March 2009
- Sixth Anniversary
- Have I actually been doing this blog for six years already? Apparently so….
- Review: Nikon GP-1 GPS Unit
- Introduction For several years, I’ve been keeping half an eye on the GPS logger category — these are GPS receivers that record geographical coordinates that can later be applied to digital photos. But I never got around to trying one,…
- Microsoft and TomTom Kiss and Make Up
- CNet reports that Microsoft and TomTom have settled their patent suits against one another: “As part of the deal, as TomTom will pay Microsoft for patent protection related to mapping patents and file-management patents that Microsoft claimed were infringed by…
- Southwest Airlines’ Map Napkin
- Never having flown them, I was not aware that Southwest Airlines printed their route map on the cocktail napkins they hand out to passengers during the flight. That’s kind of neat. Via Cartophilia….
- Education Minister Fired over Bad Map
- Remember that erroneous map of South America published in some Brazilian school textbooks? The secretary of education for the state of São Paulo, Maria Helena Guimaraes, was fired by the state’s governor over it. Via Vector One. Previously: Brazilian School…
- Flightmapping’s Airline Route Maps
- Flightmapping.com’s interactive maps show airline routes between airports in the UK and Ireland and, well, everywhere else in the world — which reflects the site’s overall focus, viz., providing flight information to and from the British Isles. Of limited…
- Historical Ecology
- An interesting article in Friday’s San Francisco Chronicle profiling historical ecologist Robin Grossinger, who uses old maps, photos and aerial photos to reconstruct what the landscape was like in the past. More at the Historical Ecology section of the San…
- ‘Dead Pixel in Google Earth’
- Dead Pixel in Google Earth (2008) is a work of concept art by Helmut Smits; the 82×82-centimetre square of burned grass represents one pixel from an altitude of one kilometre. Via La Cartoteca. (Photo credit: Jeroen Wandemaker.)…
- Frilliest. Navigation Aid. Ever.
- When you’re on an expedition to the North Pole, and you’re too close to magnetic north to use a compass, it’s too cold for GPS, and it’s cloudy and you can’t see the sun, how do you navigate? Answer: lacy…
- Field Guide to Humanitarian Mapping
- The need for accurate and up-to-date maps during a natural disaster or other humanitarian crisis is obvious. Teaching humanitarian aid workers how to make use of maps and mapping software is the idea behind the Field Guide to Humanitarian…
- Another British Case of Blindly Following Your GPS
- The latest instance of sat-nav Schadenfreude — the media having fun at the expense of some poor fool who followed his dashboard GPS’s directions to the letter and ended up in trouble — involves a 43-year-old British man (of course)…
- New York Subway Map Hoodie
- It’s a pity that this hoodie with a map of the New York subway printed on it seems to be sold out, because, you know, want. Via Platial….
- An International Virtual Earth Imagery Update
- This past week’s Virtual Earth imagery update is notable not for the terabytes of data, says the Virtual Earth evangelist blog, but for the number of countries covered — from Albania to Zimbabwe. Previously: Imagery Updates for Google Earth, Virtual…
- Google Street View Meets Canadian Privacy Laws
- Google Street View isn’t even available for Canadian locations yet, but already Google is running afoul of Canada’s strict privacy legislation. The Ottawa Citizen’s Vito Pilieci has a couple of stories about Google Street View in Canada: this one on…
- Miguel Angel Rios: A Dangerous Cartography
- The Santa Fe New Mexican has a review of A Dangerous Cartography, an exhibition by Miguel Angel Rios taking place at the EVO Gallery in Santa Fe. From the review: “His large-scale maps — collages made with raw canvas,…
- Redesign
- I’ve redesigned this site (again); the new design went live a couple of hours or so ago, and I’ve been fiddling with fixes here and there ever since. As always, there is a risk that it doesn’t look quite right…
- GIS Book Roundup
- Briefly noted: Geoweb Guru reviews Scott Davis’s GIS for Web Developers; on Vector One, Jeff shares his notes on three recent books from ESRI Press (Building a GIS by Dave Peters, the second edition of Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop,…
- Planetary Maps
- I frequently post entries about mapping the other planets and moons in our solar system not just because I’m nuts about astronomy (though I am), but also because this is where maps of new places are coming from. Our own…
- Mapping Triton
- Triton, the largest moon of Neptune, was visited for the first and only time on August 25 and 26, 1989, when Voyager 2 hurtled past it. Since then, any maps of that moon were based on images taken from…
- More on the Mapparium
- Curious Expeditions visits the Mapparium, the three-story walkthrough glass globe that was built in 1935 for the headquarters of the Christian Science Monitor; they also have a Flickr photoset. Via Cartophilia. Previously: The Mapparium….
- Silverlight: ArcGIS API, Virtual Earth Map Control, WorldWide Telescope
- A flurry of announcements last week related to Silverlight, Microsoft’s rich media browser plugin. Some will be of interest largely to geospatial professionals or web developers, like the public beta of the ArcGIS API for Silverlight or the Virtual Earth…
- Titan in Stereo
- Topographic maps of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, have been created from stereo pairs of radar images obtained by the Cassini probe. “The new flyover maps show, for the first time, the 3-D topography and height of the 1,200-meter (4,000-foot)…
- Forthcoming History of the Ordnance Survey
- Rachel Hewitt has written a history of the Ordnance Survey; even though Map of a Nation won’t be published until next year, it’s already won a £10,000 prize from the Royal Society of Literature. I’ll be looking for this book…
- Go Fly a Kite
- Speaking of low-cost aerial photography, The Fiducial Mark links to a research paper on the use of kite-based aerial photography to produce high-resolution aerial imagery at a cost much lower than the usual method (which at that scale usually involves…
- Student Balloon Gets Images from 30 Kilometres Up
- That’s one hell of a science project: four Spanish students, using an inexpensive latex balloon and a Nikon Coolpix camera, managed to record images and meteorological data from an altitude of as high as 30 kilometres before the balloon…
- Apple Map Omits Greenland, Iceland
- A map Apple used during its iPhone 3.0 announcement to show the countries in which the iPhone is available is drawing fire for omitting Greenland and Iceland. Well, from Iceland, anyway. Okay, one Icelander. Just imagine the complaints that would…
- Brazilian School Textbook Map Omits Ecuador, Bollixes Paraguay
- Okay, how does something like this happen? “A map of South America in which landlocked Paraguay is shown with an Atlantic coastline and Ecuador does not exist may be found in a [sixth-grade] geography textbook used in the public schools…
- GeoEye-1 Satellite Imagery Previewed
- Google has exclusive access to the GeoEye-1 satellite’s high-resolution imagery for online mapping purposes; sample imagery from the satellite, which was launched last September and began commercial operations last month, has been posted as a sign of things to come….
- Jonathan Potter Contemplates Retirement
- The Telegraph reports that Jonathan Potter’s entire £3-million catalogue of antique maps is available for sale as Potter, 58, prepares for retirement. On MapHist, however, Potter clarifies the situation: “My intention is for my business to continue into the next…
- Street View in the UK and the Netherlands
- Reported everywhere: Google’s Street View adds 25 cities in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands; here’s a brief Grauniad article….
- Tyler Bell Interview
- It’s an interview packed with softball questions, but Telematics Update’s interview with Dr. Tyler Bell, who heads the Yahoo Geo Technologies product team, reveals where Yahoo sees itself relative to other mapping providers. Short version: not as an also-ran by…
- Google Earth: Live Mars Imagery and More
- Like its historical imagery, Google Earth 5.0’s Mars features have been updated not very long after the launch of Google Earth 5.0. In addition to layers showing historical maps of Mars (like Schiaparelli’s) and narrated guided tours (that really do…
- CSAA Donates 7,000 Maps to Stanford
- The California State Automobile Association has donated 7,000 old road maps to Stanford University’s Branner Earth Sciences Library and Map Collections; the donation was triggered by the CSAA’s move to new headquarters with less space. “Along with the road maps,…
- Map Theft ‘All Too Easy’
- ARCAblog, the blog of the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art, has a translation of a year-old Spanish news article (the original is here) about map thefts; the article mentions the notorious cases of Cesar Gomez Rivero and Forbes…
- Google Earth Historical Imagery Update
- It hasn’t been that long since the release of Google Earth 5.0, which added historical satellite and aerial imagery via a slider, but Google LatLong is already announcing a significant update to Google Earth’s archive of historical imagery; the blog…
- Neocartography Panel at SXSW
- Sunday morning at SXSW Interactive, there was a panel entitled Neocartography: Mapping Design and Usability Evolved: “Designers are dropping maps into their applications with little concern for usability or design and users are getting ‘Google Map fatigue.’ We need to…
- Google Earth Imagery Is Not Real-Time
- Frank Taylor isn’t the first person to explain at length how Google Earth imagery isn’t real-time imagery, but it’s something that seems to require repeating; his explanation also goes into considerable depth about how old the imagery can be (months…
- Mapping Texas and the New World
- Mapping Texas and the New World opens Thursday at the Mason Square Museum in Mason, Texas. Includes early cartography of the New World generally and maps of Texas specifically, covering the period from Mexican independence through the early 20th century….
- Toronto Neighbourhood Map Updated
- Based on feedback the Toronto Star received after it published a version of its neighbourhood map last weekend, the neighbourhood map has been updated with 29 specific changes. This strikes me as the kind of project that will never truly…
- Harry Beck’s Map of the Paris Metro
- Mark Ovenden — author of Transit Maps of the World — has the fascinating story of how Harry Beck tried to create a map of the Paris Métro in the style of his iconic map of the London Underground….
- Fire Eagle, Meet Facebook
- To be honest, I haven’t been paying close attention to Yahoo’s Fire Eagle geolocation service, but since I reported on it a year ago it’s accumulated 70 applications that use it, integrating Fire Eagle location data with everything from Movable…
- A Third-Party API for Heat Maps in Google Maps
- GeoChalkboard looks at the HeatMapAPI, a third-party API (it costs money at higher usage rates) for creating heat maps in Google Maps….
- Yahoo’s ‘Classic Maps’ Discontinued
- The “new” version of Yahoo Maps was released as a beta in November 2005 and became the default version a year later, at which point the old version remained for dialup users. It’s taken until now — more than two…
- Earth Point Coordinate Converter
- The Earth Point Coordinate Converter not only converts between latitude/longitude and Universal Transverse Mercator, it’s also a handy way to convert between, say, decimal latitude/longitude and degrees, minutes and seconds. Via Free Geography Tools….
- New York Times Immigration Explorer
- Just one more New York Times interactive map, I swear (at least for today), but this one is fantastic. It shows U.S. immigration patterns since 1880: where immigrants came from, and how much of the population (per county) they…
- More Maps of Foreclosures and Subprime Mortgages
- USA Today’s map of 2006 and 2008 foreclosures shows “that rising rates of foreclosure were most severe in a few areas. Last year, 35 counties accounted for half the nation’s foreclosure actions.” (Those counties are outlined in red on…
- New Yorkers’ Satisfaction Mapped
- The New York Times has created an interactive map showing, by borough and by neighbourhood, how residents feel about crime, municipal services, quality of life and a host of other things, based on a city survey of 2,500 residents…
- Ken Jennings Is Writing a Map Book
- Publishers Marketplace is reporting that Jeopardy freak of nature Ken Jennings has sold a book “exploring the world of map nuts and geography obsessives” called Maphead to Scribner (Google cache; LA Observed). No idea when it’ll be out; the publishing…
- Val Britton
- Val Britton was interviewed in this week’s Salt Lake City Fine Arts Examiner. Britton makes “immersive collaged drawings that draw on the language of maps,” according to her artist’s statement. “Based on road maps of the U.S., routes my…
- Astrotagging
- What geotagging is to ordinary photography, astrotagging is to astrophotography — embedding machine-readable data that identifies the location of a photo. But astrophotography is harder: orientation, field of view and pixel scale come into play if you want to map…
- A Collection of Accidents
- Also via The Map Scroll, a collection of accidents collected by New York Times graphics editor Matthew Bloch while working on maps and other graphics. At right, a 1917 map of Beijing “after trying to use spline-based georeferencing in…
- Google Latitude vs. GMap-Track
- Stefan Geens of Ogle Earth compares Google Latitude with GMap-Track, a service he’s been using on his site. “Letting your mobile phone update your location at all times can be useful among close-knit groups of trusted friends in urban settings…
- Urban Mass Transit Systems of North America
- I can’t believe I didn’t notice Radical Cartography’s Urban Mass Transit Systems of North America before. This map plots the mass transit systems — subways, light rail, busways, whatever — of U.S., Canadian and Mexican cities circa 2005 on…
- Rachel Austin
- An exhibition of the artwork of Rachel Austin is taking place at Tilde, a store in Portland, Oregon, until the end of March. Austin’s work includes mixed media map paintings. “The map series are done with maps and layers…
- One Day, 205,000 Aircraft
- Wired: “Two million flights pass through New York’s airspace each year. Artist Aaron Koblin used images from his piece, Flight Patterns, to create a Google map representing air traffic across the United States over a 24-hour period. The map…
- Imagery Updates for Google Earth, Virtual Earth
- Both Google and Microsoft announced updated imagery for Google Earth and Virtual Earth last week; detailed lists of what areas have been updated are available on Google LatLong and the Virtual Earth evangelist’s blog….
- The Financial Times on ‘Gentlemen Thieves’
- The Financial Times article, What drives people to steal precious books, does not spend much time answering the question posed by its title; the article, which references recent map thieves, does talk about how people steal precious books (and maps),…
- Toronto’s Neighbourhoods
- The Toronto Star is developing a map of Toronto’s neighbourhoods, based in part on reader feedback. (Boundaries are always the problem with neighbourhoods, because they’re not always strictly defined; growing up in a western suburb of Winnipeg, I wasn’t…
- Nikon Digital SLR Geotagging Roundup
- Here’s another review of the Nikon GP-1 GPS unit (via the Nikon Digital Flickr group). The GP-1 is facing some pretty stiff competition, according to Nikon Rumors — at least as far as Nikon digital SLRs with 10-pin PC…
- More Foreclosure Maps
- Very Spatial links to a number of maps depicting foreclosures in the U.S., including RealityTrac’s map of the 2.3 million foreclosures across the U.S. in 2008 (thumbnail at right) and USA Today’s map of foreclosures in Denver since 2006,…
- Mapping the Recession and the Stimulus
- The New York Times always seems to have good online maps; here’s one showing county-by-county unemployment rates. Via MAPS-L. This CNNMoney.com map shows state-by-state unemployment, state budget deficit, and foreclosure rates. Via Dave Smith. Also via Dave, another state-by-state…
- Emma McNally
- Emma McNally writes to tell us about her drawings inspired by cartography. (At right, Field 3, graphite on paper, 220 cm × 150 cm.) From the press release for her exhibition last year: But though one’s initial impression may…
- The Cambridge Double Star Atlas
- A review on astronomy enthusiast site Cloudy Nights of the new Cambridge Double Star Atlas, which, unlike the Cambridge Star Atlas itself (reviewed last month), is coil-bound rather than hardcover. The reviewer, a double star observer, compares its usefulness…
- New Yahoo CEO Uses Google Maps
- I’m not sure how someone working on Yahoo Maps is going to react to a headline like this: Yahoo CEO likes Google Maps better than Yahoo Maps. Key graf: After admitting that she uses Google Maps, [new Yahoo CEO Carol]…
- The BCS’s Introductory Cartography Booklet
- The ESRI Mapping Center blog points to a new booklet from the British Cartographic Society: Cartography: An Introduction, co-written by Giles Darkes and Mary Spence, is part of the BCS’s Better Mapping Campaign (see previous entry); its aim “is…
- California Assemblyman Wants to Censor Satellite Imagery
- Stupid Republican California Assemblyman Joel Anderson has introduced a bill to censor online satellite imagery of public buildings. “His bill would restrict the images such Web sites could post online. Clear, detailed images of schools, hospitals, churches and all government…
