, Virtual Earth Adds Cities, Panoramic EventCam, Border Surveillence, Cities As Game Grids, True Crime, 3D Standards Coalesce, How To Spend Your Homeland Security Check and City Clouds: Becoming The World Cup.

Posted by Sam Churchill on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 8:34 am.