New Media: From Discrete, to Distributed, to module, to Ubiquitous

New Media includes a range of new delivery and display platforms; among them are the World Wide Web, interactive digital television, mobile technologies, interactive hyperlinked mapping services, and enhanced mapping packages that are ¿linked¿ to large databases¿national or global ([Cartwright et al. 2001]. New Media now provides a unique conglomerate media form for representing geospatial information in innovative ways. The many cartographic products developed and published using New Media illustrate the enthusiasm with which the geospatial science community has embraced it as a tool for representing geography. It is argued that this `new¿ method of access to and representation of geospatial information is different to aforeused methods and therefore, whilst New Media applications can be considered to be at a fairly immature stage of development (compared to paper maps ¿ here paper maps have a 500 years or so `start¿ on electronic counterparts), much research has been undertaken to develop strategies for `best practice¿ so as to overcome any deficiencies. This chapter gives an overview of how multimedia / hypermedia mapping has developed using discrete, distributed, mobile and ubiquitous media and devices. It provides an overview of the applications of New Media tools and communications systems that cartography has adopted / adapted to deliver timely and appropriate geoinformation. It provides examples of the use of discrete interactive multimedia, distributed interactive multimedia, and delivered via the World Wide Web (Web) or via intranets and mobile information delivery applications. Finally, it looks at how the concept of ubiquitous computing might be used to facilitate a `different¿ paradigm for geographical information delivery.