May 2009
- Bing
- Microsoft has renamed its map service again; it’s now called Bing Maps (the bing.com URL isn’t resolving in my browser right now; I may have to check back later). Interesting that “Virtual Earth” was what they called their enterprise mapping…
- ESA Maps European Shipping Routes
- The European Space Agency has released maps showing European shipping routes, based on seven years’ worth of radar tracking. The ESA also correlates these routes with NO2 emissions; marine engines apparently burn rather dirty fuel. Via La Cartoteca….
- Early Views of Hong Kong
- “Early Views of Hong Kong, 1842-1946” is an exhibition of maps of pictures and maps of Hong Kong from Wattis Fine Art in Hong Kong, including this 1866 bilingual (English-Chinese) map of Hong Kong (pictured at right), which sold…
- Atlas Art
- An exhibition at Jonathan Potter Limited in London, running until June 19: Atlas Art — An Exhibition of Decorative Atlas Titlepages: Decorative titlepages appeared at the beginning of many atlases and geographical works from the mid-sixteenth century onwards as a…
- Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- The Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names is an interesting resource: it catalogues more than a million place names and their relationships (such as equivalence, or different names for the same place, including which is preferred; and hierarchy, such as the…
- Yahoo Placemaker
- Yahoo announced its new Placemaker web service at Where 2.0 last week. Placemaker takes unstructured data, extracts references to places, and returns geographic metadata — take a reference to Chicago in a block of text, for example, and it gives…
- Map of TV Sitcoms
- In case you haven’t already seen this: a map showing where sitcoms were set, from, I believe, folks at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Not that most of them weren’t filmed in a Hollywood studio regardless of their putative location. Via…
- An Arctic Roundup
- The Geological Survey of Canada has produced a geological map of the Arctic; the map is available in several formats online and will be published in print next year. Agence France-Press reports that the map is the result of…
- How to Read a Map, for Sat Nav Users
- Apropos of the whole OMG-GPS-is-going-to-fail thing, the Grauniad’s Tim Dowling has some advice for drivers who might suddenly have to do without their in-car navigation systems, in the form of a FAQ for paper maps. Some examples: I need to…
- Air Force Says GPS Will Not Stop Working
- Following up on this post: the Air Force says that even if the GPS network drops below 24 satellites, GPS will still work, albeit with degraded performance. On Twitter, Air Force Space Command says that “[t]he issue is not whether…
- Cartography Snafus in NATO Map Game
- Catholicgauze points — not for the first time — to a map game on the NATO website with an appalling number of cartographic errors: China has apparently annexed a sizeable chunk of Pakistan, and Cambodia, the Korean peninsula and…
- A Programming Note
- I should mention that I’m on another contract for the next few months, so I will probably not be able to post new entries to this blog as often or as regularly as I would like. I’ll do what I…
- Map Purse
- Via Platial, a do-it-yourself guide to creating a purse out of a map. Some craftiness (and a sewing machine) required….
- Moscow or Moskva? Turin or Torino?
- An interesting post on the Collins Maps blog that deals with the following question: when preparing a map or atlas, do you use local names (e.g., Moskva, München, Torino) or the translated names used in the language of your map…
- Is GPS Accuracy at Risk?
- Take the constant availability of accurate GPS signals for granted on your own risk. TidBITS’ Adam Engst reports that there are concerns that the current constellation of GPS satellites will drop below the 24-satellite minimum within the next few years,…
- Kate MccGwire: Insular
- I’m fascinated by Kate MccGwire’s Insular (2008): 50 layers of paper, burned to form the shapes of the American continents; the layers are reminiscent of topo map contours. Via Platial….
- Wisconsin Map Store Closes
- I’m always sorry to hear when a map store closes; Wisconsin’s U.S./Canadian Map Service is closing after a quarter-century of operation; WLUK-TV reports. Owner Alice Woelffer says that sales dried up over the past five years due to the proliferation…
- Mapping the Death Penalty
- Good Magazine’s map of the death penalty around the world is interesting not only for its information, but for its design: look closely and you’ll see that it’s superimposed on the pattern of a chain-link fence replete with barbed…
- Another Book Roundup
- Booklist reviews the 12th edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World — “a recommended source for any library or individual who can afford it.” Via Collins Maps. Glenn points to the upcoming Manual of Geographic Information Systems,…
- National Geographic Award in Mapping
- Both the first- and second-prize winners of this year’s National Geographic Award in Mapping are graduate students from the University of Wisconsin, Madison — a fact that the university’s geography department trumpets. Rising Skyline: The Tallest Buildings in Europe,…
- Maps of Imaginary Places: A Roundup
- Kidlandia is an interactive map builder that allows you to create custom fantasy maps for children; you choose from one of four maps (which seems rather limited to me), which you customize with your own place names. Prices for…
- Google to Reshoot Street View Imagery in Japan
- A little lower, please. Despite having taken photos in 12 Japanese cities already, Google has agreed to reshoot its Japanese Street View imagery from a slightly lower vantage point — 16 inches (400 mm) lower, to be exact — to…
- A Book Roundup
- Briefly noted: Mike Parker’s Map Addict (see previous entry) is reviewed on the Collins Maps blog. GIS Pathway reviews Gretchen N. Peterson’s GIS Cartography: A Guide to Effective Map Design. James Fee notes the upcoming publication of PostGIS in Action…
- Geographicus
- Kevin Brown of Geographicus writes, “I am a generalist antique map dealer specializing in rare maps from the 15th through the 19th centuries. As a sideline I have also started a map blog on cartographic anomalies, current map-related events, and…
- Google Sky Map for Android
- Further to this morning’s post: it’s called Sky Map, and it’s for mobile phones running Google’s Android operating system….
- Google’s Star Droid: Astronomy Software for Mobile Phones
- The Sunday Times reports on an upcoming (“as early as this week”) astronomy application for mobile phones: “The Google software, called Star Droid, uses GPS technology found in most new handsets to identify the position of the user and then…
- Cross-Stitch Tube Map
- Via Boing Boing, a cross-stitch version of the London Underground map….
- Greece Halts Street View Image Collection
- Greece’s data protection agency has asked Google to stop collecting images for Street View on its streets and to provide details on how long it keeps images and how it informs those whose photographs are being taken of their rights…
- More on ‘T. S. Spivet’
- More coverage and reviews of Reif Larsen’s breakout novel about a precocious 12-year-old cartographer, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet: The Age and the Boston Globe cover the author and the phenomenon as much as the book itself;…
- ‘Entropa’ Will Be Removed Early
- “Entropa,” the controversial piece poking fun at European stereotypes that was installed earlier this year in the European Council building, will be removed two months ahead of schedule, but not because of any controversy. The artist, David Černý, is pulling…
- Map of Native American Names
- National Geographic’s interactive map of Native American names in the United States (click and drag to magnify) gives the best modern translation of names derived from aboriginal languages. Details at NGM Blog Central. Via MapHist. Previously: The Atlas of…
- Global Situational Awareness
- Google Earth apparently isn’t enough for the military. Defence contractor DRS Technologies was demonstrating this military-grade touchscreen geospatial interface — the correct term is apparently “global situational awareness” — at a recent Navy League conference; this video features engineer…
- Air Lines
- Mario Freese writes to pimp his Air Lines art project. “Every single scheduled flight on any given day is represented by a fine line from its point of origin to it’s port of destination, thereby forming a net of…
- Google Latitude Applications
- Google has added a couple of applications to Latitude, allowing users to embed their location data on a Web page or in their Google Talk status update; KML and GeoJSON feeds are also available for hackers and developers who want…
- Rachel Maddow’s Map Room
- MSNBC political commentator Rachel Maddow has a map room (no relation), the purpose of which is to provide maps and infographics in support of The Rachel Maddow Show. Via Cartophilia….
- Mapping Mental Health
- A report to be published in the June 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine maps the responses to a telephone survey asking about respondents’ mental health, National Geographic News reports. “This county-by-county map shows the percentages…
- The Adversity Index
- The Adversity Index, developed by Moody’s and MSNBC, maps the impact of the recession on 381 U.S. metropolitan areas as well as each of the 50 states. “The index shows that the recession reached 367 of the nation’s 381 metro…
- Old Japanese Maps Stir Old Japanese Controversy
- Old maps of Japan from David Rumsey’s collection that are viewable as a layer in Google Earth have gotten Google into a bit of hot water in Japan, the AP’s Jay Alabaster reports (Huffington Post, Japan Times, Washington Post). The…
- Organic Farms in the United States
- A lot of maps of the lower 48 lately. The New York times maps organic farms in the United States, which aren’t distributed the same way as farms in general; they’re clustered in a few areas. “Areas in the…
- The Geography of the Uninsured
- Jim Gimpel has a map that shows that Americans without health insurance are not evenly distributed across the country: Clearly the South and Southwest stand out on this map as areas where the uninsured are highly concentrated. In the…
- Navigon Pulls Out of North America
- Less than two years after entering the North American personal navigation device market, Navigon is calling it quits — they were undercut, says GPS Business News, by competitors selling at less-than-premium prices. Via GPS Tracklog, where Rich has some thoughts…
- Another Blog Roundup
- Changes afoot in the map blogging world: Using Google Earth is being folded into Google LatLong. After four years at Flickr, doing (and posting about) a lot of Flickr’s map- and geotagging-related stuff, Rev Dan Catt is moving on. Briefly…
- Yanko Tsvetkov’s Beloved Europe
- Yanko Tsvektov’s sharp-tongued map of Europe, Where I Live, was created in response to last winter’s gas shortages triggered by the spat between Russia and Ukraine. Via Boing Boing….
- Maps of Manhattan that Bend Upwards
- The design consultancy firm Schulze and Webb have produced a pair of maps of Manhattan called “Here and There”: each map starts at street level and curls upwards, like a bird’s-eye view without a horizon that melds into a…
- Ottawa Earthquake Hazard Map
- An earthquake hazard map of Ottawa developed by scientists at the Geological Survey of Canada and Carleton University shows which parts of the city are more at risk from seismic shaking. “Those areas with thick pockets of Leda clay…
- The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet
- First-time novelists don’t usually get profiled in Vanity Fair, but Reif Larsen’s first novel, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet, has been generating that kind of advance buzz for the 29-year-old writer. (I hate him already.) It’s a book…
