Geocoding Images

Nokia has launched an application to geotag photos. The post says that this won't be the final user experience for geotagging; we expect that the recent announcements of built-in geotagging on the N96, N78, and others will be closer. Non-phone cameras will soon do the same.

Geotagging used to be a very difficult process, and some folks on and at flickr found it to be so even with Series 60 software.

Mass adoption of geotagging photos will enable the creation of a model of the world through technologies such as Photosynth. Imagine going online and virtually walking through the Parthenon on a spring day, sunset, or a clear night ... all without anybody explicitly modeling the Parthenon in those conditions. Just 5% of camera (and cameraphone) users geotagging and sharing their pictures would create an incredible database.

We need to be careful about forcing such disclosure. Privacy, security, and of course simple preferences. We're not the only folks thinking this way.