xkcd had an amazing cartoon today – struck me like a bee! :) The question, which do not explicitly is asked is: Which branch is better? Academia or Business? Due to my obvious bias I will not state my opinion;)

The norwegian mapping authority announced today they are (finally) going to provide free map services! This has been long awaiting in the mapping community. Release of the services will be December 1. 2009 – however they provide some information on what to expect:

There will be two main services, one full WMS service and one cached version of, probably, the most popular WMS-requests. Limits are 300 requests pr. user pr. 24 hour for the WMS and 10000 request pr. user pr. 24 hour for the cached version. It is not explicitly defined whether this constraint will reside on the client side or for the system – however I reckon they will put the constraint on the system and not the client – and probably increase the WMS constraint a bit, or provide cheap “WMS request plans”. [update] According to @paalkr the constraint is on client side.

The data released covers most of the general applicable data in full detail!

In sum this is great! Finally the mapping authority is part of the modernized mapping game!

More on this (Norwegian mostly)

• Newsflash: http://www.statkart.no/Gratis+karttjenester.d25-SwJfY1-.ips
• General information: http://www.statkart.no/nor/Land/Kart_og_produkter/visningstjenester/
• Technical overview: http://www.statkart.no/?module=Articles;action=Article.publicShow;ID=14087
• NRKBeta: http://nrkbeta.no/2009/11/12/kartverket-frigir-kartene-sine/
• VG.no (“Mapping authority shares the crown jewels”): http://www.vg.no/teknologi/artikkel.php?artid=592216

Google launched what they call “Google Dashboard“. In essence it is a place where you can see explicitly which information about you (your user account) Google has stored. Additionally the dashboard provides abilities to change settings related to the different information – such as turn off sharing etc. Essentially this provides a more transparent way of finding what Google knows about you. Take a look at the video embedded for more explanations on the Google Dashboard.

So, the system isn’t very revolutionary – it probably isn’t going to be the “new youtube”. However what is interesting is why Google made this. Why is Google interested in providing you with this information? For one several users may just use it to turn off or delete information in a far easier way – which is not of Googles interest. So why take this risk? Well, I think it’s because Google users are becoming more suspicious about what Google stores. In their lack of knowledge on this the users turn over to competitors which may provide them with less quality services. The quality of the product is thus less important than the insight into how the product is provided, for instance which information is stored about you. I think this is the reason why information transparency is essential in modern, complex enterprises – where the lack of insight into how the enterprise works is a crucial parameter for the customers to choose the enterprise. One enterprise I believe could benefit from this easy information transparency is hospitals. Complex, almost magical, enterprises where the “customers” often lack trust and insight in what is actually happening.

What do you think?