May 2010
- Review: National Geographic World Atlas HD for iPad
- In my review of National Geographic’s World Atlas app for the iPhone and iPod touch, I said: “It’s also rather limiting to look at a large map on an iPhone’s rather small screen; these maps beg for a larger…
- Environmental Activist(s) Target Geocaches
- An individual or group calling himself/herself/themselves the Forest Defenders has been removing or destroying geocaches in the name of the environment and posting the results to a blog, the Everett, Washington Herald reports. His/her/their claim is that the geocaches are…
- Foursquare, Latitude and Privacy
- Here’s an interesting piece on privacy and geolocation services. Some excerpts: “When it comes to geo-privacy there are two extremes. Foursquare makes you explicitly check into each place where you want to share your location. … On the other end…
- A Note on iPad App Reviews
- I bought an iPad over the weekend. I got the 64-gigabyte model with 3G, which, you may recall, also happens to come with a built-in GPS. (Fun if obvious fact: the GPS works regardless of whether you’re signed up for…
- Time-Lapse Video of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
- NASA has produced a time-lapse video of the expanding Gulf of Mexico oil slick: “This short video reveals a space-based view of the burning oil rig and, later, the ensuing oil spill through May 24. The timelapse uses imagery…
- Exploring the Origins of the Portolan Chart
- The Washington Post reports on a conference held last Friday at the Library of Congress: Re-Examining the Portolan Chart: History, Navigation and Science explored the mysterious origins of the portolan chart, which apparently appeared from nowhere, with no known antecedents,…
- Joshua Miele’s Tactile Maps
- Bill Warren wrote to me earlier this month: On May 8th, the California Map Society held a meeting at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. One of the speakers was Joshua Miele, Ph.D., Associate Scientist at the Smith Kettlewell Eye…
- The Texas Globe
- John Horrigan recounts his encounter, in a local travel shop, with a hand-drawn “Texas Globe,” which depicts the world as seen by a stereotypical, bigoted Texan. “Half the Earth is filled by a swollen United States, with Texas taking…
- The Demographics of Fast Food in America
- Lexicalist’s Demographics of Fast Food in America uses mentions on Twitter and other social sites to determine which fast food chains are dominant in which U.S. regions; on the maps, “blue represents a particularly strong presence compared to other states….
- The Islands of San Francisco
- Burrito Justice imagines San Francisco if its neighbourhoods were islands and its streets canals, in this diagrammatic map of the city….
- Google’s Styled Maps
- Last week, Google announced Styled Maps as part of version 3 of the Google Maps API; it allows developers to make changes to the appearance of maps appearing on their websites. Here’s Google’s case for the feature: “No matter which…
- The Geotaggers’ World Atlas
- The Geotaggers’ World Atlas is Eric Fischer at work again: this time he’s taken geographical data from Flickr photos, determined the speed at which the photographers were travelling based on their photos’ timestamps and geotags, and plotted them on…
- Burglars and Terrorists to Get Extra Jail Time for Using Street View in Louisiana
- Under a bill passed by the Louisiana state senate, crimes committed with the aid of “virtual street-level maps” — obviously Street View and its ilk — will get additional minimum sentences: an extra year for burglary, an extra 10 years…
- Two New York Times Articles About LIDAR Mapping
- The New York Times had two — count ‘em — two articles on using LIDAR as a mapping tool earlier this month. This article is about using airplane-based LIDAR to map the topography of New York City: “The data will…
- Local Globes
- English Russia has a post about local globes, which were apparently all the rage immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union (for example, you could buy a globe of just Ukraine). The post is really about how to…
- The New York Times’s Interactive Oil Spill Map
- The New York Times’s interactive map of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is up to their usual standard; it has a timeline slider and shows currents and sensitive shorelands. Via geoparadigm. Previously: Mapping the Gulf of Mexico Oil…
- China to Crack Down on Online Maps
- “The crackdown on Internet mapping services in China is real, and starts next month,” Ogle Earth reports, pointing to this article from the Xinhua state news agency, which Stefan helpfully translates from Newspeak. Bottom line: online maps seen inside China…
- Untangling the Garmin Nüvi Web
- Garmin has put out so many different models of nüvi, their GPS navigation systems for cars, that it’s very hard to figure out which one’s which. GPS Tracklog makes a game attempt at sorting them all out, but I think…
- Yahoo Turns to Nokia/NAVTEQ for Maps
- Engadget reports Nokia and Yahoo have announced a strategic partnership that includes Yahoo using Nokia’s NAVTEQ for maps and navigation. Of the major online map providers, it’s safe to say that Yahoo has been lagging the furthest behind. Engadget quotes…
- Saint-Pierre and Miquelon Are Apparently Underwater
- Just noticed that Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, two French islands off the coast of Newfoundland, are missing their land data in Google Maps — the roads and landmarks are there, but the outlines of the islands are not. (It’s abundantly…
- Slime Mold Maps Model Efficient Route Networks
- This road map of the U.S. created by a slime mold actually has real-world applications, Popular Science reports. In searching for food, the slime mold Physarum polycephalum settles on the most efficient path to food sources. You can model…
- The iPad as Map Platform
- Richard Marsden also picked up a 3G iPad recently, and has some thoughts about the gadget’s map applications. “Maps are visual things, and the iPad’s large touch screen is really designed for visual applications such as this. The touch user…
- Google Hiring Workers to Fix Map Errors
- TechFlash: “Google is hiring an army of 300 temporary workers in Kirkland as part of a yearlong campaign to improve the accuracy of Google Maps. … The workers will be part of a one-year initiative to correct mistakes in Google…
- The World of Gerard Mercator Reviewed
- Richard Marsden reviews The World of Gerard Mercator by Andrew Taylor: “Taylor does a good job of putting him into both a historic and a cartographic context, and does his best to explain Mercator with the relatively limited information…
- Paramount’s Geographic Facsimile Map of 1927
- This 1927 map by Paramount apparently was for financial backers; it indicates shooting locations in California that could stand in for more exotic locales. Via Matt….
- Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Update
- Uh-oh: “Many of the maps that the federal government depends on to determine which coastal resources are at risk in the event of a nearby oil spill are outdated, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday.”…
- Monongahela National Forest Quilt Map
- Bill Dollins discovered this quilt map of Monongahela National Forest at the Cranberry Mountain Nature Center in West Virginia….
- Embedding Ordnance Survey Maps on a Website
- Clearly I missed a few things when the Ordnance Survey freed up its map data last month. The OS OpenSpace API allows developers to create web applications using Ordnance Survey maps; this includes mere mortals embedding maps into web pages….
- Map Shoes T-Shirt
- Oliver Moss’s Walk Instead t-shirt, illustrated with a map in the shape of running shoes, is sold out, alas. Via Cartophilia….
- Ontario Schools Map-Making Competition
- The Globe and Mail reports on the Ontario Schools Map-Making Competition, in which students aged 12 to 18 submit digital or hand-drawn maps in several competition categories. The competition lost its university affiliation this year but was able to continue…
- Mapping Saturn’s Moons
- My regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of maps of other worlds, and that, for example, whenever the Cassini Imaging Team team updates a map of one of the moons of Saturn based on new imagery from…
- Rethinking the Power of Maps
- Via MapHist, news that a followup to Denis Wood’s 1992 book, The Power of Maps, is being published this month. Rethinking the Power of Maps, written by Wood along with John Fels and John Krygier, “takes a fresh look…
- Map Art Exhibition in London: Whose Map Is It?
- Whose Map Is It? is a map art exhibition taking place at Rivington Place in London from June 2 to July 24, 2010. It features work from nine contemporary artists who “question the underlying structures and hierarchies that inform traditional…
- Today’s Eyjafjallajökull Imagery Today
- NASA and the European Space Agency have each posted same-day satellite imagery of the ash plume from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano: NASA from the MODIS instrument aboard its Terra satellite, the ESA from Envisat (at right). Previously: Earth Observatory and…
- Mapping the 2010 British Elections
- Finally getting around to looking at some online maps of the results of the general election in the U.K. held last week. I’m surprised at how similar the maps produced by different media organizations are to one another. Both…
- Magnificent Maps: 10 Maps that Changed the World
- In the Daily Mail, Peter Barber presents 10 of the greatest maps that changed the world from the Magnificent Maps exhibition: Waldseemüller’s 1507 map, the Peters projection and Google Earth make appearances….
- GPS vs. Assisted GPS
- Another explanatory thingy from GPS Review: the difference between GPS and “assisted” GPS (A-GPS), used by smartphones and the like, which speeds up the process by using cell towers or geolocated Wi-Fi base stations….
- New Mexico Soap: Not an Epic Fail After All
- To be fair, New Mexico Soap is the name of the company, and among their products is a line of soaps in the shape of various states. Via Cartophilia….
- This Week in Maps
- The first episode of This Week in Maps, “a podcast about the latest maptastic geohappenings,” went live yesterday. (Wait — “maptastic geohappenings”? That’s a tagline. Wish I’d thought of it.) It’s hosted by OSM founder Steve Coast. Via GIS Lounge….
- Two Items on GPS Accuracy
- GPS Review explains how street-navigation GPS receivers appear more accurate than they actually are by using a “snap-to” feature that aligns the user to the nearest road. I’ve seen this happen with mine on more than one occasion; it’s interesting…
- Men Read Maps, Women Remember Routes
- Another look at gender and navigation. “Women may not have discovered Australia or the Americas, but new research by scientists shows they can be better navigators than men if they have visited a place before,” the Times reports. “Men may…
- Darth Vader Tells You Where to Go
- It’s Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you), and TomTom is announcing Star Wars voices for its navigation devices (press release). Darth Vader is available now, with others to come later — but who cares about them? This…
- Using iPhone Navigation Apps on the iPad
- GPS Review takes a very quick look at how navigation apps for the iPhone work on the 3G-equipped variant of the iPad, which also includes a GPS chip. None of the apps have been customized for the iPad, so they…
- Mapping the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
- NASA’s Earth Observatory has posted a number of images of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, taken by the MODIS instruments on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites. The photo above was taken on April 29….
- 10 Years Since the End of Selective Availability
- Today marks the 10th anniversary of the end of Selective Availability. Until it was turned off on May 1, 2000, GPS signals available to the public were only accurate to within 100 metres. In hindsight, especially when you consider how…
- PCMag on Mobile Phone Navigation Apps
- PCMag has a roundup of navigation apps for GPS-equipped mobile phones, reviewing seven examples of the genre. They include iPhone apps as well as Nokia, Android and Verizon phones. Via All Points Blog….
- New Book from Mark Monmonier: No Dig, No Fly, No Go
- Via MapHist, news of Mark Monmonier’s latest book, coming out this month: No Dig, No Fly, No Go: How Maps Restrict and Control. Some maps help us find our way; others restrict where we go and what we do….
- Using Photographs to Beat GPS Accuracy
- Liz Gannes reports on Michael Liebhold’s argument that you can get better-than-GPS accuracy by using photographs: He said the most promising technique is to build [a] model of the world using photographs, some of them geo-coded automatically, and the rest…
- PostGIS in Action Reviewed
- Bill Dollins reviews PostGIS in Action by Regina Obe and Leo Hsu (see previous entry). “This book addresses a problem I have run into repeatedly in my consulting work: educating database professionals (DBAs, developers, etc.) on working with spatial…
- BBC News on ‘Magnificent Maps’
- More coverage of the British Library’s Magnificent Maps exhibition, which (finally!) opened yesterday, from BBC News: “Picked from a “long shortlist” of 26,000 maps from the library’s 4.5 million-strong collection, curators Peter Barber and Tom Harper carefully selected 80 impressive…
