Fishpool

Maemo Mapper has a few displays in addition to the primary map information. It can overlay the map itself with routes, tracks, and points of information, and show the current speed as well as way-point directions over the map. It also has a secondary display of GPS position information, including altitude and compass.

However, it's missing a couple of critical displays; the distance to the next way-point as well as to the end of the route, and an estimated arrival time to the end of the route. The first two are simple to provide, and in fact are available through the menus, just not as a constantly displayed overlay. The third one can be tricky; the travel time may not be included in the route information, or it may be inaccurate. Estimating it from average speed is the other alternative, also vulnerable to errors when travel conditions change. However, providing some kind of estimate is still a useful service to the user.

The readability of the overlaid information is not quite ideal in the challenging in-car circumstances. The blue dot signifying current position is small on the high-resolution display, and difficult to see in sunlight. Making larger and animated (I would suggest a rotating symbol of some sort; keep in mind also the suggestion about scaling its size according to position accuracy estimate) would help. The speed indicator flickers; whether this is due to lack of double buffering or otherwise, it's distracting. Finally, the route direction dialog also changes shape about once per second, sometimes laying out the direction on one line, sometimes needing to place the last word on the next. Not surprisingly, this draws too much attention to it (hopefully not from the driver!) as well as requiring extra effort to read.

Maemo Mapper currently has three methods of downloading map data; the immediate, "show map of current area and detail level", and the two ahead-of-time modes, "download multiple detail levels of this region" and "download multiple detail levels along a route". The routes themselves are also downloaded over the Internet, from a gateway server performing a format translation.

The drawback of these methods is that along practically any route, especially one that takes the user through municipal areas as well as countryside or highways, any one fixed selection of detail levels is either going to be a big download and memory requirement, or leave the user with lack of detail in critical intersections.

I think it should be possible to improve from this accuracy while reducing the number of decisions the user is required to make. The route information contains a rich level of data about the general shape of the route. In particular, there are the way-points and the distance between them, and the route data on a turn-by-turn basis for display purposes.

Just by using the way-points, downloading detail maps on the way-points themselves, and a level of detail relative to the distance when between way-points, is this selection already made not just automatic, but also richer for the end user. By also utilizing the route shape data, detail level could also be increased when the route takes sharp turns.

Finally, if any points of interest fall close to the route chosen, it would make sense to download a more detailed map around that point.

If Mapper is used in the same area for an extensive period, it might benefit of keeping records of the tracks taken (with significantly lowered resolution), and utilize a similar logic to the above for also keeping detailed maps of the frequently visited places and nearby locations. Of course the user is already likely to be able to navigate in such an area without the help of extensive maps; perhaps this information could be augmented with data about where has she tried to access the maps.

As I mentioned previously, I bought a bluetooth GPS receiver for the trip so that traveling in Portugal wouldn't need to be a constant peering of maps. Since I feel much more comfortable with things I can tinker with, and because such an alternative to closed GPS software exists through Maemo Mapper, I chose not to purchase a commercial navigation software package at all.

For those unaware of it, Maemo Mapper is a program for the Nokia 770 and N800 Internet Tablets that interfaces with OpenStreetMaps, Google Maps and Virtual Earth to provide an Internet-connected map browsing and navigation package. It depends on (gateway-translated) Google Maps for route information, and otherwise functions by downloading maps to a memory card cache.

This is a pretty cool program, showing what might be the disruptive future for navigation and location guides in a cooperative, Internet-connected world. It's also one of the more usable applications for the Nokia platform. I wish the platform in general was as well designed for its primary purpose as Maemo Mapper is. If a way to share the track records and point of interest data with others is found, I feel this application might become a category definer. Great work by just one author, John Costigan.

We've spent the last week walking about in Lisbon, driving in the countryside hill roads, and navigating around in the Atlantic coast. While I've used Mapper on and off before to consult maps, on this trip, thanks to the GPS receiver, it's finally become a constant companion instead of a curious diversion. With this experience, I've also seen where it currently (in version 1.4) falls short of a perfect experience. As I write those findings down, I will post them here as suggestions.

Google Maps POI

I wrote a tiny Perl program to process Google Maps' new My Maps KML files to a Maemo Mapper POI database (download). This should probably be converted to Python to be easily installed to the tablet itself, but for now I simply ran it on my laptop and then transferred the database over.

Finally, safely if exhausted at the hotel in Lisbon. Us, that is, but not one of our bags. Naturally it would be the one with my toothbrush and painkillers to deal with the wrist. Since it seems I can't travel anywhere without an airline misplacing my baggage, I am starting to seriously question the point of packing in the first place.

This time the dubious honor goes to the combination of Finnair (Helsinki to Amsterdam) and TAP Portugal (Amsterdam to Lisbon), and in particular to the handling agency at the Lisbon airport, who managed to make a lasting impression with their total inability to deal with lost baggage complaints despite several employees seemingly dealing with the complaints. We finally left the airport an hour and a half later, having left a notice form but not receiving any confirmation that anything would be done. Sanna is pretty much convinced we'll never see that bag again.

On a more positive note, at least we know precisely where we are, thanks to the Bluetooth GPS receiver I bought at the airport. Finally I might have a use for the Nokia 770 where the built-in software and its limitations make no difference. Maemo Mapper is awesome.

It's again been a while since my previous post. First, it was a feeling that there was nothing worthwhile to write about, at least without having to spend hours thinking about it first. Then I had a biking accident and fractured my left wrist, leaving me rather handicapped as far as computers are concerned. Thanks to Helsinki's Rakennusvirasto for that - it would be nice if the few bike lanes weren't mined with road construction asphalt gravel.

I even entertained the idea of switching to a Mac in order to get decent speech recognition software, given that my laptop blew a gasket (well, busted its fan, at least) the day before. No, that won't happen though - an experiment with one proved that Macs are still, despite their aesthetic appeal, really excellent at infuriating me with their UI. I'm sure that's all fault of my own idiosyncrasies, so no comments of that, please.

A few other things of note have happened. We're closing the end of the latest Habbo update rollout, with this version bringing various usability improvements all around, from password retrieval and friend invites, to a more scalable web store interface. In Finland we're already pilot testing the next version, which has more noticeable new features: tagging and related search functionality and music player on the home pages to mention two. However, since I'm such a metrics-driven incremental improvement freak, to me the most significant events are the rollout of Google Analytics measuring (it's such a nice tool, even if with our traffic it becomes a bit sluggish), and how we're (once again) speeding up our update cycle to twice its previous velocity. I think this is now the third time we do it, and likely the trend will continue at least until we've reached a daily upgrade frequency.

Speaking of Analytics, the updated "social networking" version of the Habbo UK front page showed interesting changes in behavior, with some key metrics producing double-digit improvement. Something must be done about those ads, though... Comments on that vs the other Habbo sites' front pages welcome.

Finally, the corporate Sulake site was also updated last week. I may join the group posting notes in its blog as well, but that will happen after the holidays. Fractured wrist or not, I am looking forward to a few weeks offline. Too bad this forces our vacation plans to a more passive mode - but I suppose that will finally let me catch up on a lot of reading.