LinkedGeoData, described as an effort to add a spatial dimension to the web of data, currently reports itself to be the largest knowledge base in the Linked Open Data 2 cloud. It uses information collected by the OpenStreetMap project—which consists now of information about some 350 million nodes and 30 million ways –and makes it available as an RDF knowledge base. That’s about 2 billion triples worth at this point, and entities include even traffic lights and bus stops. This data can be linked with other knowledge bases in the Linking Open Data initiative, such as a city’s latitude and longitude coordinates with Dbpedia information about the city’s history and size.

LinkedGeoData said this week that it is open-sourcing the code for the project, now moved to Google Code.

The LinkedGeoData RDF dumps for the project, whose home base is the University of Leipzig, have been loaded into the central LOD SPARQL endpoint by OpenLink.

A use case for LinkedGeoData is its facet-based browser and editor, available for browsing the world through a slippy map here. For any selected region, the browser analyzes the descriptions of nodes and ways in that region and generates facets for filtering, to display matching elements as markers on the map and in a list.

As momentum grows for a more comprehensive location-based web, Semanticweb.com thought it was interesting to note some other spatial- and location-based semantic web and linked data services happenings that you may want to know about or check out, as well:

DBpedia Mobile: Visiting a new city? Based on the current GPS position of a mobile device you have in hand, DBpedia Mobile renders a map containing information about nearby locations from the DBpedia dataset, from which users can then explore background information about their surroundings by navigating along data links into other Web data sources. Geographic locations are currently available for 300,000 of DBpedia’s 2.18 million things. Besides accessing Web data, DBpedia Mobile also enables users to publish their current location, pictures and reviews to the Semantic Web, interlinked with a nearby DBpedia resource, so that they can be used by other Semantic Web applications.

Alpha Urban LarkC: Available as a client app, this is an Urban Computing application http://wiki.larkc.eu/UrbanComputing to find monuments and events in Milano, as well as a path to getting to them. Based on the LarkC platform, it is able to answer SPARQL queries by sending requests to both Semantic Web sources (like Sindice and DBpedia) and Web 2.0 services (like Eventful), by processing data and finally giving back useful information to the client application which displays them on the Milano map. Anyone heading to the fashion capital of Europe should check it out.

HealthCyberMap: Available here , this application maps the health cyberspace using hypermedia GIS and clinical codes. Created by the Centre for Measurement and Information in Medicine, London, UK, it is a Semantic Web project that has in its possible plans the ability to customize itself based on a user’s geographical location (as determined by his/ her IP address used to access HealthCyberMap.org or by other means). One idea behind that is that certain conditions tend to be prevalent in certain locations. Its metadata base, which has over 1600 resource records in it, can be accessed by visual map interfaces, or textual interfaces (list of topical categories and a semantic subject search engine using a brokering clinical coding ontology to support disease variants, synonyms and disease relationships).

Siri: Available here, the virtual personal assistant is all about location, helping users find within a certain distance from where they are everything from restaurants to taxis. Earlier this month is added a new feature that lets users speak their tweets, and last week it won recognition as the most innovative web service in the 2nd Annual Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW.

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