May 2007
- Miscellaneous Google Things
- Mashup makers take note: the Google Maps API now supports driving directions. Google has gone and bought photo-geotagging site Panoramio. At a Developer Day talk, Google’s plans for integrating AdSense into its map products. (Disclaimer: I make money from AdSense.)…
- Google Maps Street View and Privacy
- When you consider the privacy concerns — freakouts, really — that were raised when the online map sites made satellite and aerial imagery readily available, it’s not surprising that there would be similar concerns raised about the street-level imagery announced…
- GPS Adventures
- GPS Adventures “is a hands-on traveling exhibit that features GPS technology — its history, current uses and future possibilities; and simulates geocaching indoors by leading visitors through a 2,500 square foot maze rich with interactive experiences.” At Minnetrista, an…
- Candidates for the World’s Oldest Map
- An article from The American Surveyor that discusses the candidates for the world’s oldest map — and, interestingly, the criteria involved: what makes a map a map and not a painting, for example. The Soleto Map and the Papyrus of…
- Imhof’s Cartographic Relief Presentation
- Next month, ESRI Press is reprinting Eduard Imhof’s classic Cartographic Relief Presentation, which was first published as Kartographische Geländedarstellung in 1965 and translated into English in 1982; it’s been out of print since then. Press release: GISuser.com, Directions. Update,…
- Being First vs. ‘Cleaner and More Thoughtful’
- Valleywag on the competition between Google and Microsoft on the mapping front, touching on yesterday’s Street View announcement: “The battle for mapping supremacy continues with the rush to add new features. Unfortunately for Microsoft, being first has not been a…
- On the User-Unfriendliness of Pushpin Clusters
- Daniel Jalkut has a couple of suggestions about the user-unfriendliness of tightly clustered pushpins on Google Maps: “[T]o find out what’s actually at the cluster point, I have to go back to the ugly list and click items to see…
- GPS Expectations
- GPS Review: Expectations of GPS, an article about what people should expect, in terms of map accuracy, routing and number of points of interest, from their GPS receivers. “What I was most amazed about was how quickly their expectations of…
- GeoPress for Movable Type
- Still with Where 2.0. GeoPressMT, a Movable Type version of the GeoPress plugin, previously WordPress only (see previous entry), was also announced today. It enables embedding geographic information in posts (especially their RSS feeds) and adding maps….
- Another Microsoft Imagery Update
- Probably not fortuitous that Microsoft’s monthly Virtual Earth imagery update (see previous entry) also took place today: the Virtual Earth/Live Maps blog has the details; I note with interest that Ottawa, the closest city to me, is among the cities…
- MapQuest ActionScript API
- Also announced at Where 2.0: an ActionScript API from MapQuest. (ActionScript is the scripting language used in Flash applications.)…
- Mapplets
- Google’s been busy today. They also announced a developer preview of Mapplets, which to me seems like a mashup in reverse: instead of importing Google’s maps to data on your web site, data on your web site is imported into…
- Garmin Announces API, Developer Site
- Garmin has announced an API and a new web site for developers, the rationale for which is explained on their corporate blog: “Well, this site is for software developers and content provides who want to make their website, applications and…
- Google Maps Street View
- The big news so far from Where 2.0 is the announcement of Google’s street-level imagery for five U.S. cities — Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York and (of course) San Francisco — which, in a fit of originality, they’re…
- Where 2.0 2007
- The third annual Where 2.0 conference, O’Reilly’s get-together about geospatial and web mapping technologies, is now under way in San Jose, California. Glenn and Frank are at the conference, so be sure to check their blogs for updates, as well…
- Some Google Maps Updates
- Google Transit adds Reno and San Diego; I must have missed when they added the Japanese rail networks, domestic airlines and ferries. Google Maps for mobile supports GPS on certain devices — for example, the BlackBerry 8800 and some Windows…
- More Details on Tanner Atlas Recovery
- The Journal News has more on the recovery of the 1823 Tanner Atlas. The atlas was taken from the Rockland Historical Society last month; the suspect is a former society employee. A Philadelphia bookseller who had been tipped off to…
- Imaginary Transit Maps of Los Angeles
- Numan Parada’s map of an extensive, and imaginary, rapid transit network for Los Angeles is one of several on the web site of the Transit Coalition, a public transit advocacy group. The maps envision a Los Angeles with a…
- A Year or More for Corrections and Updates
- Don’t expect instant results when you submit errors to a mapping data provider. A dentist whose office is not on the map discovers that NAVTEQ can take as much as a year, if not more, to process corrections or new…
- Tanner Atlas Recovered
- The copy of the Tanner Atlas that was reported stolen earlier this month has been recovered, according to a post on Exlibris, which announced that the atlas “has been recovered in Pennsylvania by a bookseller who was aware of the…
- O’Reilly Radar: Trends of Online Mapping Portals
- In Trends of Online Mapping Portals, O’Reilly Radar’s Brady Forrest writes, “Last week there were several announcements made that show the direction of the online mapping portals. Satellite images and slippy maps are no longer differentiators for attracting users […]…
- Smiley’s Restitution Raised to $2.3 Million
- Last September, in addition to his 3½-year prison sentence, map thief E. Forbes Smiley III was ordered to pay restitution to his victims; at the time, the amount was tentatively set at $1.9 million (see previous entry). Today the final…
- On FreeHand’s Demise and Cartography
- I knew that Adobe was ending development on FreeHand; after its purchase of Macromedia, keeping both the competing FreeHand and Illustrator going made little sense. I should have realized that, like Illustrator, FreeHand has been used to draw maps…
- Behind Yahoo’s New Map Design
- Cartifact was involved in Yahoo’s new map design, which was launched last week. From the press release: “Cartifact contributed features not found in other online maps. At higher zoom levels, shaded relief conveys a sense of terrain and elevation,…
- Your Wallet Is Your Map
- The Tubemap Wallet is one of those ideas that sounds really neat — even practical — in theory: a special wallet that folds out to reveal a map of either the London Underground or the New York subway. The…
- Europe’s Climate in 2071
- This map shows the projected climate of Europe in 2071, but it does so in a rather confusing way: it relocates the cities to reflect what present-day locations match their projected climates. So, for example, London, Paris, Stockholm and…
- Whitwell’s Rational Geographical Nomenclature
- Whitwell’s Rational Geographical Nomenclature: “Stedman Whitwell, 19th-century social reformer and architect of Robert Owen’s failed Utopian city at New Harmony, was deeply troubled by the will-nilly way that cities and towns were named in America, and proposed a more “rational”…
- MacArthur Maze vs. U.S. Route 90
- Some more material about updating road data after disasters that I missed the first time around (and am only getting to now). Via Mapping Hacks, a San Francisco Chronicle article that discussed updating driving directions in the wake of…
- Francesca Berrini
- The art of Francesca Berrini, who “transforms vintage maps of places she has longed to visit into fine art maps of entirely new and imagined worlds. She obsessively tears up original vintage maps into tiny pieces, and then reconstitutes…
- Yahoo Moves to New Map Platform
- Yahoo moved its maps to a new platform today, IDG News Service reports: “[W]ith the new platform, developed in-house, Yahoo Maps will perform better, offer more precise results and make backend upgrades easier to implement, Yahoo said. … The…
- Massimo Vignelli Defends His Map
- In this four-minute outtake that didn’t make it into the final version of the documentary film Helvetica, designer Massimo Vignelli talks about his 1972 map of the New York subway system — which, you may recall, encountered stout opposition….
- Angling in Troubled Waters
- Catholicgauze calls this map — “Angling in Troubled Waters,” an 1899 map by Fred W. Rose — “one of the best historical maps I have ever seen.” The map, which apparently is reprinted in New Worlds: Maps from the…
- Waldseemüller Map Formally Transferred
- This is a couple of weeks old, but I’m that far behind. The U.S. Library of Congress has been in possession of Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map — you know, the first map with the name “America” on it…
- In-Car Navigation Hurts a Car’s Resale Value
- Still on the subject of in-car navigation systems, it turns out that these systems — which apparently cost something like $2,000 — actually increase a car’s depreciation, according to an article in USA Today. As Autoblog points out, “It makes…
- Case in Point: Driver Obeys Directions, Gets Car Hit by Train
- And this is exactly the sort of thing I was on about before: trusting her GPS navigation system implicitly, a British woman drives onto the tracks; while closing the level crossing gate (first clue) behind her, her car is hit…
- Apparently I’m a Pundit Now
- Three weeks ago, I was contacted by a writer for iPass who was working on an article about the accuracy of driving directions on online mapping sites. I provided some pithy comments. Her article is now online and to my…
- The Roy Military Survey of Scotland
- William Roy’s Military Survey of Scotland was undertaken between 1747 and 1755, in the wake of the Jacobite Rebellion, which revealed a military need for a decent survey of the country. The originals are in the hands of the…
- Shanghai Cracks Down on ‘Problem Maps’
- The municipal government of Shanghai is cracking down on “problem” maps. Key grafs from an announcement that is the epitome of Commie turgidity: [F]rom time to time, on maps that appeared in a variety of newspapers and periodicals, on TV…
- RMCA 2007 Map Expo
- The Road Map Collectors Association’s 2007 annual meeting and map expo will take place September 21-22 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Few details available as yet, but, they say, “We expect to have displays of rare Texas maps, courtesy of…
- Google Finally Gets a Map Blog
- Yahoo and Microsoft have had mapping blogs for a while, but not Google — at least not until today, when the Google Lat Long Blog, which covers Maps, Earth, Local and the mapping API, made its debut. Now where’s the…
- Google Earth 4.1 Beta
- Frank and Stefan report on a new beta version, version 4.1, of Google Earth. Improvements include SpaceNavigator compatibility in the Mac version, more languages, tips and a feature allowing you to view the same thing in Google Maps. Previously: Google…
- DIY Geotagging for a Nikon Digital SLR
- If you’re using a high-end Nikon digital SLR (D200 and above), the simplest method of adding lat/long coordinates to your photo’s EXIF data is to use the MC-35 GPS adapter cable, which has a port for a GPS receiver’s serial…
- GlobalSat DG-100 GPS Data Logger
- Richard has a review of the GlobalSat DG-100 GPS data logger, which can be used for geotagging (if the clocks on the data logger and camera are in sync). And presumably tracerouting. He also compares it to the Sony…
- Yahoo Pipes Adds GeoData
- Pipes is a relatively new Yahoo service that allows users to do all sorts of things with feeds, though I haven’t yet had an opportunity to try it. It has now added geodata support, which means that RSS feeds containing…
- A Geotagging Roundup
- Geotagging links have been piling up in my note-taking application; time to flush the queue. How to geocode your photos, a long post on bike-community.net. Via GPS Tracklog. HoudahGeo is a Mac-only geotagging app. $35. Via Ogle Earth and TUAW….
- Cassini Maps Profile
- The Independent profiles the two guys behind Cassini Maps, a company founded in 2005 that publishes enhanced reproductions of old maps….
- Tanner Atlas Stolen
- Via MapHist, a report on the Ex-Libris mailing list that a copy of Tanner’s 1823 New American Atlas was stolen from a downstate New York library between April 20 and 22. (The David Rumsey site has numerous examples from this…
- GIS and Geography at Dartmouth
- Alumni magazine Dartmouth Life has an article about geography and GIS at Dartmouth College, which “remains the only college in the Ivy League with a distinct geography department.”…
- Internet Ham Atlas
- Darek Milka’s Internet Ham Atlas provides maps of all the world’s DXCC entities and ham-radio prefixes. More at ARRLWeb….
- Quadrocopter: DIY Aerial Photography
- Fed up with waiting for aerial photography for your area to show up in online maps? Take your own with a quadrocopter! The Universal Aerial Video Platform is an open-source project from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Via MAKE: Blog…
- How Online Maps Update Their Data After Major Road Closures
- This week has revealed a lot about how the online mapping sites respond to disasters that close major routes and affect driving directions. Within two days of the MacArthur Maze freeway collapse in Oakland, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps and MapQuest…
- Fly Swatter Map of Milan
- Okay, I have now officially seen everything: this fly swatter’s webbing is patterned after a street map of Milan, Italy. Via Boing Boing and Gadling….
- D&D Map of Online Communities
- XKCD’s map of online communities purports to represent the estimated size of each community by geographic area; more noteworthy is that it’s in the style of a D&D (or fantasy trilogy) map and has lots of little in-jokes, web-related…
