Ordnance Survey data set to be freed

Yesterday at a conference on Digital Britain Gordon, Brown prime Minister has announced freeing of OS data by April 1^St, as the Guardian reports.

“I can confirm that from 1st April, we will be making a substantial package of information held by ordnance survey freely available to the public, without restrictions on re-use. Further details on the package and government’s response to the consultation will be published by the end of March.”

This is a big win for the guardian’s Free Our Data campaign; as are all the other non-personal datasets being released. It’s a huge, huge win for the campaign.

Full transcript of Gordon Browns’ speech is available on the number 10 website: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page22897

Editable Google StreetView

Google has just released a major batch of data to complete a near compete coverage of Street View in the UK. Google has expanded its Street View universe in the UK, photographing around 95 per cent of the country.

But, has anybody yet wandered how Google managed to capture this 360?pictures? Well here are few pictures of the vehicles currently used across the world.

Google has even got a bike for capturing small foot path.

The following article from tech radar presents a good summary how the Google Street View cars work.

Google is also moving one step closer to the like of OpenStreetMap with the possibility to edit the location of business; you may feel are not in the right place, say Google Blog.