Simon Fraser University

Alexei (on his new blog) announces EBA's first open source release.

Today we quietly open sourced EBA FTP Sync, a COM based file synchronization tool that more than a few people are using to perform tasks like automated backups. The neat thing about FTP Sync was always that we packaged it as a web tool… perform FTP synchronization from a web app.. neat idea.

We used it ourselves for years in our commercial CMS, which was a fairly elegant solution to the problem of migrating content efficiently between staging and production servers.

We’ve decided that the component would be of more use to people if it shipped with the source code.. we thought about lowering the price and then remembered that we’re an Ajax company and had no business selling ActiveX tools in the first place!

I met Andre Charland, head of eBusiness Apps about a year ago when I gave a talk at VanDEV about open source and your business. He teases us at Bryght about being a crazy open source company and I tease him about being Mr. Proprietary. It's great to see the team at EBA dipping their toes into the water of open source.

I think it would be great for a learning institution like SFU, UBC, BCIT, etc. or even a mobile social/cultural thinktank like Mobile Muse to get access to the full data and produce some great prototype mobile web apps. Since I love food, I am thinking of a location aware mobile phone app that knows about nearby restaurants courtesy of Navteq's points of interest data. e.g. a location aware daily special mobile app! And of course it coud be easily powered by Drupal :-) !

From Navteq visits WinBC | Roland Tanglao's Weblog.:

QUOTE

Ever wonder what how the data for Google Maps, Yahoo maps, etc. is gathered? Well wonder no more. Navteq, "supplier of world wide map data to the universe" :-), were in town visiting WinBC today and I had the opportunity to do a "Drive and Ride" with them in their specially equipped Pontiac and also to speak with their Vancouver based field personnel as well as their marketing team from headquarters in Chicago:

...

VIDEO - Robert Gourdine Part 2 - How to get access to the data? Navteq is interested in growing the community of people using their data which I came up with the phrase "enabler for providing smart, dynamic, location based information". Recorded at Win BC on March 16, 2006

I think it would be great for a learning institution like SFU, UBC, BCIT, etc. or even a mobile social/cultural thinktank like Mobile Muse to get access to the full data and produce some great prototype mobile web apps. Since I love food, I am thinking of a location aware mobile phone app that knows about nearby restaurants courtesy of Navteq's points of interest data. e.g. a location aware daily special mobile app! And of course it coud be easily powered by Drupal :-) !

From Navteq visits WinBC | Roland Tanglao's Weblog.:

QUOTE

Ever wonder what how the data for Google Maps, Yahoo maps, etc. is gathered? Well wonder no more. Navteq, "supplier of world wide map data to the universe" :-), were in town visiting WinBC today and I had the opportunity to do a "Drive and Ride" with them in their specially equipped Pontiac and also to speak with their Vancouver based field personnel as well as their marketing team from headquarters in Chicago:

...

VIDEO - Robert Gourdine Part 2 - How to get access to the data? Navteq is interested in growing the community of people using their data which I came up with the phrase "enabler for providing smart, dynamic, location based information". Recorded at Win BC on March 16, 2006

Next Wednesday I'll be participating in a panel at Simon Fraser University here in Vancouver on The Future of Publishing. I think the talk will cover blogging, aggregation, communication, new media and mobile convergence. With me on the panel will be Arieanna Foley, Ben Garfinkel, Janet Johnson, and Eric Karjaluoto.