Development Seed’s data team in Ayacucho, Peru has spun out to form GeoCompas:
I am pleased to announce that the skilled data and annotation team from DevSeed is separating to become an independent employee-owned company called GeoCompas. The Geo AI practice at Development Seed has grown, and the GeoCompas team has been essential in providing crucial mapping, annotation, QA, and automation support. Their expertise in geodata is now available to everyone.
The new company focusses on OpenStreetMap editing, data labelling and annotation for AI projects, but also development of data processing pipelines and web services.
Darren Wiens of SparkGeo demonstrates an AI-driven approach to generating audio descriptions for interactive web maps. The overall process is simple yet effective:
Convert the current map view to an image.
Upload the image to OpenAI’s API to return a text description of the images.
Upload the text description to OpenAI’s API to receive the audio of the text description.
It’s one example of how new generative AI technologies can be put to good use. It is simply impossible for humans to provide alt-text for large interactive maps and AI is the one (the only?) way to make textual descriptions of maps scalable.
This looks like an interesting event: Element84 are hosting a three-hour workshop on user-centred design with a specific focus on geospatial applications:
Join us for a comprehensive 3-hour experience tailored for UX Designers delving into geospatial patterns, Frontend Developers honing essential UX design skills, as well as Leaders and Management keen to understand the profound impact of effective design on geospatial workflows. Immerse yourself in geospatial patterns, tackle hands-on design challenges, and absorb essential UX principles meticulously crafted to meet the specific demands of the geospatial sector. Whether you’re looking to seamlessly integrate geospatial patterns into your design mockups, enhance your understanding of how users will interact with your software, or understand the value of a targeted design process, this workshop ensures you depart with practical skills for creating useful and impactful geospatial applications.
The workshop is scheduled for 19 March. Tickets are 75USD.