August 2008
- Mapping Hurricane Gustav
- Hurricane Gustav Tracking Maps Firstcoastnews.com FLHurricane.com IbisEye MIBAZAAR MSNBC StormAdvisory (click on Gustav) Wundermap Some are better than others; IbisEye, MSNBC and Wundermap are standouts. Via Anything Geospatial, Google Maps Mania, Kottke and La Cartoteca. Hurricane Gustav in Google Earth…
- The Threat of Internet Mapping
- At the Royal Geographic Society’s annual conference in London, British Cartographic Society president Mary Spence complained that satellite navigation and Internet mapping were obliterating knowledge of the landmarks lining the way from point A to B. See coverage from the…
- Nevada in Maps
- Nevada in Maps is a nice collection of more than 4,000 maps and atlases from the collections of the University of Nevada at Reno and Las Vegas, the State Library, and the Nevada State Historical Society. The collections mostly…
- The Eyes of the Division
- A real find via Slashgeo: an internal document about the Imagery Interpretation Section (5 MB PDF) of the U.S. Army’s 24th Infantry Division, dating from 1963. The document’s purpose was to promote the Section’s work to unit commanders. It also…
- TypeBrewer
- TypeBrewer is a site about font choices in mapmaking. “TypeBrewer offers a quick and easy way to explore typographic alternatives and see the impact that various elements of type have on the overall look and feel of a map….
- The Journal of Terrestrial Observation
- The Journal of Terrestrial Observation is a new peer-reviewed journal that is published simultaneously online and as a hardcopy quarterly. Its mission is “to examine the multi-disciplinary theories, models, technologies, and applications associated with earth observation in the broadest sense….
- Nikon’s Digital SLR Geotagger
- Hot on the heels of the P6000 with its built-in GPS, Nikon has announced a GPS accessory for its digital SLRs. The GP-1 clips to the hotshoe and has two cables: one that plugs into the new D90’s GPS/remote…
- Sony’s Subway Earphones Ads
- A Sony ad campaign for its Walkman digital audio players shows subway network maps made from black Sony earphones. (Because they can’t be white earphones, silly.) In addition to the New York subway map poster making the rounds, there…
- U.S. Military Presence Worldwide
- Mother Jones’s interactive map showing U.S. military presence worldwide from 1950 to 2007 is making the rounds online. But it’s a little misleading: it’s a heat map, but its scale is logarithmic, which tends to overemphasize smaller numbers. Trends,…
- A Final Post About the Beijing Olympics
- Last Olympics post for a while, I promise. This page is a Google Maps mashup that plots all medallists on their hometowns. It’s considerably cruder than the Earthgamz plugin (see previous entry), which also covers all athletes, but is more…
- Trial Downloads Available for MapPoint, Streets and Trips
- The Virtual Earth evangelist blog reports that trial versions of Microsoft’s MapPoint 2009 and Streets and Trips 2009 are now available as free downloads: MapPoint 2009 North America, Streets and Trips 2009. Previously: MapPoint and Streets and Trips 2009….
- MapQuest Beta Plays Catchup
- The most notable thing about MapQuest’s new beta version is that there’s a map on the home page. That should give you an idea of how far down the field MapQuest’s competitors have taken things, and how far behind MapQuest…
- Mapping Olympic Athletes
- The Earthgamz Summer Olympics Google Earth plugin maps Olympic athletes to their hometowns; it uses the Windows-only embedded Google Earth plugin on the page, but you can also download the (somewhat unwieldy, in my experience) full KML file for use…
- Wanderlust: History’s Greatest Journeys
- Good magazine’s interactive map showing some of the more famous journeys from history and literature — everything from Magellan to Moby Dick — is pretty cool. Via Kottke….
- North Carolina Maps
- North Carolina Maps digitizes old maps of North Carolina; in beta (who are they, Google?) for the moment, but plans call for more than 1,500 maps, ranging from the 1590s to the 1960s. It’s a collaboration between the North…
- The Power of Place Reviewed
- Harm de Blij’s new book, The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization’s Rough Landscape, which examines the differences between those who are globally mobile and those who are bound to their home terrain, is reviewed by About.com’s Matt…
- GPS and Car Rallies
- A couple of thoughts on the Rental Car Rally, which ran earlier this month between New York and Montreal. First, here’s CNet’s Caroline McCarthy’s take on the event: The surprising truth? A large number of the driving squads had nothing…
- More Olympics Maps
- Heat maps of the Olympic medals, using Google Spreadsheets’s map widget: this one generates a map from a live results feed; Google Maps Mania creates a few using static medal numbers for the top 15, but divides the results by…
- A Book Roundup
- David Lanegran’s Minnesota on the Map: A Historical Atlas “brings together for the first time stunning but rarely seen maps of Minnesota through five centuries”; the Rochester, Minnesota Post-Bulletin has more: “The maps include early city plans of Rochester,…
- Updates on the Rivero Case
- For the latest developments in the case of César Gómez Rivero, who is facing charges related to the theft of maps from Spain’s National Library, see this July article from El Pais and this more recent article from the Uruguayan…
- Three Controversial Maps
- Mental Floss’s three controversial maps will be familiar to regular readers of The Map Room: Percy’s 38-state map of the U.S. (Rob even draws a new version of Pearcy’s map), the Mercator projection (in the context of the Peters projection…
- Map Hawk
- Map Hawk, a side project by Directions Media’s Joe Francica, is a blog that “will cover the use of maps, mapping technology and location-based information in the media”; topics so far include the U.S. elections, the recent Russia-Georgia crisis, and…
- 1920s Wristwatch-Style Routefinder
- A display of unusual gadgets and inventions at the British Library includes a wrist-based routefinder that used miniature scrolling maps to indicate your destination. The Daily Mail and Ananova (which have pictures) call it the 1920s-era equivalent of satellite-based navigation,…
- Genetic Map of Europe
- The genetic map of Europe, which shows the genetic relationships between various European populations and which was published in Current Biology, “bears a clear structural similarity to the geographic map,” the New York Times’s Nicholas Wade writes. “The major genetic…
- A Small Country Far Away of Which We Know Little
- Google is denying reports that detailed maps for Georgia and the other countries of the Caucasus on Google Maps disappeared as a result of the conflict between Georgia and Russia. The data was never there in the first place; they…
- David Imus’s Map of Oregon
- When we last heard about cartographer David Imus, he was getting rave reviews for his map of Alaska. Now the revised edition of his map of Oregon is getting similarly favourable reviews, at least if this article in today’s Eugene…
- Georgia on My Mind
- Oops. Google News illustrates a wire story about the Russian invasion of Georgia — the one in the Caucasus — with a map whose pushpin is in Georgia, the U.S. state. Hilarity ensues. Those pesky automatic algorithms….
- Making Your Own Topo Maps
- Two very different ways of making your own topo maps are explained in the following guides: Kevin Kelly talks about how to download free digital versions of USGS topo maps and print them (via Kottke); GPSFileDepot’s tutorial on how to…
- Mapping Astronomical Observatories
- Nausicaa Delmotte has maps of the world’s astronomical observatories: plotted on Google Maps or in KML or plotted on a static world map. Via La Cartoteca….
- Mapping the 2008 Olympics
- You may be aware that, in addition to The Map Room, I have another project that I work on during the Olympics: DFL, which chronicles last-place finishes. I’m at it again — this is my third kick at the Olympic…
- Concerns About Planned British Crime Maps
- Concerns are being expressed that the British Home Office’s recently announced plan to provide online crime maps for every neighbourhood in England and Wales would have a detrimental impact on housing prices and school enrolment in neighbourhoods with high crime…
- Belgrade Is the World
- Belgrade Is the World. Webmapper explains: “The artist Slaviša Savić discovered an unusual and an unexpected coincidence between the town plan of Serbian Belgrade and the map of the world. … The world’s continents seem to match the cities…
- Shanghai in 2020
- We’ve seen this scale model of Shanghai before, but Neatorama provides some more information: “On the third floor of the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, there is what probably is the world’s largest scale model of a city. The room-sized…
- Nikon P6000: Built-in Geotagging
- Those interested in geotagging may well be interested in Nikon’s newly announced P6000, a $500, 13.5-megapixel compact digital camera with a built-in GPS for automatic geotagging. As a Nikon fanboy I’m intrigued; as a digital SLR user I’m jealous….
- A Map Collector Profiled
- A profile of map collector Clarence Kylander — it seems that a lot of map collectors are doctors or retired doctors; I wonder why that is….
- Geocaching with Kids
- A guide to geocaching with kids — self-explanatory, really. Via Matt….
- Tampa Bay History Center to Receive Collection of Florida Maps
- The Tampa Bay History Center opens in December; over the next few years, maps from a private collection of some 2,000 maps of Florida, collected over 25 years by investment firm president J. Thomas Touchton, will be transferred to the…
- A Map Exhibition in Arkansas
- Maps: From Here to There and Then to Now is a map exhibition, running from August 10 to November 30, at the Old Independence Regional Museum in Batesville, Arkansas. The Searcy, Arkansas Daily Citizen has more: Of special interest is…
- Arctic Maritime Jurisdiction Map
- Durham University’s International Boundaries Research Unit has produced a map of the frequently overlapping boundaries, jurisdictions and claims of various countries in the Arctic. In the wake of Russia’s planting a flag on the seabed under the North Pole,…
- Tools for Adventure: Children’s Map Exhibition
- Tools for Adventure is a travelling exhibition about maps, targeted at children from grades three through five, produced by the National Geographic Society and the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. It’s currently at Baylor’s Mayborn Museum Complex (in Waco, Texas) through…
- Google, Yahoo Maps Refreshed
- Both Google Maps and Yahoo Maps got refreshed last week: Google’s interface was rejigged to reduce clutter (oddly, I get the old interface when I load maps.google.com, but the new interface when I load maps.google.ca — localization bug?); Yahoo’s interface…
- Electrician Sentenced for Birmingham University Thefts
- An electrician has been given a suspended sentence for stealing approximately £89,000 worth of maps, books and documents from Birmingham University’s library, the Birmingham Post reports. Richard Delaney, 37, was caught after failing to return a van that had been…
- Britain from Above
- Considerable buzz about an upcoming BBC series, Britain from Above. This preview (screen capture above; I wish I could have embedded the video here, it’s pretty good) uses GPS traceroutes to show sea, road and air traffic; it also…
- Very Very Small Maps of Hong Kong
- How small can a map be and still be legible? ZoomMap.org, a spinoff of the Hong Kong-based Universal Publications Ltd., is publishing some very small maps indeed. Douglas Li of ZoomMap writes: [W]e create and publish miniature maps —…
- Panamap, Formerly Dynamap, Available Soon
- It’s been a long time, but the mapping technology that was first presented under the name Dynamap in 2004 has finally left the realm of vapourware and will very shortly result in a shipping product. Well, two products, but…
- Introducing the Calendar
- Today I’m launching a new feature here on The Map Room: a calendar of map-related events. It’s meant to cover conferences, talks, and similar events; exhibitions are more problematic because (1) there are so many of them and (2) their…
- The Return of Gavin Menzies
- A reader wrote me in June: I was just wondering if you have read the new book (due out this month, June 2008) called 1434 by Gavin Menzies in which he puts forward a hypthesis that the Chinese set off…
- Landsat Data Will Be Available Online
- All Points Blog: “Speaking at the ESRI UC Senior Executive Summit in San Diego, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced that the 35 years of archived Landsat data will be made available over the Web free to the…
- More Caricature Maps from World War I
- BibliOdyssey has another collection of satirical caricature maps from the First World War, from British, Dutch and German sources. Previously: A Japanese Caricature Map of the World….
- Nokia 6220 Ad Touts Mapping Features
- An ad extolling the mapping features of the Nokia 6220. Via Visual Think Map. Nokia Maps 2.0 came out of beta in May, which Mapperz and Engadget covered; I, alas, did not. Previously: Nokia Maps 2.0 Beta; Nokia Maps….
- iPhone Navigation Applications
- My original plan was to write an entry about the navigation applications available for the iPhone and iPod touch by buying a few of them myself and trying them. As often occurs with my plans, that didn’t happen. In…
- Haptic Weather Maps
- Turkish researchers are applying haptics to weather maps, allowing map users to “feel” climate data represented on the map, the New Scientist reported last March: The system converts climate data into forces that a person can feel using a haptic…
- A Collection of National Geographic Maps
- Kolby Kirk shares some examples of his collection of National Geographic maps. Around 1994, when I moved away from home to attend college, I was forced to get rid of most of my National Geographic magazines — a nearly…
- The Ordnance Survey in 1953
- An excerpt from a newsreel about the latest technology used by Ordnance Survey mapmakers — in 1953. “It used to take two men a whole year to do the mapmaking mathematics that these adding machines and electronic computers can…
- GiSTEQ GPS Loggers Now Mac-Compatible
- GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr devices — they’re GPS loggers for geotagging — are now Mac-compatible, with the release of PhotoTrackr software for the Mac; MacNN, MacCentral. Richard notes that the software “is actually a special version of JetPhoto that adds a GiSTEQ…
- Razón Cartografica
- Razón Cartografica’s aim is to promote the history of geography and cartography in Colombia and Latin America. The first issue of its bulletin is here; there’s also a blog. In Spanish, of course, so I can’t say much more about…
- Map Shoes
- More map tchotchkes. Dan Catt has discovered that Zazzle — a CafePress-type store that lets you put your images on various things like shirts and postcards — now does shoes, and goes a little crazy with the maps-on-shoes thing….
- The OneGeology Project
- Brooks Rowlett points to this BBC News article about the OneGeology project, an initiative to make accessible online geological map data from the entire planet. This sounded familiar, like I’d heard about it before, but apparently I never got around…
- Map of Canada’s North Found
- Maps of the arctic seem to be lost more often lately than found, but a century-old map of the Canadian arctic by Joseph-Elzéar Bernier was recently rediscovered by Quebec archivists, the Montreal Gazette reports; the article doesn’t mention where Bernier’s…
