[Geowanking] RE: TeleAtlas Car

[Jed Rice]

When Skyhook was in its infancy, we looked at user-contributed/open source Wi-Fi location data such as Wigle.net and peer-based collection models like Navizon but found that in both cases, you simply have no quality control.  When you start with data that is collected using dozens of different methods by hundreds of different contributors who are left to randomnly define their own collection process you can't possibly build a reliable system or application on top of it.  Organizations like PlaceLabs and Microsoft's LocateMe have discovered it the hard way - while it may work some of the times in some of the places and be 'good enough', you can't then expect commercial organizations who are relying on a solution for their own business/service/offering to use it.

 

Fortune took kind of interesting spin on it a few weeks ago when they profiled one of our drivers - http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/07/24/8381745/.

 

Its not easy being in the business of managing a fleet of 200+ people driving every street, road and highway but its an investment you have to make if you want to deliver a service that offers accuracy and availability that rivals - and in some cases beats - GPS.  Even more so if you then expect large commercial enterprises to pay good money for that system.

 

 

 

Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 07:19:13 -0600

From: Bill Thoen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Subject: [Geowanking] Maintaining Open Spatial Data Sets (was

TeleAtlas Car)

To: geowanking@lists.burri.to

Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Fri, Aug 18, 2006 at 08:39:09AM -0400, B.K. DeLong wrote:

>

> And, in theory, with an open source, community-contributed dataset

> there'd be more people to fix mistakes and keep it more updated due

> to various construction and repair activities.

>

I imagine that a community effort to maintain a data set that represents a

road network would operate in a way similar to a wiki, but how do you

ensure that additions and "fixes" are done with the appropriate precision

and accuracy (and who decides?) Who interprets road classifications and

other attributes that mean different things to different people? Finnally,

what sorts of legal issues are involved in producing a data source that

might be used in public safety applications? Can a community effort

"certify" a certain level of accuracy for use in such applications?

Nevertheless, the idea of "open source" spatial data sets sounds pretty

interesting to me.

- Bill Thoen

..............................................
Jed Rice
VP, Market Development
Skyhook Wireless
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
|o: 617.820.5121

|m: 774.991.0255|Skype: JedRice89

 

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