Geotagging Imagery and Video


IsWHERE is a log of my thoughts, reflections, and news/blog links on the emergence of image and video geospatial tagging. On May5th this year, I opened a second blog to deal with more detailed aspects of tools for FalconView and TalonView can be found at RouteScout. Trends I want to try and follow are the various disruptions resulting from spatial smart-phones, how many GPS devices are out there, smart-cameras, and other related news. And yes, I have a business interest in all of this. My company Red Hen has been pioneering this sort of geomedia for more than a decade.

So beyond a personal blog, I also provide a link to IsWHERE a shareware tool created by Red Hen Systems to readily place geoJPEG or geotagged imagery and soon GEM full motion media kept on your own computer(s) into Google Earth/Map from your File Manager media selection. Works great for geotagged images from Nikon, Ricoh, Sony, iPHONE, Android and all geo-smartphones that can create geotagged images. IsWhere - read about it

IsWhere Free Download (XP and VISTA)

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IsWhere Visitors

Thursday, November 29, 2007

ABI Predicts 550 Million Handsets with GPS Features in2012

Key Drivers and Latest Trends Pushing GPS Penetration in CDMA, GSM and WCDMA HandsetsContact

Shipments of GPS-enabled mobile phones will generate over $50 billion in revenues in 2008, rising to $100 billion in 2012. The market for these handsets is expected to grow from around 240 million units in 2008 to over 550 million handset shipments in 2012. At present, most current GPS-enabled handsets are CDMA devices, but increasing numbers of GPS-enabled handsets for 3G/WCDMA networks will start to appear in the market from 2008 onwards.


According to ABI Research industry analyst Shailendra Pandey, “The ongoing consolidation in the mobile industry – including Nokia’s acquisition of NAVTEQ, Broadcom’s acquisition of Global Locate, CSR’s acquisition of NordNav Technologies and Cambridge Positioning Systems, and the tussle between TomTom and Garmin to acquire Tele Atlas – gives a clear indication of the plans and commitment of industry players to address the GPS-enabled handset market.”


ABI Research believes that the mobile industry has reached the stage where we can expect to see rapid growth in the GPS-enabled handset market. From cost and technology perspectives, chipset manufacturers now have solutions in place that will allow the integration of GPS in handsets at low cost and provide significant improvements in terms of accuracy, time-to-first-fix, and reception in indoor environments. On the services side, mobile operators and navigation application developers are coming up with attractive LBS offerings. Also, handset vendors are showing greater interest not only in providing GPS-enabled handsets, but also in introducing their own GPS-centric applications and services.


ABI Research expects the market for GPS-enabled handsets to grow strongly in the next five years. In addition to major handset manufacturers such as Nokia, Motorola, RIM and Samsung, smaller Asian ODMs including HTC, Quanta and Inventec are also introducing GPS-enabled devices. The firm’s new study "GPS-Enabled Mobile Devices" examines the market landscape and future potential for GPS-enabled mobile phones. It discusses the critical business and marketing issues, as well as the market opportunities and challenges facing handset vendors, mobile operators, semiconductor vendors, and other industry players in addressing the GPS-enabled handset market.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Auto-tagging - Faces with Places

http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9816371-39.html

Get ready for a new era in which your camera knows not just when you took a picture but who's in it, too.

Many cameras today can detect the faces of those being photographed, which is handy for guiding the camera to set its exposure, focus, and color balance properly. But the more difficult challenge of face recognition is more useful after the photo has been taken.


That's because of a concept called autotagging, one of a number of technologies that make digital photography qualitatively different from the film photography of the past.

Tags of descriptive data can be attached to digital photos, and they help people find and organize pictures. The only problem is that tagging your photos, today a laborious manual task, is like eating your vegetables. It's good for you but a lot of people don't like it.

With autotagging, the camera attaches tags as the pictures are taken. Today, cameras embed timestamps in photos, which makes it possible to sift through pictures by date. But be honest here--how reliably can you remember exactly when you took that picture of your darling daughter a year or two ago that you'd like to e-mail to her grandparents? Being able to screen for photos only of a particular person could dramatically speed up the search process.

One camera maker willing to mention its interest in autotagging is Panasonic. "A lot of thought is going into how to tag photos so you can retrieve them at a moment's notice," said Alex Fried, national marketing manager for imaging at Panasonic's Consumer Electronics Co. But he wouldn't go into specifics: "There are things we have in the works that will help benefit consumers going forward."

And faces aren't the only aspect of autotagging that's likely to show up in cameras. Location, too, is another useful attribute that can be attached to photos through a process called geotagging. Geotagging can be used both to look for photos whose location you know and to figure out what exactly is in a photo you already have at hand.

Today, geotagging is generally a laborious manual task that requires geographic data to be merged with photos after the fact using a computer. But more power-efficient approaches will lead to in-camera GPS systems that will enable automatic geotagging, predicted Kanwar Chadha, founder of GPS chip designer SiRF Technology.

"A location stamp is much more important than a time stamp in most cases. A year down the road, you have no idea where those pictures were taken and no way to search for location," Chadha said.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

iPhone Succes to Slow Smartphone Growth Rates?

Tecnology News - Nove 13, 2007

Slowing growth rates for smartphones already are apparent. In 2005, Windsor says, consumers bought some 50 million smartphones, more than double the number purchased in 2004. In 2006, unit sales doubled again to north of 100 million units. In 2007, he reckons sales will hit about 144 million -- still healthy growth, but nearly two-thirds off the preceding years' rates of growth. In 2008 and 2009, the rate of growth will slow even more, Windsor predicts.

David Carey, head of Portelligent, a consultancy that specializes in tearing down gadgets like wireless phones to estimate their materials costs, says the more likely cost driver in smartphones over time won't be graphics chips, but flash memory. "If you took all the memory out of an iPhone and compared its insides to a Nokia N95, you'd have roughly the same cost of components," he says "The component content that is most in demand is flash chips. If everyone starts chasing the iPhone, then the costs will go up, but that will be driven more by flash."

Indeed, smartphone makers already are boosting the amount of flash memory in their gadgets. Apple eliminated its 4-GB iPhone, to offer just the 8 GB version, and 8 GB versions of Nokia's N95 and N81 are expected this week. Within a year these same phones could be sporting 16 GB, Carey says.

Geotagging Driving GPS in Cameras and Mobiles

Geotagging Driving GPS in Cameras, Laptops, Says IMS Research
November 13, 2007

Traditionally, geo-tagging has been a complicated procedure, restricting the market to hardcore enthusiasts and professional users. However, new GPS and LBS advances are enabling this market while also driving consumer growth for GPS into cameras and laptops.


As analyzed in IMS Research’s report “The Worldwide Market for GPS/GNSS-enabled Portable Devices – 2007 edition” GPS is going to be integrated in a number of portable devices, such as laptops, PMPs, cellular and digital cameras. The overall market is set to increase 5-fold by 2011, with laptops and digital cameras representing over 20% of the market.


Matia Grossi, author of the report, says “Photo sites and online communities, e.g. Flickr and MySpace, need to maintain financial growth through traffic-based business; camera manufacturers need to differentiate in an increasingly competitive market; end users need new and innovative management functionalities for their offline pictures libraries. GPS is potentially the answer”.


“Looking at the camera market, only a small number of companies have introduced real-time GPS capabilities into their high-end SLRs”. It is difficult to integrate current GPS solutions cheaply and effectively. Camera manufacturers have razor thin profit margins, so it needs to be cheap and it needs to work. A traditional hardware solution is not well suited for the digital camera space for a number of reasons, including cost, battery drain and performance. Furthermore, people expect to capture the moment in an instant and do not want to wait for 30 seconds or more to get a fix. A GPS system, targeting the camera space, needs to address all these fundamental industry requirements”.


A new software approach is being developed by NXP Software targeting the laptop and digital camera market. SnapSpot is a low cost/low power alternative that easily integrates into these devices, requiring little additional hardware (i.e. antenna, LNA and RF front-end). When taking a photo, SnapSpot captures 100ms of digitized GPS signal and stores it in memory. On downloading the photos to a PC, the location is calculated using remote servers.


Asus has already introduced SnapSpot in its US3 laptops. Currently, other laptop and camera manufacturers have caught the navigation bug, which requires a more traditional GPS approach. This has driven the recent announcements from Qualcomm and other GPS suppliers in relation to these markets. While hardware GPS is fine for laptops, it will slow initial uptake in the camera market. IMS Research believes that software-based technologies will force manufacturers to change their minds and drive uptake of GPS and geo-tagging.


Saturday, November 03, 2007

SiRF Chips Dominate

SiRF Dominates Global GPS Handset Shipments and Evolving Location Based Services

GPS World

Global shipments of mobile handsets equipped with GPS capability will more than quadruple from 2006 to 2011 because of the U.S. government’s mandate for emergency 911 (E911) capability, as well as wireless operators’ initiatives to offer LBS, iSuppli Corp. said Thursday. GPS-equipped mobile handset shipments will increase to 444 million units by 2011, rising from 109.6 million units in 2006, according to the market research firm. By 2011, 29.6 percent of all mobile phones shipped will have GPS capability, up from 11.1 percent in 2006.

iSuppli Chart - Global GPS Equipped Mobile Handset Shipment Forcast, 2004-2011

"Besides cameras, multimedia capabilities and connectivity solutions, mobile-handset OEMs increasingly are investigating the integration of GPS functionality in mobile devices as a value-added product differentiator," said Tina Teng, iSuppli wireless communications analyst. "Wireless carriers are looking at introducing various new GPS-based, revenue-generating services to increase average revenue per user (ARPU)."

Accuracy and Response Key to LBS, Say TruePosition, IDC

"Location-based services have been slow to take off in the United States, but these research findings clearly show that the U.S. market is getting good traction," said Robert Morrison, TruePosition's senior vice president of market and business development. "Due to the rise in navigation systems in cars and websites that provide directions and points of interest, both consumers and enterprises in the United States are now grasping the concept of location-based services, and they have very specific ideas about how they should work."

The study asked consumers and enterprises in the United States exactly what they want and expect from the following LBS: child monitoring, medical and senior-citizen monitoring, pet tracking, navigation, traffic, stolen vehicle recovery, social networking, local search, fleet tracking, and workforce management.

When selecting the features that were most important to mobile navigation services, people ranked the ability to use the service in dense metropolitan areas first, according to IDC. The ability to use the service nationwide was second, and re-routing was the third feature.

As for local search, more than half of consumers are receptive to advertisement-sponsored local search services, which could prove to be a significant new source of revenue for mobile operators. Local search on cell phones looks to be the low-hanging LBS fruit for the wireless operator community, but only if they can agree on a free-advertising-based business model. Only 25 percent of those surveyed would consider paying for the service, IDC said.

The survey also found that security seems to be a key factor in determining whether location-enabled mobile social networking will take off. Consumers are unlikely to subscribe to these types of services unless service accessibility can be limited to authorized users and a process is in place to keep out strangers.

Overall, consumers revealed that they were extremely receptive to location-based services, providing they perform at the optimum levels—essentially, working wherever and whenever their mobile phone worked, IDC found. The majority of the respondents wanted the services to work in several different types of environments (outdoors, indoors and in vehicles), desired sub-50-meter accuracy, and required a sub-15-second response time.

But What Do Businesses Want from LBS?

From an enterprise perspective, LBS user preferences between the three geographies were remarkably similar. Workforce management and fleet tracking services were highlighted as the most prevalent uses of LBS by businesses. Some 74 percent of respondents to the survey viewed productivity improvements as a key benefit, while 69 percent saw cost savings as another key benefits. Also, businesses ranked the safety and security of their workers as the most important feature, with ease of implementation coming in at a close second.

SiRF Technology Holdings Inc. unveiled its SiRFecosystem strategy and introduced SiRFstudio, a standards-based, end-to-end LBS platform.

SiRFstudio is designed to simplify and speed the development and deployment of location-aware applications across a broad range of mobile devices, SiRF says. It is part of what SiRF has dubbed its SiRFecosystem, a suite of tools and resources to speed development, testing, deployment and marketing of LBS applications that drive higher average revenue per user. More than one hundred companies worldwide are already participating in the SiRFecosystem LBS developer community, according to SiRF.

SiRFstudio intends to make location an intrinsic and useful part of every mobile device, combining with and enhancing applications people use the most from calling, messaging and browsing to address books, calendars and e-mail, the company says. It is a superset of the JSR-179 location (application programming interface) API, supporting multiple integrated development environments such as Java Wireless Toolkit 2.3, and offers software developers standard APIs for accessing location capabilities across multiple devices, operating systems and location technologies.

Today the revenues wireless service providers receive for voice services far exceed those they receive for data services, SiRF observes. In contrast, in the U.S. and many other countries, wire-line data revenues already exceed voice revenues, and wireless service providers are understandably eager to close this gap. SiRF believes wireless data revenues will follow a similar trend, and that location will be a key contributor in closing this revenue gap by providing a context for mobile content, the company says.

The Lowdown on SiRFstudio

SiRFstudio comprises both client and server components. The SiRFstudio thin client resides on the mobile device and provides developer-facing APIs for the rapid development and integration of location-enabled applications.

OEMs and ODMs can employ these APIs to location-enable their native applications, while third-party developers can employ them to create downloadable and browsable LBS applications as well as widgets, according to SiRF. These open, common APIs will extend across all major device operating platforms, including Java, Windows, Linux and Symbian, and are compliant with all major standards, including JSR-179, Open LS, OMA MLP and SUPL and support the Web2.0 Widget environment, including Mobile Ajax and the JavaScript runtime.

SiRFstudio Server has a multi-protocol gateway that receives requests for location data from the SiRFstudio client over any available wireless link and delivers the available location data back to it. SiRFstudio Server interfaces with most of the major geospatial data platforms worldwide, including Autodesk, ESRI, Webraska, Navitime, Microsoft, DeCarta, Telmap, Maporama, Tele Atlas and Navteq, among others, the company says.

SiRFstudio Server's location intelligence capabilities support peer-to-peer location to communicate user location with others, geo-annotation to create location-based user content, geo-publishing for location-based RSS and real-time feeds and a geo-agent for event-driven alerts based on time, location, speed, heading or motion. The SiRFstudio Server vending machine interface provides a turnkey solution for both on-deck and off-deck content distribution, the company says.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Maps vs Mapquest vs Google Maps vs Yahoo! Local Net

The online mapping business is shifitng away from Yahoo! Local to Google Maps essentially. Yahoo seems to slowly going down the gurgler?
Reported on TechCrunch

Thursday, October 11, 2007




Increased Availability of GPS on Mobile Phones Drives Consumption of Navigation and Other LBS

SAN FRANCISCO — With GPS available on more new mobile devices, consumer demand for location-based services (LBS) such as navigation is growing, according to Telephia, a service of The Nielsen Company, and the world’s largest provider of syndicated consumer research to the telecom and mobile media markets.

In its second quarter report on mobile applications, Telephia also reported that:

Approximately 13 million mobile consumers downloaded a mobile application on their phone.
Of the $118 million in revenue that downloadable mobile applications such as LBS, weather applications, chat/community, and personal organization tools generated during Q2 2007, LBS represented 51 percent.

Networks In Motion (NIM)—an LBS navigation publisher for products including Verizon Wireless’ VZ Navigator—secured a 27 percent share of carrier revenue from mobile applications and leads all mobile application publishers. Telenav Mobile followed with a 15 percent share of carrier revenue and is another LBS navigation publisher.

While location-based services deliver highly personalized offerings such as friend-finding and other location-aware features, navigation represents the lion’s share of revenue. Moreover, favorable carrier deck placement for LBS applications and the bundling of navigation services with data packages have contributed to record high downloads.

“With consumer awareness increasing, there is enormous potential for even greater LBS growth, especially since Telephia research indicates that there are approximately 130 million GPS-capable handsets in the U.S. alone, and growing,” said Doug Antone, president and CEO of Networks In Motion. “Networks In Motion is committed to remaining an LBS leader by continuing to create compelling mobile phone applications that consumers can benefit from on a daily basis.”

LBS applications command a healthy price premium compared to other downloadable mobile applications. The average price per month for an LBS application is $9.23, as compared to a range of $3.82-$5.41 for weather applications, sports, wallpapers/pictures, etc. (see Table 1). The selling price for LBS applications is roughly 180 percent of industry average. However, overall consumer penetration for mobile applications hovers around five percent, as compared to penetration rates of 7-13 percent for other downloadable content like games, ringtones and premium SMS.

“There are hurdles that LBS publishers face, most notably the relatively low incidence of application downloads when compared to other mobile data activity. Many consumers may not realize the utility of a navigation application on their mobile phone until they use it,” said David Gill, Director of Mobile Media, Telephia. “However, Nokia’s bid to buy NAVTEQ for $8.1 billion is a very positive sign for the market and validates the strength and potential of LBS.”

Table 1: Average Price Paid by Consumers for Mobile Applications (U.S.)

Mobile Application Average Price Paid

LBS $9.23
Weather $3.82
Sports $4.58
Wallpapers/Pictures $3.29
Music $4.99
Maps/Directions $3.95
Personal Organization Tools $5.41

Source: Telephia Mobile Application Report, Q2 2007

Thursday, October 04, 2007

DIsplays for the Mobile Web

Displays for the Mobile Web

The Ken Werner at InsightMedia published this very insightful article about the "display" issues handicapping internet content accesses via the emerging smartphone.

I’m scheduled to give a presentation later today at the Mobile Web Americas conference here in Orlando on displays for Mobile Web applications, and I spent yesterday listening to reports of mobile standards developments, mobile web browsers, mobile search engines, mobile business models and mobile advertising strategies. Symantec has a mobile web security suite for the Windows Mobile platform and will soon come out with a version for Symbian.

There’s general agreement that LBSs (location-based services) will be a big business opportunity, and one that’s getting a lot of attention is location-based search. That is, the phone knows where it’s located via GPS or other means, and tells you where the nearest ATM or cholesterol-laden hamburger can be found. The feeling in the mobile search community is that the regular Web is much better at finding a hotel in Hong Kong or an HDTV from a national retailer than it is at helping you find a near-by place to repair your shoes. The vision is that mobile search can plug this huge gap in the Net. A talk by Alex Muller, CEO of GPShopper, summarized the position well. It’s title? "The Future of Retail; Why Mobile Matters Most for Local Search." Of course, wireless providers have to convince themselves there’s a way to make money out of this, and that may be on the verge of happening.

Another Mobile Web app is geotagging, in which a location tag is automatically used in an application. One possibility is to label each photo taken with the handset’s camera with the GPS-derived location of the photo, and then place flags on a Google map to show where each photo was taken.

A recurring theme at Mobile Web was the gymnastics mobile browsers, such as Opera Mini, Bitstream’s ThunderHawk, Nokia’s S60, and Microsoft’s mobile browser, must perform to deliver versions of an arbitrary website to all devices. This was tied to a still somewhat controversial philosophical position: "There is only one Web." That is, a mobile device should be able to see all of the sites a PC can, and not be limited to sites designed specifically for mobile platforms and (perhaps) designated as mobile sites....

At the heart of this debate, and of the ingenious developments of the mobile browser creators, is the difficulty of presenting full web pages on small displays. The new generation of mobile browsers do this remarkably well, but they are still dancing bears. It’s amazing that they dance at all, even if they don’t dance really well.

The problem is that with today’s mobile handset displays - and this year, for the first time, the display with the largest market penetration is, according to DisplaySearch, a 2.0-inch QVGA display - is that there just aren’t enough pixels and inches to go around for a fully satisfying web-browsing experience.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

A short story on Panoramio

Panoramio Beautiful Geo-Images (blog)

"To see our small project grow from its birth for year and means has been a hallucinating experience, with this step and the continuous support of the users, we hoped that it grows still more." (translated from spanish by Google) - Jose, Joaquin and Eduardo, May 31, 2007

(c) Kyryrl

Eduardo's spainsh Blog - Look him up on via Google and you can get a translation too! (Eduardo writes Panoramio's Changes/Innovations Blog)

September 20th, 2007 by Eduardo Manchón

Yesterday 300,000 new photos from Panoramio were added to Google Earth, that means that the total number of photos in Google Earth is 2 million right now.

August 21st, 2007 by Eduardo Manchón

Good news! Finally photos up to ID 2,900,000 have been added to Google Earth. This means that more than 500,000 new photos have been added to Google Earth and this is the biggest update we ever did. Now the total number of photos from Panoramio in Google Earth is 1,7 million. Next update will be around September 20th.

June 27th, 2007 by Eduardo Manchón

Yesterday around 200,000 new photos were added to Panoramio’s layer inside Google Earth. Now the number of photos from Panoramio in Google Earth is around 1,2 million. With some exceptions, photos up to ID 2,000,000 have been included. This means around 2/3 of all photos uploaded to Panoramio up to this ID have been sent to Google Earth (e.g. photo with URL: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1892099 has ID: 1,892,099).

If your photo has a higher ID than 2,000,000 you need to wait some weeks until the next update, expected for middle July, that will be larger and I hope will help catch on the delay.

June 27th, 2007 by Eduardo Manchón

Only three months ago we announced that Panoramio had reached one million photos. Today I am very happy to write that the number of photos has doubled and reached 2 million.

May 31st, 2007 by Eduardo Manchón

We are very (and we mean very) happy to announce that Panoramio will be acquired by Google.

April 24th, 2007 by Eduardo Manchón

Finally the new update is done. We sent to Google Earth a selection of photos up to ID: 1,710,000. Approximately 3/4 of the photos uploaded to Panoramio were sent to Google Earth. Thas is almost one million photos (973,949), the double number of photos than the previous update that reached ID: 655,000.

February 17th, 2007 by Eduardo Manchón

Today Panoramio’s layer at Google Earth was updated. Previously there were 80.000 photos from Panoramio visible in Google Earth by default, now 400.000 photos are included. There is a great chance to find photos from almost every place on Earth.
The selection of the 400.000 photos included photos until ID:655.000

December 11th, 2006 by Eduardo Manchón

Official Google Blog announced last Saturday that Google Earth has added a new “Geographic web” layer that includes articles from Wikipedia, comments from GE community and photos from Panoramio.

August 25th, 2006 by Eduardo Manchón

Thomas de Lange Wenneck has a GPS attached to his camara. When he takes a photo the coordinates of the place are automatically stored in the EXIF information of the image file. Later he just needs to upload his photos to Panoramio and they are automatically located in the map. No need to map the photo manually with Panoramio’s drag and drop interface.

July 5th, 2006 by Eduardo Manchón

We were adding some new features to Panoramio the last week:
- Photos with geodata in EXIF are automatically located in Panoramio, so you don’t need to do anything but upload the photo if it has the GPS coordinates in their EXIF tags.
- Mislocated?. Suggest a new location: Since there are many people correcting wrong

November 28th, 2005 by Joaquín Cuenca Abela

He asked, I deliver.
Do you have a ton of photos that you want to show in a map? Worried your pictures will soon fade away from the home page of panoramio to some hard to find page?
Now you can restrict the photos in panoramio to those of a particular user.

October 23rd, 2005 by Joaquín Cuenca Abela

Stefan Geens suggested to publish a KML Network Link with the latest pictures of Panoramio.
I did not know what is a KML Network Link, but it sounds cool, so I looked up the documentation, and implemented a KML Network Link for Panoramio.
How does it work?

September 27th, 2005 by Joaquín Cuenca Abela

Some people have asked in the forum for a way to have Panoramio on
their site. So I went for an easier solution for all of you. I just
cooked a mini panoramio version, ready to be used on iframes outside
Panoramio.

An example is:

This is what you need to write in your site:
<iframe src=”http://www.panoramio.com/plugin.php?
lt=43.406295&amp;ln=-2.686586&amp;z=3&amp;k=1″ width=”446px” height=”300px”></iframe>



Sunday, September 09, 2007

The world on your mobile?

"Geobrowsers are a stunningly effective means of visualising the planet. But they are just one part of a broader endeavour, the construction of a “geoweb” that is still in its infancy, much as the world wide web was in the mid-1990s. The web did away with many geographical constraints, enabling people with common interests to communicate, regardless of location. Yet placelessness jettisons some of the most useful features of information, which are now attracting new attention.'

"At present the most feverish excitement surrounds the combination of virtual maps with other sources of data in “mash-ups”.'

The world on your desktop
Sep 6th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Google Mobile and Maps

Berg Insight writes that the number of mobile subscribers accessing maps and downloading routs using their mobile handsets in Europe and the U.S.A. is around 4 million. Over the next ten years the number of map subscribers is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 61% to reach 43 million users in 2012.

Big names in the mobile industry are gearing up for mobile phone navigation. Nokia launched its GPS-enabled N95 for the European market this year. The U.S. has evolved further with GPS being a standard in all CDMA-handsets. Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless have attracted millions of subscribers to navigation services. Google and Yahoo! are extending their existing search and map propositions with Mobile Web 2.0 applications.

Traditionally, Google mobile and non-mobile web surfing declines in the summer months as people go on vacation. (At least in North America). This year traffic on mobile devices utilizing Google has increased 35%. Mobile devices looking at Google Maps has increased as much as 50%. This appears to point to a trend, in which people use their mobile devices for information while taking time off from work. This shows how attached people are to such devices, when they are willing to take them along on vacation.

“I think this is sort of a sign that people are becoming savvier with their mobile devices, and that there are better devices” available for the Web, while away from computers, Mayer told reporters after a presentation to marketers at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose. “The technology curve is catching up,” she told reporters after the presentation. “The phones are just better.”

The number of Google searches done on mobile devices are tiny compared to those done on PCs, but the summer increase in North America shows that people are realizing the usefulness of mobile search engines. Maps and other information can enhance the vacation experience. Getting lost or visiting uninteresting places may become a thing of the past.

Berg Insight predicts that ad-funded services will account for an increasing share of the mobile navigation market. Local search applications can open the door to new ways for businesses to target consumers. MobileCrunch reported last month that more Americans are taking their mobile devices along on vacation to access map technology.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Nikon GeoTagging - Blue2CAN Nikona Review


RedHen Systems Blue2CAN Review
By Jeff Bower (jdbower)
Blue2CAN Review by Nikonian and Jeff Bower


I recently had the pleasure of testing a RedHen Systems Blue2CAN
adapter. This will connect to any Nikon 10-pin remote port (found on
the D200, D2Xs, D2Hs, and similar discontinued models) and provide a Bluetooth interface to a GPS unit. If you’re looking for a refresher on
GPS usage in photography, please take a look at my preceding article entitled “What is GeoTagging?”


Blue2CAN - The Product

When I first learned about the RedHen Blue2CAN I thought it was tiny but it’s even smaller in person. The Blue2CAN measures 28.5mm high by 18.3mm wide by 9.2mm thick (13.9mm thick including the 10-pin connector) and it weighs in at a whopping 7 grams - no need to get a sturdier tripod when using one! Installation couldn’t be easier: just take the 10-pin remote cap off the camera and push the Blue2CAN on. There’s a small click as it seats into place and a mostly hidden red LED flashes once, then three times rapidly a few seconds later when it’s ready to find a GPS.

Summary

The RedHen Systems Blue2CAN works very well and I would recommend it to someone who already has a BlueTooth GPS and wants as tiny a solution as possible. Battery life is acceptable and slightly better than the hotshoe GPS solutions. The biggest downside is that there is no ability to use an external remote with the unit, but there are workarounds. It also may be worth the investment of a CapKeeper to prevent the Blue2CAN from getting lost if it falls out.

Ken, the Red Hen Wizzard, took note and innovated....

As Suggested :


As Implemented - Your wish is our solution:

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

TELEPHIA: MOBILE VIDEO

TRIPLE-DIGIT GROWTH IN REVENUES AND SUBSCRIBERS

SAN FRANCISCO --June 26, 2007--After another quarter of impressive subscriber growth, mobile video is rapidly becoming a significant new media distribution platform. According to Telephia, the world's largest provider of syndicated consumer research to the telecom and mobile media markets, mobile video revenues in the U.S. totaled $146 million in Q1 2007, growing 198 percent year-over-year (see Table 1). There were 8.4 million mobile video subscribers last quarter with penetration doubling to nearly four percent since Q1 2006.

"Within a very short time, the number of mobile video subscribers has grown to over 8 million, comparable with the average audience size for an episode of The Sopranos this season," said Kanishka Agarwal , vice president of mobile media, Telephia.

"As the world's leading provider of video on the handset, MTV Networks recognizes the vast opportunities at hand for the mobile industry, from the sheer number of handsets out there, to the limitless potential for innovation the technology provides," said Greg Clayman, senior vice president, MTVN Mobile Media. "By cultivating an even deeper understanding of consumer behaviors and usage patterns, the industry will continue to build momentum and meet the growing demand for content on the handset."

Mobile Video Consumers More Receptive to Mobile Advertising

Telephia data shows that mobile video audiences are primed for seeing ads on their phones. Video consumers had the highest recall of viewing ads on their phones as compared to all data service consumers, with 55 percent saying they recalled viewing a mobile ad in the last 30 days (see Table 2). This is nearly three times the recall rate for mobile data consumers in general. Even more promising, forty-one percent of mobile video consumers recently responded in some way to an ad, an encouraging sign for advertisers.

"Consumers are used to seeing commercials on their TV at home, which has created a learned behavior that is transferring to mobile TV and making advertising more acceptable," continued Agarwal. "Nearly half of mobile video users are willing to view ads on their phones in exchange for something, translating into a compelling opportunity for ad-supported mobile content where marketers can target customers with relevant advertising."

The Telephia Mobile Video Report for Q1 2007 is now available, and combines detailed research into the behavior and attitudes of nearly 1,200 current mobile video users in the US with analysis of video market size and spending patterns collected from Telephia's panel of 35,000 mobile subscribers. For more information about this product, please contact mailto:mobilemedia@telephia.com.

About Telephia

Telephia is the world's largest provider of syndicated consumer research to the telecom and mobile media markets. Telephia is your connection to the digital consumer. Telephia uses its unique measurement tools and large-scale consumer panels to completely understand the digital consumer's behavior, attitudes and experience.

To learn how Telephia data can help you understand the digital consumer and track your competitive performance, please contact us at (415) 395-0500 or http://www.telephia.com/.

PDN Statistics

July 30, 2007
GPSWorld
The global market for personal navigation devices (PNDs) is exploding, and nearly three-quarters of the units sold around the world come from the island nation of Taiwan.
According to Taiwan's Market Intelligence Center (MIC), a federal technology industry research institute based in Taipei, the PND market in 2007 will reach 26 million units, up 43 percent in comparison with 2006. This growth comes primarily from consumers' increasing awareness of car navigation. But another key driver, MIC says, is that PND vendors are launching lines of lower-priced devices, stimulating demand.

A third driver is the availability of traffic data to supplement GPS-based location information. In 2006, traffic information infrastructure in several regions matured significantly, most notably the RDS-TMC (Radio Data System — Traffic Message Channel) in Europe, MIC observed. PND and location-based services vendors in turn have aggressively launched value-added services such as instant traffic information, weather information, and points-of-interest, which all contributed to increasing consumers' willingness to use PND products, according to MIC.

According to MIC industry analyst Lusy Ho, Taiwanese makers control the majority of production orders from brand-name PND vendors such as TomTom, Magellan, Medion, Mio, and Navman. Taiwanese PND production accounts for more than 70 percent of worldwide production. In the first half of 2007, Taiwanese PND shipment volume reached approximately 7.28 million units. Inventory issues and seasonality affected shipments in Q1, and shipment volume only reached 3.08 million units, according to MIC. Volumes grew in Q2, however, reaching 4.2 million units, up 36 percent quarter over quarter.

MIC predicts this unit growth will continue this quarter and next, driven by the approach of the peak season in the end market and the emergence of new PND makers. In the second half of the year the market researcher forecasts Taiwan to ship 11.83 million units, with a full-year 2007 total of 19.11 units.

However, MIC acknowledges that as the pure PND market grows and new competitors enter, brand-name PND vendors will actively seek second or third manufacturing partners, bringing increasing competition among contract electronics manufacturers not only in Taiwan, but in China and Korea as well.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Smartphones with GPS killing PNDs?

Handset Navigation Poised to Threaten Personal Navigation Device Market

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., June 25, 2007 - 2007 is shaping up to be the year that mapping and navigation applications truly arrive on mobile handsets, reports In-Stat (http://www.in-stat.com). For approximately US$10 per month, handset navigation offers similar, if not superior, functionality to Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs), at a lower price, the high-tech market research firm says.

Mobile phone operators now have the ability to market a downloadable navigation application that is just as good as, if not better, than personal navigation devices (PNDs). As a result, handset-based mapping and navigation applications could cause a major change in the overall navigation market, which is now dominated by relatively expensive standalone devices, the high-tech market research firm says.

“Unlike MP3 players and digital cameras, handset-based navigation applications provide the only low-cost alternative product in a market of growing popularity,” says David Chamberlain, In-Stat analyst. “The value proposition for handset navigation applications is very strong compared with that of PNDs and, in some ways, the functionality is superior.”

“With a clear, targeted business strategy that focuses on capturing potential PND buyers, wireless service providers have an opportunity to capture market share from PND manufacturers,” says Stephanie Ethier, In-Stat analyst.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

  • The market for PNDs will reach 56 million units worldwide by 2011, up from 14 million in 2006.
  • The total number of mapping and navigation mobile phone subscribers could exceed 70 million worldwide by 2012.
  • Market drivers include falling price points, enhanced features, stronger consumer awareness of PNDs, and increased marketing and promotion by leading PND manufacturers.
  • In 2006, PND manufacturers significantly reduced prices, with entry models priced under $200.
  • Cellular operators whose service is based on CDMA (and iDEN) have an advantage over other mobile operators in nearly every region of the world, largely because of the A-GPS technology originally driven by mandates to support E911 services.
  • In-Stat surveys of US subscribers find navigation applications have a strong ability to draw subscribers from other operators and keep them loyal.

Recent In-Stat research, Personal Navigation Devices: Worldwide Shipment Growth to Slow as Handset Navigation Arrives (#IN0703431ID), covers the worldwide market for Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs).

Blue2CAN - Wintec - HoudahGPS for Apple Geotagging

HoudahGPS - Blue2CAN and Wintec WBT-201 data logger


HoudahGPS is a front end to the open source command line tool GPSBabel.

Features


HoudahGPS allows you to transfer track log and waypoint data from your Garmin, Magellan or Wintec GPS devices. It connects via USB to the Garmin and Magellan devices. It interfaces with the Wintec WBT-100, WBT-101 and WBT-201 devices using Bluetooth.

HoudahGPS may also be used to convert between the GPX, NMEA and KML log file formats. The Sony GPS-CS1 track logger uses a special variant of the NMEA format which may also be read.

Benefits


Possible uses of HoudahGPS include:

- Creation of backup copies of track log files for later use with HoudahGeo
- Conversion of track logs to KML for visualization in Google Earth.

Screenshot


HoudahGPS main window


HoudahGPS is freeware


HoudahGPS is available FREE OF CHARGE.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

One Billion Camera Phones in 2007 Alone

Jeremy Kirk - Computerworld

June 22, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- The number of mobile camera phones in use will top 1 billion this year, reflecting their tremendous growth rate since they hit the market around seven years ago, according to a new market evaluation.

Sales shot up from about 3 million camera phones in 2001 to 500 million last year, according to figures released Friday by Strategy Analytics Ltd. However, the growth will likely start to level off now, said Neil Mawton, an associate director at the market research company. Instead, people will upgrade existing camera phones, with manufacturers trying to entice them with high-end features that will dwarf what was available a few years ago, Mawton said. They will offer cameras with improved zoom capabilities, autofocus, better flashes and faster shutter speeds.

"In a way, [mobile manufacturers] are copying the digital still camera market," Mawton said.

Changes will also come inside the phones. The industry has typically used CCD (charged coupling device) sensors for taking digital photos, but that technology is ceding ground to a cheaper technology: CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor). CCD sensors are more expensive and less durable, but they provide a better image quality. However, CMOS chips are cheaper, more durable and have become more reliable, Mawton said. More suppliers make CMOS sensors than CCDs.

Not all phones will have cameras, since there will still be demand for phones in the $30-to-$40 range, Mawton said. Phones in those price ranges will be "camera-free for a good few years," he said.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Blue2CAN - Take the Picture. Get the Point!

"Photos That Know Where They Were Taken"

Here's how to use geotagging to add location data to your image files.

Part 1 of a special five-part series
Digital Focus - PC World
Dave Johnon
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:00 AM PDT

I remember showing photos of my trek through Grand Cayman to a friend a few years ago. "Where were these taken?" she asked me about a particular set of photos. "Hmm," I replied, "I don't remember. The East End, I think. I took so many photos, I can't keep track." At the time, I wished there was some automatic way to tag my photos with location information, so I'd always know where they were taken. Yet another thing I'd never have to remember ever again!

Well, my wish has come true: Geotagging is here. Geotagging is the term for adding location information to your photo files--and it's one of the coolest things ever to happen to digital photography.

The available solutions range from amazingly elegant to somewhat less elegant. Take Red Hen's
Blue2Can, for example. In my experience, there's no better geotagging solution.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Picasa Mobile Photos - Mobile Photo Mapping Next?

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/put-your-photos-on-map-and-picasa-on.html

Picasa Mobile Image Mapping Mobile Picasa Albums with Maps!

If you've ever seen a great picture and wondered where it was, wished you could visit that exact spot yourself, or found yourself itching to share a great photo with somebody -- but you were away from a computer, we've got two new features on Picasa Web Albums to help you out. First, we're excited to let you know about 'Map My Photos' -- it lets you show exactly where you took your favorite snapshots. When you share an album with friends, they can see your best photos arrayed on a map (or even Google Earth). It's the perfect way to showcase a memorable road trip or a globe-trotting vacation.


Here's how to get started: when you create a new album, just fill in the optional 'Place Taken' field. You can even drag and drop individual photos directly onto a map, and use built-in Google Maps technology to pinpoint exactly where each was shot. For a quick peek at what the results look like, check out our test gallery.

But wait! There's more. We're also launching the first version of Picasa Web Albums built specifically for mobile devices. You already have a couple of pictures stuffed in your wallet, and maybe even a few wallpapers stored on your phone. But what about all those snapshots you can't carry around? With Picasa Web Albums for mobile devices, your favorite pictures are always with you. So next time you're at a loss for words when describing just how awesome, cute, or beautiful something really was, just grab your phone for visual backup.

Of course, the mobile version of Picasa Web Albums lets you keep track of photo updates from friends and family, too. Just click 'My Favorites' from the main screen to see the latest photo albums that your contacts have posted to Picasa Web Albums -- you can even post a quick comment on their photos, using your phone. Thumbnails and photos are automatically re-sized for your device's screen, so pictures look good and download fast. All you need to get started is a phone with a web browser and a data plan; learn more here.

As you enjoy your summer travels, remember to take plenty of snaps, and share the most beautiful places in the world (and don't forget to use your phone to show off pics from back home!).

Keeping Track of Smartphone Use Statistics....

M:Metrics

SEATTLE, Wash June 25, 2007 — M:Metrics, the mobile market authority, today announced the rankings of the top mobile Web companies among smartphone users in the United States and the United Kingdom, for the month of April.

Top 10 Mobile Web Companies Visited By Smartphone Users by Percent Active Reach April 2007 ("Company" is an aggregate of company owned domains)

United States

Company Total
Google Inc. 62.48%
Yahoo! Inc. 33.54%
Microsoft Corporation 33.36%
AT&T Inc. 21.22%
Time Warner Inc. 19.06%
The Walt Disney Company 17.00%
News Corporation 15.54%
Sprint Nextel 15.29%
The Weather Channel 15.28%
eBay Inc. 14.19%

United Kingdom

Company Total
Google Inc. 30.94%
Orange Personal Communications 21.68%
British Broadcasting Corporation 20.90%
Microsoft Corporation 17.75%
Vodafone Group PLC 16.79%
eBay Inc. 13.08%
O2 (UK) Ltd, Service Operations 12.77%
Hutchison Whampoa Limited 12.67%
Yahoo! Inc. 10.97%
Deutsche Telekom AG 10.71%

About M:Metrics

M:Metrics is the pioneer in measuring consumer consumption of mobile content and applications, benchmarking the performance of carriers, handset OEMs, platform vendors, media companies and others. M:Metrics monthly syndicated services empower senior executives in the mobile content and wireless applications sector to make better business, creative, and production decisions informed by highly granular and verifiably true measures of subscriber consumption. M:Metrics, Inc is a private, venture funded corporation headquartered in Seattle, Washington with offices in San Francisco, California.

About M:Metrics Data

Based on continually refreshed samples of nationally representative mobile phone consumers, M:Metrics reports summarize market size, device reach, and key demographic and mobile phone usage characteristics. The data presented here is drawn from an extensive survey questionnaire that collects specific device model and carrier subscription information from each month's sample of mobile phone consumers, and also drills down into specific details related to current and past usage of various mobile phone applications and content. Data collected from each sample are statistically balanced and projected to the total national population of mobile phone consumers.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Digital Imaging Statistics - The roving eye

PMA - Advanced amateur customers look toward photo retailers

According to the 2007 PMA U.S. Digital Imaging Survey, 20 percent of digital camera owners use their digital camera for artistic purposes, for moonlighting job, or to master photography skills. This segment of photo customers is called the advanced amateur or prosumer segment and has been generating much of the business at camera stores around the country for many years. Manay advanced amateurs are possible candidates looking to enter the studio photography business at some point, as well. Digital advanced amateur customers were 20 percent more likely to purchase a camera in 2006. They were also more likely to make that purchase at a camera store when compared to the typical consumer.

The advanced amateur market will be explore more in future "Data Watch" articles examining printing behavior and other characteristics of this group. One important thing to remember when servicing this segment is that they are different from Jennifer. They value top quality in equipment and printing, appreciate the advanced knowledge of photo retail employees, and speak in advanced terms. Finally, finding advanced amateur customers is not done through demographics. This segment is comprised of customers of all ages and household types. To reach advanced amateurs, retailers need to look into cross promotions, internet forums, competitions, and events.

Who is Jennifer? The most powerful photo imaging customer is the Generation X mom. A young parent aged 24-44 years old, Gen X moms are likely to maintain an active lifestyle that produces events and picture-taking opportunities. PMA is calling this powerful target market “Jennifer” to drive home the fact that these customers are living, breathing, buying consumers who care deeply about their photography.

The Semi-Pros - Why I take Digirtal Images



Where do Digital Images End Up?
Leaving pictures on the memory card was the second most popular method for storing pictures among digital camera owners in 2006. According to the 2007 PMA U.S. Digital Imaging Survey, 72 percent of digital camera owners transfer their images onto computer hard drives for storage and 53 percent burn CDs and DVDs. Still 54 percent of digital camera owners leave their images on their camera's memory card. Combined with the fact that almost a third of memory cards sold in 2006 were 1GB or larger, the needs for on-camera organization and better kiosk upload capacity is certain to intensify in the near future.

The trend of cheaper, larger memory cards becoming more readily available to consumers is not expected to stop or ease soon, either, especially in light of flash memory technology expanding into the laptop hard drive space.

Computer Hard-disk 72%
CD/DVD 53%
CD 47%
DVD 13%
Digital Camera Memory 54%
Prints 52%
Online 11%
Online FREE 10%
Online PAID 1%
Printer Memory 2%
Other 2%
Lastly, Digital Cameras verus Camera Phones...

Revenue from shipments of image sensors for mobile phones will grow to $5.9 bln by 2010, increasing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 27.4%, up from $1.7 bln in 2005. Unit shipments of image sensors to mobile phones will grow to 1.2 bln by 2010, increasing at a CAGR of 19.7%, up from 484 mln units in 2005. In 2005, 199 mln image sensors were sold for all other applications outside of mobile phones, including digital still cameras. By 2010, this disparity will grow more, with nearly 1.2 bln sensors shipped for mobile handsets and slightly less than 350 mln shipped for other applications.

Friday, June 08, 2007

40+ Million Navigating Mobile Phones by 2012

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
  • Cellular operators whose service is based on CDMA (and iDEN) have an advantage over other mobile operators in nearly every region of the world, largely because of the A-GPS technology originally driven by mandates to support E911 services.
  • In-Stat surveys of US subscribers find navigation applications have a strong ability to draw subscribers from other operators and keep them loyal.
  • The total number of mapping and navigation mobile phone subscribers could exceed 42 million worldwide by 2012.

In-Stat research suggests GPSed Smartphones will replace PNDs

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

GeoTagging With NIKON

Put a Billion Dollar System to Use

From Zombie Dinosaurs by Dave Johnson... you know the one?

A few years ago, I went on a little photo trek and showed off the photos. I vividly remember getting grilled about the various locations by a friend of mine. “Where were these taken?” she asked me about a particular set of photos. “Hmm,” I replied, “I don’t remember. I took so many photos, I can’t keep track.” If only there was some automatic way to tag my photos with location information, so they’d be able to tell me where they were taken. Yet another thing I’d never have to remember ever again!.....

I’ve recently been experimenting with what is surely the most elegant geotagging tool ever made. I’m talking about Red Hen’s Blue2CAN.

In my experience, a better geotagging solution does not exist. It’s a small gadget about the size of your thumb that plugs into a small port on the front of several Nikon Digital SLRs, including the D200, D2X, D2Xs and D2Hs. It communicates wirelessly to any Bluetooth GPS receiver (like the kind that comes with inexpensive navigation programs and sits on your dashboard).

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

More on Blue2CAN - Camera Area Network for Nikon

More on BLue2CAN - Camera Area Network for Nikon

The Blue2CAN connects automatically (and silently) to ANY Bluetooth GPS in range (within 10 m of it's location) The idea is that in the rare event there is more than one Bluetooth GPS in range that any one will do as it's "close enough". However these receivers only connect to one device at a time, so the GPS device must be on, in range, and NOT connected to something else, it's most likely yours. If the GPS is separated from the camera Blue2CAN loses the connection and starts searching again. If the same one, or a different one comes it range it uses it. The advantage is that it is AUTOMATIC, and therefore easy to use.
Connection speed is not really a problem because the Blue2CAN stays connected to the GPS as long as the GPS receiver is on, even when the camera is turned off (yes, Blue2CAN gets power from the camera even when the camera is off). In this way the GPS data is available immediately when the camera is switched on. Note that it is best to turn the camera off when you’re not shooting because the GPS does hold the meter on (Nikon's design) and the meter takes quite a lot of power. Fortunately Bluetooth takes very little power so it does not put much of a drain on the camera battery in any case. The drain is so small that the D200 camera battery can keep the Bluetooth radio working for more than 25 days (and nights). GPS takes a LOT more power, so the batteries in the Bluetooth GPS device will probably not last more than about 14 hours.
If the Blue2CAN is not connected to a GPS when the camera is turned off it will search for 10 minutes longer, if no GPS if found it will turn itself off. It will start searching again when the camera is turned on, and takes about 5 seconds to connect in this case. It usually takes GPS receivers at least this long to get a fix from power up, so when the GPS data is available the Bluetooth is already connected. I'm sorry if this description was too complicated, but the complexity was necessary in the implementation to both manage power and make sure no GPS data was missed when a picture is taken...
The two real advantages of using a Bluetooth GPS instead of a camera powered GPS are that 1) the power systems are separate. And 2) the GPS antenna can be placed in a good position regardless of where the camera is.
Power: The GPS must be on all the time to “keep a lock” otherwise you have to wait for the fix before you take a picture (not a good use model). The GPS takes a lot of power, so it can put quite a drain on the camera battery, if the GPS battery goes dead you can still take a picture, it just won’t be geo-located.
Antenna: To maintain a fix the GPS antenna must have a clear view of the sky, if your shooting from inside a car or other vehicle it’s better to have the GPS on the dash than on the camera. Also if the camera is “stored” between shooting where it will not “see” the sky, a camera mounted GPS will loose lock and may take to long to re-acquire when you get the thing out to take a shot.
Red Hen does offer a camera mounted GPS unit for the D200, D2X as well, it's called the "DX-GPS" we’ve had it available for some time, these are the things we’ve learned from use and customer feedback.

Why aGPS is not really a great idea genreally....

"Sprint decided to attempt to obfuscate the free GPS services that Java provides. Sprint has threatened the creator of Mobile GMaps with legal action... unless Mobile GMaps makes it difficult to provide Sprint users with GPS services."

Sprint Threatens Mobile GMaps over GPS

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Facebook Statistics May 2007

FaceBook User Satistics

Facebook says its current photo sharing service is one of the most active in the world, with:


  • 1.7 billion user photos
  • 2.2 billion friends tagged in user photos
  • 160 terabytes of photo storage used with an extra 60 terabytes available
  • 60+ million photos added each week
  • 3+ billion photo images served to users every day
  • 100,000+ images served per second during its peak traffic windows.

Facebook now ranks as the sixth-most trafficked site in the United States.


When the Palo Alto, CA-based company launched in 2004, it allowed only college students to join. Eight months ago it opened to anyone, and membership has since doubled to 24 million, according to the research firm ComScore. The site gets more than 40 billion page views per month.


Overall, the site says it is growing 3 percent per week --100,000 new users per day.


The fastest growing demographic is those 25 and older.


Primary rival MySpace remains almost three times larger with 67 million active members.

Future Image Inc. (www.FutureImage.com)

Friday, May 25, 2007

Geotagging and Related Statistics - Flickr

Geotagging Statistics - Flickr hits 500 million today, Photobucket two billion over, and Kodak's EasyShare +One billion

In my ongoing effort to consolidate whatever statistics on photo blogging and related geotagging, I ran accross this:

http://www.zmarties.com/picasa/blog/2007/05/500-millionth-photo-uploaded-to-flickr.html

And the winner is: Flickr hits 500 million images

Other rumors - Kodak Easyshare is a billion plus and Photobucket is better than twice that again... and that is only a small fraction of what likely is floating around out there...

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Flickr Shared Images and Popular Camera Statistics May 21, 2007

Most Popular Point/Shoot and Camera Phones

Flickr sharred geotagged images today counted 16,980,000

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

BLUE2CAN - Nikon SLR Geotagging has never been so easy




BLUE2CAN(tm) is the next-generation integrated geotagging solution from Red Hen Systems for Nikon's D200 and D2X SLR cameras.

Integrating off-the-shelf Bluetooth GPS units and the industry leading Nikon D2X and D200 cameras, the BLUE2CAN allows users to automatically capture geospatially referenced images in the easiest, most reliable collection method today.


Red Hen’s BLUE2CAN establishes for the first time a "camera area network" Bluetooth solution that automatically links common Bluetooth GPS devices directly to the appropriate Nikon camera. Through Red Hen Systems' patent pending Camera Area Network, the Nikon D2X and D200 (and soon other digital cameras and handicams) GPS positional data is streamed into the camera and merged into the EXIF meta-data of the JPEG image file.
BLUE2CAN's spatial EXIF metadata information can be used to map these geotagged images by:

· Google Earth/Maps
· Yahoo’s Flickr
· Virtual Earth and other 3D Worlds
· Red Hen Systems MediaMapper, PixPoint and GeoVideo products

BLUE2CAN Features:

· The Bluetooth GPS unit may be mounted on top of the camera, carried in a pocket, put on the dash of your car, or placed in the scene
· Bluetooth wireless integration eliminates all cables
· Instantly inspect and view data on the camera LCD
· Very simple to use, just plug it in and go.
· Industry standard GPS geo-tagging offers compatibility with most GIS and mapping systems
· Includes IsWhere picture mapping software that operates in conjunction with Google Earth
· Release date 5/25/2007
· Price: $279.95 without Bluetooth GPS

Red Hen Systems, Inc.
2850 McClelland Drive Suite 3900
Fort Collins, Colorado 80525
(970) 493-3952
http://www.redhensystems.com/
hoot@redhensystems.com

Thursday, May 10, 2007

FREE USGS TOPO sheets........ via geoPDF!

Looking for USGS TOPO sheets? Well they are essentially free if your are interested. Take a link over to this GISUser's blog posting: How to get FREE USGS TOPO Sheets.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Top- Growth Sites for Google and Yahoo - Statistics

Comparing HOT sites for Google and Yahoo...

Microsoft and Yahoo might make finally good use of Virtual Earth ... if they can get together and their bloggers decide they will not (or can not) mash to Google Earth/Maps? It interesting that Flickr didn't make it ot Yahoos top sites...

Friday, May 04, 2007

Dividing the Web Images Pie - Who has the largest slice?

Photo Web Sites Market Share

Apparently things are not really going well over at Flickr.

If Photobucket is around 2.5 billion images currently then the best guess of on-line imagery would suggest more than six billion images on-line - up from essentially zero eight years ago? Photobucket looks to be the dominate service by a factor of severn or eith over the next best Yahoo Photos. No wonder Microsoft is sniffing around buying Yahoo?

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Ricoh Geo-Imaging and FREE Google Earth Viewing

Calling all Ricoh Geo-imaging Pointographers
FREE Google Earth Geotagged Image Viewers - SAVE $200!

Got Ricoh geotagging? If you do, your geo-image map making just became FREE. No more need for a $200 ouit-of-date software...! If you are an owner of one of Ricoh's Geo-Imaging products like the Capio RR1, the Capliio RR30, the RDC i700 or their newest model the Ricoh Caplio 500SE you do not really need a geotagger software. What you do need is either Google's Picasa Photo Catalog or Red Hen's IsWhere utility. Both solutions are free and allow the user to display and review his geotagged images on Google Earth.

Picasa is a great tool that resides on your PC, handles the cataloging of your images, has great tools and features including the ability to post and share some of your local photos with friends via Picasa.NET. Most importantly for you "pointographers" is that each goetagged image is identified by a geotagged symbol and when needed can be displayed via its position on Google Earth. Picasa 2 Free Download and Net Storage

Alternatively if you have already settled on a image cataloger like ACDC, Microsoft Image, or one of the many others, you can download IsWhere and there-after have immediate access to geotagged images via Google Earth. Drag and drop a image or a selection of images or just browse and highlight the directories you would like to display on Google Earth , hit the &lt;CR> and Google Earth is loaded, and any geotagged image in your selection is placed. Simple and to the point....

IsWhere - Take the Picture - Get the Point