All About Maps

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Where 2.0 Gives the World Meaning

At another table, a web developer named Christopher Schmidt showed off his system for locating himself on a map using nothing more than a tiny Python application on his Nokia phone and a Bluetooth-enabled GPS device. When he's not working for map-sharing site Platial and map-analysis company MetaCarta, Schmidt spends his time wandering around his hometown of Cambridge, Massachusetts, using his custom cell-phone software to unmask the ID numbers on each GSM cell tower he passes. Then he associates that tower ID with a GPS-defined location, and uploads it to his website.

When his electronic surveying is complete, Schmidt will have a system that can tell him where he is at all times -- without GPS -- by triangulating the signals from the newly mapped cell towers.

Calling himself a "neogeographer," Schmidt is part of a generation of coders whose work is inspired by easily obtained map data, as well as the mashups made possible by Google Maps and Microsoft's Virtual Earth.

Undoubtedly, the most interesting map geekery was coming out of a growing group of open-source programmers who've devoted themselves to liberating the tools once used by experts to do geographical analysis. Schuyler Erle, co-author of Mapping Hacks, said the open-source community has focused on all the things you can't do in Google Maps. "We can browse Google Maps, but the look and feel of those maps is fixed," he explained. "We want the flexibility to tell our own stories with maps. What's exciting is the ability to do your own cartography, to put your own labels on and show your own roads."