Geography

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    ScienceDaily: Geography

  • Carbonate veins reveal chemistry of ancient seawater

    8 Feb 2010 | 11:00 am
    The chemical composition of our oceans is not constant but has varied significantly over geological time. In a new study, researchers describe a novel method for reconstructing past ocean chemistry using calcium carbonate veins that precipitate from seawater-derived fluids in rocks beneath the seafloor.

  • Better weather forecasts with a map showing atmospheric vapor

    7 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pm
    Weather forecasts, satellite navigation in cars and the inspection of dikes or natural gas fields: these applications using satellite data would all be even more accurate if we knew more about the distribution of water vapor in the atmosphere, according to researchers.

  • How well do scientists understand how changes in Earth's orbit affect long-term natural climate trends?

    7 Feb 2010 | 2:00 pm
    The notion that scientists understand how changes in Earth's orbit affect climate well enough for estimating long-term natural climate trends that underlie any anthropogenic climate change is challenged by new research findings.

  • Earlier glacial melt rate revised downward, but recent melt is accelerating dramatically

    7 Feb 2010 | 8:00 am
    Glaciologists have shown that previous studies have largely overestimated mass loss from Alaskan glaciers over the past 40 years. Recent data from the SPOT 5 and ASTER satellites have enabled researchers to extensively map mass loss in these glaciers, which contributed 0.12 mm/year to sea-level rise between 1962 and 2006, rather than 0.17 mm/year as previously estimated. However, the spectacular acceleration in mass loss since the mid-1990s, corresponding to a contribution of 0.25 to 0.30 mm/year to sea-level rise, is not in question and proves to be a worrying indication of future sea-level…

  • Oceans reveal further impacts of climate change

    5 Feb 2010 | 8:00 am
    The increasing acidity of the world's oceans -- and that acidity's growing threat to marine species -- are definitive proof that the atmospheric carbon dioxide that is causing climate change is also negatively affecting the marine environment.
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    About.com: Geography

  • Transnistria Update

    5 Feb 2010 | 1:58 am
    Things in Transnistria, the elongated rogue state also known as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic are likely to heat up. Transnistria lies along the Dniester River between Ukraine and Moldova and the two countries are about to demarcate their border early this year. However, Moldova and Ukraine are planning to enter the border demarcation process without seeking the input from the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, recognized only by Abhkhazia and South Ossetia. Russian troops have been stationed in the region since 1992. Moldova and Ukraine might want to be careful in this process...

  • Mo Rocca and Capitals

    3 Feb 2010 | 7:06 am
    As previously reported, comedian Mo Rocca is an expert on the capitals of the world. See this new video of Rocca against a former geography student Claire Calzonetti. Mo Rocca and Capitals originally appeared on About.com Geography on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 15:06:29.Permalink | Comment | Email this

  • Target Riles Group Over Palestine on Globe

    31 Jan 2010 | 9:09 am
    Target Stores, which sold a small decorative novelty globe for one dollar, came under fire for selling a globe that labeled Israel as Palestine. The New York Times has the story of the globe and its detractors. Notice that in the image of the globe, "Palestine" is in upper and lower case (which does not indicate countries) and there is clearly the number two over Israel. Target Riles Group Over Palestine on Globe originally appeared on About.com Geography on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 17:09:16.Permalink | Comment | Email this

  • New Geography Quiz

    31 Jan 2010 | 8:58 am
    Test your geographical skills and talents with my latest geography quiz! It's fifteen multiple-choice questions that are sure to amuse and delight you! Good luck! New Geography Quiz originally appeared on About.com Geography on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 16:58:39.Permalink | Comment | Email this

  • Beijing to Relax One Child Policy

    28 Jan 2010 | 7:07 am
    Beijing is planning to relax the delay on couples who themselves are only children between their children. Currently, there is a waiting period of four years between children under the One Child Rule. Beijing plans to follow the lead of eleven other provinces and municipalities in eliminating the gap between first and second children for those who are eligible. According to Peng Yuhua, deputy head of the Beijing Population and Planning Commission, the Total Fertility Rate in China is 1.8 but in Beijing it is only 1.0, far below the replacement rate of 2.1. Beijing to Relax One Child Policy…
 
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    Google Earth Blog

  • StreetView added to Norway and Finland; many other updates elsewhere

    8 Feb 2010 | 8:35 pm
    Google has just pushed out a ton of new imagery in StreetView, including: Norway: All new Finland: All new Canada: More added, primarily in Saskatchewan and Alberta, possibly more in Quebec and Ontario. Mexico: Various locations UK: Various locations USA: Alaska, Illinois (updated imagery in Chicago) It's quite likely that other imagery has been added as well, but we haven't discovered it yet. If you haven't used StreetView in Google Earth yet, here's a quick tutorial on how to access it. A couple of highlights from the imagery so far: Helsinki Cathedral, Finland The Grieg Hall, Bergen,…

  • Where 2.0 2010 coming in March; Discount for GEB Readers

    8 Feb 2010 | 4:21 am
    For the past few years (2009, 2008, 2007, 2006), Frank has attended the Where 2.0 conference. I had the pleasure of attending with him in 2007 and we had a great time. Now that he's busy sailing around beautiful places like Bonaire, I'll be taking his place this year. Where 2.0 happening March 30-April 1, 2010 at the San Jose Marriott in San Jose, California. Where 2.0 brings together the people, projects, and issues building the new technological foundations and creating value in the location industry. Developers, technologists, CTOs, researchers, geographers, academics, business developers,…

  • Google Earth in Microsoft Flight Simulator

    5 Feb 2010 | 5:59 am
    Google I/O 2010 is coming in May, but we're already starting to hear about some of the neat projects that will be unveiled there. The first one is called GEVision, from the guys at PlanetInAction, which is trying to evolve into a 3D scenery engine. Their initial goal is to use Google Earth as the scenery in Microsoft Flight Simulator: "In the past various attempts had been made to use Google Earth scenery instead of the one included in Microsoft Flight Simulator FSX. Yet due to limitations in the interface technology this has never been fully achieved. GEVision is a new project that will…

  • Some parts of the ocean are now high-resolution

    4 Feb 2010 | 5:15 am
    We mentioned it briefly a few days ago, and Google has now released some of that new data for the ocean in Google Earth. As Google explains in their blog, most of the underwater terrain is generated use satellite extrapolations of water surface height. This technique has allowed them to create the undersea terrain for most of the planet, but it's rather low-resolution. However, a handful of organizations are able to collect high-resolution data using other techniques, and some of that data is now available in Google Earth. This data is collected using echosounding sonar from ships, and it…

  • New updates to the historical imagery

    3 Feb 2010 | 5:48 am
    A sharp-eyed reader ('Sladys') has pointed out that more historical imagery has been added to Google Earth. In particular, it seems that a lot of imagery from 1943 has been added to Germany, France and Italy. Some of the specific cites found with updates so far include: Germany: Hamburg, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Freiburg, Koblenz Dortmund, Lübeck, Kiel, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Frankfurt/Main, Bonn, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bamberg, Regensburg, Göttingen, Kehl, Magdeburg, Dessau, Leipzig, Dresden and more of Berlin. France: Strasbourg, Bordeaux and Lyon. Italy: Torino, Florence, Naples,…
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    Networlddirectory.com: Geography

  • Diamond Weather Station

    9 Feb 2010 | 6:14 am
    So, it"s officially winter and, therefore, as important as ever to keep a close eye on the forecast. Now you can do it with .........

  • Black Carbon a Significant Factor in Melting of Himalayan Glaciers

    9 Feb 2010 | 6:14 am
    The fact that glaciers in the Himalayan mountains are thinning is not disputed. However, few scientists have attempted to rigorously examine and quantify the causes. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Surabi Menon set out to isolate the impacts of the most usually blamed culprit-greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide-from other particles in the air that appears to be causing the melting. Menon and her collaborators observed that airborne black carbon aerosols, or soot, from India is a major contributor to the decline in snow and ice cover on the glaciers........

  • Low concentrations of oxygen and nutrients

    9 Feb 2010 | 6:14 am
    The combination of low concentrations of oxygen and nutrients in the lower layers of the beaches of Alaska's Prince William Sound is slowing the aerobic biodegradation of oil remaining from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, as per scientists at Temple University. Considered one of the worst environmental disasters in history, the Exxon Valdez spilled more than 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, contaminating some 1,300 miles of shoreline, killing thousands of wildlife and severely impacting Alaska's fishing industry and economy........

  • In the battle against global warming

    9 Feb 2010 | 6:14 am
    Researchers in Texas are reporting that a technique used in the search for new drugs could also be used in the quest to discover new, environmentally friendly materials for fighting global warming. Such materials could be used to capture the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from industrial smokestacks and other fixed sources before it enters the biosphere. The newly released study appears in ACS' bi-monthly journal Energy and Fuels.......

  • Will earlier springs throw nature out of step?

    9 Feb 2010 | 6:14 am
    The recent trend towards earlier UK springs and summers has been accelerating, as per a research studypublished recently (9 February 2010) in the scientific journal Global Change Biology The collaborative study, involving researchers from 12 UK research institutions, universities and conservation organisations, is the most comprehensive and rigorous evaluation so far of long-term changes in the seasonal timing (phenology) of biological events across marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments in the UK........
 
 
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    GIS Education Community Blog

  • Career & Technical Education Month: GIS and Public Safety

    tbaker
    9 Feb 2010 | 4:05 am
    The Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) has proclaimed February as Career & Technical Education Month. The association and its constituents are dedicated to developing an educated, prepared, adaptable, and competitive workforce in a rich blend of workforce pathways best represented by the Career Clusters Framework. Laced inside these individual clusters are geographical thinking, GIS, and geospatial technology and their application in the everyday world. Over the next few weeks, we’ll highlight some of these career cluster and geotechnology intersections. Generally,…

  • Fun with GIS #37: Weather and Geography Education

    tbaker
    8 Feb 2010 | 4:09 am
    I was in northern Virginia for a storm this past weekend described by local and national weather-casters as "epic," "Snow-pocalypse," or "Snowmageddon." As a native Minnesotan, I knew the steps necessary to prepare myself. As a geographer, I was delighted to see the degree to which maps were a part of the public awareness campaign. Everyone, from the educators I was working with to politicians to "regular citizens," was paying heed to the maps, in anticipation of snowfall amounts exceeding 24 inches in the Washington DC area. Everyone referenced the maps in discussing the preparation…

  • Web GIS: Then and Now

    rburright
    5 Feb 2010 | 4:00 am
    This new decade seems a fitting time to reflect upon the past and anticipate the future. Few other things in GIS have changed as much over the past decade than Web GIS. During the first year in which I used the World Wide Web (1993), one of the things that most captured my attention was the Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center’s (PARC) Map Viewer. It retrieved interactive information on the Web, rather than simply providing access to static files. I remember what a marvel it was to zoom, select layers, and even change the map projections all through a web browser, displayed on my…

  • Exploring Demographics with “Make A Map” from Mapping for Everyone

    tbaker
    3 Feb 2010 | 7:19 am
    The Kansas City metropolitan area is considered to be the “Heart of America”, the city of fountains, bar-b-que, and boulevards! With a population of over two million people, this “Paris of the Plains” crosses the state line, extending nearly 8,000 square miles in Kansas and Missouri. Who are the people of Kansas City, you ask? Using the new “Make A Map” tool, in just a few seconds we can discover valuable demographic data – even compare to other metropolitan areas. The data layers include: population density, population change, median household income, median home value,…

  • Where’s Ann Johnson?

    tbaker
    2 Feb 2010 | 9:10 am
    After 13 years, ESRI Higher Education Program Manager, Ann Johnson, is hanging up her ESRI spurs for a life of…well…ongoing GIS education promotion and development in higher education. Yes, there is no stopping her from following her passion. While Ann will continue to be based from her home in the wilds of Nevada, she will spend a significant portion of her new found “free-time” supporting the ongoing activities of the national GeoTech Center Program headquartered in Corpus Christi, TX. She will be active elsewhere too and promises to keep us informed of her whereabouts via periodic…
 
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    GIS Lounge

  • James Fee | Profiles from the Geospatial Community

    Caitlin Dempsey
    8 Feb 2010 | 5:00 am
    James Fee is well known for his popular blog that has an active participation by the geospatial community.  The James Fee GIS Blog is a place to find posts that trigger discussions about many aspects of geospatial technology.  Judging by the volume of comments, Mr. Fee often has his finger on the pulse of topics [...]

  • CompStat Under Question

    Caitlin Dempsey
    7 Feb 2010 | 10:24 am
    A survey of more than a hundred retired police officials has raised some questions about the accuracy of crime reporting in New York: “The retired members of the force reported that they were aware over the years of instances of “ethically inappropriate” changes to complaints of crimes in the seven categories measured by the department’s [...]

  • GeoBriefs: Google Maps dispute, Apple bans located-based ads in app, OSM in the news

    Caitlin Dempsey
    5 Feb 2010 | 11:20 am
    Another geopolitical dispute has popped up over Google Maps over the disputed border between Cambodia and Thailand.  Svay Sitha, secretary of state of the Cambodia’s Council of Ministers, wrote a letter (the article doesn’t mention to whom) in which he states, “(The map) is devoid of truth and reality, and professionally irresponsible, if not pretentious.” ReadWriteWeb [...]

  • Become Location Enabled at Where 2.0

    Caitlin Dempsey
    2 Feb 2010 | 12:48 pm
    Where 2.0 is one of the world’s foremost events dedicated to exploring the emerging technologies in the geospatial industry. At Where 2.0, we expose the tools pushing the boundaries of the location frontier, track the emergence of new business models and services, and examine new sources of data and the platforms for collecting them. Happening March [...]

  • Looking for Information About Cartophilia

    Caitlin Dempsey
    1 Feb 2010 | 6:07 pm
    Hi, my name’s Ken Jennings.  I’m an author working on a book, to be published next year by Scriber’s, about map and geography enthusiasts of all kinds.  (I’m also the guy who was on the TV quiz show ”Jeopardy” for much of 2004, if that rings a bell.) Here’s my question: The books on cartography I read all tend to use [...]
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    GISuser

  • PenBay Solutions Announces New In-Vision OnePass Data Collection Capabilities for In-Building GIS

    9 Feb 2010 | 7:44 am
    glenn PenBay Solutions Announces New In-Vision OnePass Data Collection Capabilities for In-Building GIS - http://www.gisuser.com/content... 37 minutes ago from GISuser - GIS and Geospatial... - Comment - Like PenBay Solutions Announces New In-VisionT OnePass Data Collection Capabilities for In-Building Geographic Information Systems - glenn

  • SuperGeo Integrates GPS and GIS Learning into Treasure Hunting Game

    9 Feb 2010 | 7:44 am
    glenn SuperGeo Integrates GPS and GIS Learning into Treasure Hunting Game - http://www.gisuser.com/content... 37 minutes ago from GISuser - GIS and Geospatial... - Comment - Like SuperGeo Technologies, the leading global provider of complete GIS software and solutions, develops an interesting application that integrates geographic information... - glenn

  • New web-map builder for OS OpenSpace

    9 Feb 2010 | 7:44 am
    glenn New web-map builder for OS OpenSpace - http://www.gisuser.com/content... 37 minutes ago from GISuser - GIS and Geospatial... - Comment - Like An easy to use tool has been introduced for Ordnance Survey's online mapping API, OS OpenSpace, making it easy to... - glenn

  • WMS Spotlight - Vancouver 2010 Olympics Olympic Torch Relay Map

    8 Feb 2010 | 3:48 pm
    glenn WMS Spotlight - Vancouver 2010 Olympics Olympic Torch Relay Map - http://www.gisuser.com/content... 17 hours ago from GISuser - GIS and Geospatial... - Comment - Like A fine, interactive map from the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Committee via http://www.vancouver2010.com - glenn

  • OutFront - the ultimate GPS tracking iPhone app for sports enthusiasts

    8 Feb 2010 | 11:16 am
    glenn OutFront - the ultimate GPS tracking iPhone app for sports enthusiasts - http://www.gisuser.com/content... 21 hours ago from GISuser - GIS and Geospatial... - Comment - Like Map My Tracks, the outdoor social network for sports and fitness enthusiasts, has launched OutFront, a comprehensive multi-sport iPhone app... - glenn
 
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    James Fee GIS Blog

  • The ESRI Developer Summit and the .NET SIG

    James Fee
    8 Feb 2010 | 7:51 am
    Play this below to set the mood: That Was Then Way back in 2005, at the ESRI International User Conference, there was a .NET SIG that essentially started something great. In that room there were some great folks (Scott Morehouse, Art Haddad, Brian Golden, Rob Elkins, Jithen Singh, Brian Flood, Dave Bouwman, and others) who talked about where we should take the developer community at ESRI. In my opinion the biggest thing to come out of that meeting was what became the Developer Summit. I’m sure most ESRI developers feel the same as I do in saying that the DevSummit is probably the…

  • Data.gov Is Already Broken — Just Like Everything Before It

    James Fee
    7 Feb 2010 | 11:08 am
    Like most people (I assume), I was doing a little GIS project SuperBowl morning. Needing some data, the first place I thought of going what the new [Data.gov] site to download some data. After doing a quick and simple search, I got the dataset I wanted ready to download. But as with every government data repository before it, it is broken. Posted datasets download links are many times 404: It just isn’t the download, but the metadata as well. I know, some datasets still work and who knows, maybe this one will again one day. But for [Data.gov] to be valuable it needs to ping the data…

  • Increasing U.S. Census Participation

    James Fee
    4 Feb 2010 | 8:10 am
    One of the biggest issues with the U.S. Census and probably the one that wastes the most money is trying to count those who are hard to count. My personal fix would be to use sampling to solve the problem, but for now the task of the Census takers is to try and count everyone. My attention was brought to a project called “Census Hard to Count 2010” which maps the “hard to count” population nationwide (based on the Census Bureau’s analysis) to help local and national organizations target their outreach efforts for the 2010 Census and customize messages to…

  • GDAL/OGR 1.7.0 Released

    James Fee
    30 Jan 2010 | 2:45 pm
    Good news from the gdal-announce email list: The GDAL/OGR Project is pleased to announce the release of GDAL/OGR 1.7.0. Yep, you can stop there and get your GDAL/OGR on.  Or maybe you want to know what is new, copied directly from Frank’s email: New Raster Drivers: BAG, EPSILON, Northwood/VerticalMapper, R, Rasterlite,  SAGA GIS Binary, SRP (USRP/ASRP), EarthWatch .TIL, WKT Raster GDAL PCIDSK driver using the new PCIDSK SDK by default New Vector drivers : DXF, GeoRSS, GTM, PCIDSK and VFK New utilities: gdaldem, gdalbuildvrt now compiled by default Add support for Python 3.X.

  • Rolling Your Mapping Apps on the iPad (or the iPhone)

    James Fee
    27 Jan 2010 | 2:45 pm
    One thing that has become crystal clear is the preferred method of having a mapping application on the iPhone and by extension the new iPad is to create a native iPhone/iPad app.  That said, the noise sometimes causes people to miss some great web mapping app (as native web apps).  I’ve looked into using SVG and even OpenLayers in the past for mapping in the iPhone, but who is rolling their own web apps out there to accomplish what until 2 years ago required a browser on a laptop or desktop?  I know there will most likely be a session at the ESRI DevSummit using OpenLayers, but is…
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    VerySpatial

  • Mapping anime to attract tourists

    Jesse
    8 Feb 2010 | 8:37 pm
    The Japanese National Tourism Organization co-created a map of Hakone, Japan with Gainax, the creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion a wildly popular 1990s anime which is currently undergoing a resurgence. The JNTO and Hakone area are taking advantage of this resurgence to encourage anime fans from around the globe to come for a visit. From the AnimeNewsNetwork article, JNTO notes there is great interest in the US alone with significant attendance numbers at anime conventions…Anime Expo in Los Angeles (40,000 attendees), New York Anime Festival in New York (21,000), and Otakon in Baltimore…

  • A VerySpatial Podcast – Episode 238

    Sue
    7 Feb 2010 | 3:00 pm
    A VerySpatial Podcast Shownotes – Episode 238 February 7, 2010 Main Topic: Our conversation with Chris Holmes and Paul Ramsey of OpenGeo Click to directly download MP3 Click to directly download AAC Click for the detailed shownotes Music This week’s podsafe music: “Quicksand” by Anthony Rankin News ESA student competition EEA wants your help in keeping an eye on the Earth Infoterra launches Skapes – 3D City Mapping Service Software –OS OpenSpace Web Map Builder –PostGIS 1.5.0 –Accela 7.0 Sponsored by ITT Visual Information Solutions and their…

  • Enduring voices

    Jesse
    6 Feb 2010 | 7:15 pm
    Sue came across another great National Geographic project for this week’s web corner called Enduring Voices. The project seeks to document those languages that are disappearing through disuse or death of a culture. They estimate that we lose a language about every 14 days! From the project website: Under the National Geographic Society’s Enduring Voices Project, the team will journey to meet with last speakers, listen to their stories, and document their languages with film, pictures, and audio to help communities preserve their knowledge of species, landscapes, and traditions…

  • Where 2.0 early registration

    Jesse
    5 Feb 2010 | 4:22 pm
    A quick reminder that if you are planning a trip to San Jose for the Where 2.0 conference, you only have until Tuesday, 9 April, for early registration prices. Take advantage of not only the early registration discount, but also our 20% discount using the discount code ‘whr10vsp’. If you are in education or non-profit you can save even more (up to an additional 65% for students) using codes on the Where 2.0 registration page. All of these discounts will still work after Feb 9th, but you won’t get the early bird discount. For those of you who will be at Where 2.0 Sue and I…

  • US Census 2010 Road Tour – Pembroke, NC

    Sue
    3 Feb 2010 | 1:47 pm
    Since we’ve been giving a lot of attention to the upcoming Census 2010, I had to head over to Pembroke, NC this afternoon for Robeson County’s only stop on the Census Road Tour. The travelling setup features one of the Census 2010 vans and they set up a little booth with information and swag, and are there to promote the importance of participating in the census and to answer questions. Robeson County is a very rural county that has limited resources, so it is definitely one of the areas that could really benefit from an accurate count. The Census is really pulling out the stops…
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    GIS Stuff

  • ESRI Tools & Resources for Haiti (& other) Response Efforts

    @SDBBQ
    21 Jan 2010 | 5:03 pm
    Updated: Jan 21, 2010: TwitterSearch Flex viewer Widget: http://resources.esri.com/arcgisserver/apis/flex/index.cfm?fa=codeGalleryDetails&scriptID=16782  The idea for this widget came about at the Random Hacks of Kindness event in CA back in Nov 2009. The BarCamp discussions had a lot of talk about crowd-sourced information, especially... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • This One’s a 10

    @SDBBQ
    11 Jan 2010 | 8:43 pm
    ESRI made an announcement late today, and word has spread fast. 9.4 has been renamed to be version 10. Here is the official announcement as a podcast from Jack, where he describes why this decision was made and he discusses some of the features included in 10 and why it justified a full version number.... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Bye Bye Geography Network

    @SDBBQ
    9 Dec 2009 | 5:10 pm
    After a nine-year run, the Geography Network will be closing up shop at the end of 2009. With so much data on ArcGIS Online with multiple ways to access it and so many other web services available, ESRI has decided the time has come to shut it down. Here’s the blog post about it:... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • DEPRECATION PLAN FOR ARCGIS 9.3.1 AND ARCGIS 9.4

    @SDBBQ
    20 Aug 2009 | 10:48 pm
    It is time to start thinking about your back-end systems and development environments and OS’s and… New document just released to the ESRI Support pages that discusses platform changes at the current 9.3.1 release, and the next release – 9.4. It will be interesting to see what parts of the changes at 9.4 get the most interest (Noise? Worry?... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • What’s a GIS Developer To Do @ UC??

    @SDBBQ
    22 May 2009 | 12:21 pm
    Are you a GIS Developer (or hope to be one when you grow up?)? Are you going to be at the User Conference this year? Are you looking at the ginormous UC agenda and getting eye strain? Not sure what to search for in the Online Agenda? Fear no more – your friends at the ArcGIS Developer Blog have done the heavy lifting for you! They... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
 
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    Dave Bouwman

  • Dev Summit Talks: Vote Now!

    Dave Bouwman
    20 Jan 2010 | 9:36 pm
    The Community presentations for the 2010 ESRI Developer Summit are now listed on-line, and are open for voting. Since these presentations are all recorded, you don’t have to be attending the Dev Summit to vote – just setup an account (free) and vote for what you want to see – either live or recorded. This year I’ve submitted two talks, and Brian Noyle and Mike Juniper have thrown one into the mix. First up – Ruby-Fu: Using ArcGIS Server with Rails As noted in my last post, I’m dabbling with Ruby on Rails, and so I thought I’d do a talk about using ArcGIS Server from a Rails…

  • 2010 – A good year for the Dark Arts

    Dave Bouwman
    13 Jan 2010 | 3:47 pm
    Ruby on Rails may not be on a Lovecraftian list of “Dark Arts”, but for someone who’s been developing on the Microsoft platform for the last 10 years, it’s close enough. As anyone who’s read this blog in the last 2 years knows, I’m a pretty big fan of Microsoft ASP.NET MVC – it’s simple, gets out of your way, and gives you total control of the output. And it’s 1000% better than the mystery meat known as Web Forms – a nirvana so to speak. So, why would I take up Ruby on Rails? Why Rails? First, unless you’ve been under a rock for the last 5 years, you’ve likely heard…

  • Zen and the Art of ServerObjectExtensions

    Dave Bouwman
    14 Dec 2009 | 3:53 pm
    I was going to cook up a full SOE example, but that was going to take way more time that I don’t have, so here’s the abridged version – just the major points…   Projects in the Solution SOE’s have a lot of moving parts, so let’s think about all the parts in terms of servers & assemblies. First – the SOE project. We’ll create the actual SOE’s in here. We can have references to all the ArcObjects / ADF goop we want in here, since this will of course be running on the SOC machine. In the “client” application (ASP.NET MVC in my case) we’ll use an interface to…

  • Re-mixing the Flex Sample Viewer

    Dave Bouwman
    18 Nov 2009 | 3:57 pm
    The ESRI Flex Sample Viewer is a great starting point for creating map centric RIA’s. The widgetized nature of the starter kit facilitates significant re-use of components, and there are a couple dozen plug-and-play components available from the Flex Code Gallery. Woot! The downside of this ease of re-use is that we are seeing a new wave of cookie cutter sites out there. It’s great that these sites can the whipped up so quickly, but it’s pretty clear that (for the most part) little or no thought is given to how the user should interact with the site. We see hordes of menus…

  • Usability for Emergency Response Applications

    Dave Bouwman
    17 Nov 2009 | 9:09 pm
    I finally got around to loading a video of my talk on Usability in Emergency Response Applications, given at the ESRI South West User Group (SWUG) meeting. In this talk I give a walk-through of an app we built using the ESRI Javascript API, focusing on design aspects that helped streamline the end-user experience. I also discuss the performance impact of token secured services and SSL. It’s up on Vimeo at http://vimeo.com/7557517 or you can just watch it below… Usability for Emergency Response Applications from Dave Bouwman on Vimeo.
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    Christian Spanring

  • Crowdsourcing bicycle routes

    Christian
    3 Feb 2010 | 6:36 pm
    If I had to think of a solution to start creating a bicycle routing system, I’d do exactly what The San Francisco County Transportation Authority has done: create smart phone apps, gather information where cyclists are riding, data mine those tracks and build route suggestions on top of that knowledge. Bicycle routing is in my opinion far more complex than car routing. Car routing is mostly based on well known and documented rules, also known as road traffic regulations. Mix in estimated traffic figures, average speeds and fuel consumptions and you get pretty decent car directions. For…

  • Re-projecting vectors in JavaScript

    Christian
    1 Feb 2010 | 8:05 pm
    I know, it eventually all boils down to maths. But it still blows my mind that you can re-project geographic features on-the-fly with a few lines of JavaScript in a web browser. How? There is this great library PROJ.4, that does everything you’d ever want in terms of cartographic projections. A few smart people have ported PROJ.4 to JavaScript, called Proj4js then. Proj4js works great in combination with OpenLayers, a popular JavaScript web mapping framework, and allows on-the-fly projections between any spatial reference systems browser applications. <script…

  • Heating up SVG

    Christian
    11 Dec 2009 | 8:45 pm
    Last week I came over Raphaël, a great JavaScript library for vector graphics visualizations, and I started playing around with maps and SVG again. Long time no see! To bring some map content from ArcMap to Raphaël I used the VBA Macro I wrote 4 years ago in ArcMap. It still does the job and gives me clean vector graphics the way I want them. I couldn’t find a decent SVG export option for QGIS, although there are some efforts to improve that kind of functionality. AsSVG, a Python geoprocessing script for ArcGIS is pretty good too. It provides some nice export options, such as pick…

  • What can Towns learn from OpenStreetMap?

    Christian
    6 Dec 2009 | 4:20 pm
    Last week at the Ignite Spatial: Boston event I gave a short talk – 5min, 20 automated slides, 15sec each – about OpenStreetMap and why I think it can be interesting for town administrations to look at the OpenStreetMap model. In a nutshell: OpenStreetMap is successfully based on open crowdsourcing, a horizontal multi-directional work-flow model, to build and maintain the world’s largest free geospatial database. Open crowdsourcing helps to collect local knowledge across your residents, improve local geospatial data, engage residents and provide a 24/7 feedback loop for…

  • Killing public transport

    Christian
    27 Aug 2009 | 6:41 pm
    At the last StreetTalk we watched the very interesting and highly recommended documentary “Taken for a Ride“. It’s the story about GM’s lobbying and initiatives, together with oil and tire companies, to destroy public transport in American cities, use public money for highway construction instead of railways, promote suburbs and urban sprawl, make people car-dependent and eventually push car (tires and gas) sales of course. GM’s strategy, in a nutshell, was to pull public transport into a vicious circle. GM’s funding apparently helped to buy up local…
 
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    Free Geography Tools

  • Today Only: Free Commercial Photo Editing Software With Geotagging Support

    Leszek Pawlowicz
    9 Feb 2010 | 8:17 am
    Today only, the Giveaway of the Day website has Zoner Photo Studio 12 Home available for download and free registration. It’s a pretty full-featured photo editor on its own; see this PDF for a list of features in both the Home and paid Professional versions. Geotagging features include the following: GPS coordinate entry from a track [...] Related posts:GPS/GIS/Google Earth Import/Export With OziExplorer GeoSetter: The Best Free Photo Geotagging App? Updates To Photo GeoTagging Software

  • The Intel Classmate Convertible: A Cheap GeoPad?

    Leszek Pawlowicz
    9 Feb 2010 | 4:22 am
    A few years ago, the One Laptop Per Child initiative (OLPC) created what some consider to be the original netbook concept: a small, light-weight, rugged low-power inexpensive laptop, with a target price of $100. It had its own custom operating system, Sugar, designed to be easy to use for its target audience of young children. [...] Related posts:Choosing A Laptop For A Cheap GeoPad A Cheap “GeoPad” – Putting Together An Affordable Field-Capable GIS/GPS Workstation Intel's "Mash Maker" – Another Mashup Maker, But Different

  • Two OpenStreetMap Data Tools

    Leszek Pawlowicz
    4 Feb 2010 | 4:34 am
    MapOSMatic – Select an area by a bounding box, or by administrative boundaries (database for the latter is currently very limited), and get a map of the area in PNG, PDF, and/or SVG format, with letter/number grid indexing: And also get a street index for that map referenced to the letter/number grid: OSM Extractor: Select an OSM [...] Related posts:Using The Demo Version Of Global Mapper As A Raster/Vector Data Viewer Full Resolution Raster Map Combining, Subsetting And Export With The TatukGIS Viewer Image Overlays In Google Earth

  • US Seasonal Ingredient Map

    Leszek Pawlowicz
    3 Feb 2010 | 5:33 am
    If you’re a locavore (“one who tries to eat only locally grown foods”), you may find Epicurious’s Seasonal Ingredient Map useful. Pick any month, then click on your state, and it shows you a list of currently-available local produce: Mouse over a produce item, and get links to produce definitions, pictures, recipes and cooking tips. Not [...] Related posts:Fast Lookup Of The State Plane Coordinate System ID For Any US County Online Map Of US Thermal Springs Digital Globe Data Quickies

  • GIS Data For US National Parks And Monuments

    Leszek Pawlowicz
    2 Feb 2010 | 5:14 am
    The US National Park Service Data Store site offers access to GIS data for US National Parks And Monuments in a wide variety of subjects and formats, including: Biology Cultural Resources Aerial imagery Roads and trails Noxious/alien plants Soils Land use / cover Plus dozens more …. For geology (a favorite topic of mine), there’s a related NPS Geologic Resources Inventory Publications web page [...] Related posts:Urban & Environmental Modeler's Datakit Mexican National Atlas Free Map Symbols
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    BostonGISBlog

  • PostGIS 1.5.0 out, PLR on Windows, and PostGIS In Action book site launched

    6 Feb 2010 | 2:40 pm
    Its been a while since we've blogged on BostonGIS. We've been very busy as you can imagine. Couple of quick updates: PostGIS 1.5.0 is finally out We are working on packaging the PostGIS Windows binaries and builds, which we hope to have ready sometime late next week. More details at PostgreSQL PostGIS and PL/R news PL/R now works with PostgreSQL 8.3/8.4 windows builds. Get the binaries here and instructions at the new and crisp PL/R Wiki . We've launched our PostGIS in Action booksite. We are down to the 3-2-1 count down of PostGIS in action chapters. Here you can find details about what is…

  • Essential PostgreSQL and new in PostGIS

    20 Sep 2009 | 8:05 pm
    Essential PostgreSQL Refcard is out We've been working on writing our book on PostGIS PostGIS in Action. We have also been working on an Essential PostgreSQL DZone RefCardz to both provide free publicity for our upcoming book and also to hopefully serve a greater good to the PostgreSQL community. We are pleased to announce that the RefCard is finally done and out on the street. We still have a ways to go with the book (slaving on chapter 8), but we hope the RefCard will be a nice companion to our book. The RefCardz is available for free download at Essential PostgreSQL…

  • SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP

    15 Aug 2009 | 6:30 am
    One of the interesting things to come out this week is the SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP One of the enhancements we are really looking forward to and interested in experimenting with is the Report Builder 3.0/Reporting Services support for Geospatial data. We hope to try out the SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP 1 in the next 2 or so weeks to test drive these features and maybe provide some reporting tutorials on BostonGIS. One thing I am interested in seeing is whether the geospatial support can be leveraged for other spatial databases besides SQL Server. One thing I have to say is nice about the SQL Server…

  • Busy month for PostGIS

    3 Aug 2009 | 3:32 pm
    This has proved to be a busy past two weeks for PostGIS. Couple of happenings. Presentations Galore UPDATE: PgDay San Jose 2009 This was right before OSCON 2009 and sadly we missed it. Brian Hamlin gave intro talk on PostGIS and OSGEO in general and they have videos. What works with Postgres The Open Geo Data Interoperabilty Overview. Videos can be downloaded from http://media.postgresql.org/pgday-sjc-09/ OSCON 2009 in San Jose there were 2 PostGIS talks. At least two we are aware of. We gave one on PostGIS spatial tips and tricks show-casing some of the nifty features in PostGIS 1.4 and…

  • Row Constructors in SQL Server 2008 and PostgreSQL - PostGIS and centroids

    24 May 2009 | 8:46 am
    One thing we are really fond of are the ANSI SQL Standard Row Constructors. PostgreSQL has supported this feature since 8.2 I believe and SQL Server 2008 supports it too, but prior SQL Server's do not. MySQL has supported for as far back as I can remember. Any rate we thought what a fun way to play around with row constructors in SQL Server 2008 than to write queries we would write in PostGIS in SQL Server 2008. The results were a bit surprising when testing out Centroid. The STPointOnSurface I can accept as okay since I think the point is only guaranteed to be on the surface and when you…
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    GIS in Education

  • Webinar - IDL Advanced Math and Stats Module

    talk
    6 Feb 2010 | 11:59 am
    Join this one hour live web seminar for a high-level overview of the IDL Advanced Math and Stats Module. This IDL Module integrates the comprehensive mathematical and statistical routines of the IMSL C Numerical Library, with the advanced data visualization and analysis capabilities of IDL. In this webinar, you will learn how to quickly and easily add more mathematical and statistical capabilities to your IDL applications.Topics covered will include: • Basic Statistics • ANOVA • Regression • Random Numbers • Differential Equations • QuadratureThis web seminar is open to all and…

  • DMCii welcomes UK-Indonesia climate change partnership

    talk
    4 Feb 2010 | 12:36 pm
    British satellite imaging company DMCii welcomes International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander’s announcement that the UK has joined forces with the Indonesian government to tackle deforestation and prepare Indonesians for the impacts of climate change.Managing Director Dave Hodgson commented, “We are in the unique position of having tried and tested systems in place to measure deforestation in Indonesia, and have seen first-hand the wide scale damage that forest clearing and peat fires produce. We welcome the government’s commitment to supporting Indonesia to jointly tackle…

  • URISA GIS Hall of Fame - Nominations Sought

    talk
    3 Feb 2010 | 9:21 am
    URISA is seeking nominations for it's GIS Hall of Fame which recognizes and honors the best in GIS. Introduced in 2005, the URISA GIS Hall of Fame documents the contributions made by key individuals. URISA welcomes nominations from any profession and is not restricted to those having a past or current relationship with URISA. This award is not given every year, and in some years there may be multiple recipients.The selection criteria for this honor are: * At least 25 years of sustained professional involvement in the GIS field. * Original and creative contributions to the field. * Well known…

  • GIS Fundamentals and Advanced Concepts at PUG 2010

    talk
    3 Feb 2010 | 9:19 am
    Petroleum and pipeline professionals using geographic information system (GIS) technology will gather for the 2010 ESRI Petroleum User Group (PUG) Conference February 22–24 at the Houston Marriott Westchase in Texas. The PUG Conference is the best place for oil and gas GIS users to find everything they need to fully leverage the technology in their business, staying up-to-date on capabilities and training, and return to work able to teach their colleagues and advance their GIS projects."It's the combination of technical workflow-oriented content and the opportunity to interact with your…

  • Taiwan to launch FORMOSAT-5 satellite in 2013

    talk
    3 Feb 2010 | 9:16 am
    Taiwan's National Space Organization (NSPO) says it is planning to launch the satellite FORMOSAT-5 in 2013.The satellite will carry a high-resolution optical remote sensing instrument for earth sensing and earth observation. The instrument was designed, manufactured and packaged in Taiwan.FORMOSAT-5 is Taiwan's first remote sensing program. The project is part of Taiwan's plan to further improve its space technology.
 
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    GIS @ Vassar

  • Weighing In: Like Everyone Else, I've Got Something to Say About the iPad

    Meg
    5 Feb 2010 | 10:56 am
    The big news this past week was Steve Jobs' throwing the coverlet off of Apple's long-awaited iPad. Though it has long been rumored that Apple would make a tablet PC, none had materialized. The wait continues. Touted as a 'tablet PC,' the iPad is not that. The fever surrounding the launch of the yet-unnamed-Apple-tablet was incredible. Then once it hit the streets, everyone and her auntie had gushy words for it. On Twitter, #iPad was number one with a bullet all week, even in the face of people still buried under rubble in Haiti and the President giving his first State of the Union address.

  • Google Earth Workshops Given in St. Vincent and the Grenadines

    Meg
    19 Jan 2010 | 7:15 am
    While traveling to St. Vincent, Grenada and Union Island this past November, I took some video of our workshops and the intervening travel between workshops. Kim Baldwin, PhD student at CERMES, and I were there to talk about her MarSIS marine mapping project and show how to view the geodata in Google Earth. I only just now was able to get to finishing up editing the video from our trip. I blogged about the workshops on my other blog, if you're more of a reader than a viewer of video.

  • Geo-Geek Shirts & Stickers..For Gifts!

    Meg
    29 Nov 2009 | 4:25 pm
    I don't usually promote clothing in this space but this site, Geo-Tee, crossed my desk and I thought they have some cool GISy offerings just in time for the holidays. They've got T-shirts and stickers for the GIS-inclined. Here's what they've got to say about themselves:We supply apparel for the seasoned old-school GIS’r that was doing GIS with punch cards, to the newbie who just figured out the difference between a datum and a projection. And frankly, the shirt above, Will Map for Food, may be one I'll need to order in the near future!

  • Mapping Grenadines MarSIS with Google Earth

    Meg
    24 Nov 2009 | 6:30 am
    I haven't written in awhile nor kept this blog updated on my project work. I've been busily working away at CERMES on a decent first draft of of the Grenadines MarSIS Google Earth file that I discussed previously on my other blog. Though I have a post that says I got the geodata back on September, I really got the final, final data about two weeks before a workshop trip, launching the file that I'm going to explain in this post.I went with MarSIS project leader and GIS data collector, Kim Baldwin, on a presentation tour to three public workshops the week of Nov 9 to 13, 2009, and you can read…

  • Mapping Africa

    Meg
    21 Oct 2009 | 6:33 am
    We're always looking for geospatial data to teach with. Finding data for the U.S. is relatively easy, but finding data for other places has often been more challenging. AfricaMap is a web mapping interface created by Harvard University's Center for Geographic Analysis that can be used stand-alone in a classroom because there is a rich set of data available for viewing. The layers that I looked at, some shown below, drew quickly and came with a legend(!). Very nice accomplishment for CGA after being in operation just under three years. Here is a description of the AfricaMap project:"AfricaMap…
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    GIS Programming

  • Second Anniversary!!!!

    iamlaksh1
    24 Jan 2010 | 8:39 pm
    Dear Readers, This is my first post in this new year. Yet another milestone has been achived, yes my blog has entered into successful third year.  Thanks for all your support and encouragement.   GIS prog  has crossed more than a lakh hits.  In first year it was nearly 48,000+ hits and second year it was more 50k [...]

  • Happy New Year – 2010

    iamlaksh1
    30 Dec 2009 | 10:41 am
    Hi Folks, I wish all of you  and your families a  Happy New year and good times ahead. Cheers, Lakshmanan

  • GIS Opening in Bangalore

    iamlaksh1
    16 Dec 2009 | 5:32 am
    Folks, One of the India top most MNC looking for GIS Professionals.  Please find below details Experience : More than 3 years in GIS Application Development Technology Stack: ESRI ArcGIS Products, especially ArcGIS Server Application development experience is MUST Microsoft .NET Technologies (C#/VB.NET),  ASP.NET and others Oracle or SQL Server database Experience in Oil and Gas Industry domain will be an added advantage. Experience in [...]

  • 100,000 Hits

    iamlaksh1
    11 Dec 2009 | 8:23 pm
    Folks 100,000 hits today!!!!!! Vow!!!!…I’m extremely happy at this moment. My blog has just crossing 100,000 hits in less than 2 years. This is being really wonderful journey throughout from day one. I never imagined that I would write this much when I was started. Really proud and happy this moment. The magical number 100,000 is really [...]

  • Changing my coordinates

    iamlaksh1
    11 Dec 2009 | 8:10 pm
    Dear all, Yes.  I’m relocating to new place.  It may take some time to settle in new city. Hence you can expect delay in my response to your comments/email.  From my previous  relocation I have worked on several small-medium sized project entirely in ESRI Flex API. Now am moving to the new  project which has designed [...]
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    GIS and Agent-Based Modelling

  • Slime Mold and rail links in Japan

    29 Jan 2010 | 7:32 am
    Maybe a bit off topic but recently in the NY Times there was an interesting article that highlighted researchers in Japan have used slime mold (single-celled amoeboid organism) to grow networks which show high correspondence to the rail network in the area. around Tokyo. They did this by placing 36 bits of food in a pattern corresponding to cities in the Tokyo area and letting the slime mold grow from a spot corresponding to Tokyo.The abstract for those interested in Science is:"Transport networks are ubiquitous in both social and biological systems. Robust network performance involves a…

  • Ph.D Program in Computational Social Sciences

    14 Jan 2010 | 6:15 am
    This might be of interest to some readers of the blog. Its a Ph.D program offered by the Department of Computational Social Science at George Mason University.George Mason University - Ph.D Program in Computational Social SciencesThe core objective of the Ph.D. program in Computational Social Science is to train graduate students to be professional computational social scientists in academia, government or business. Our program offers students a unique and innovative interdisciplinary academic environment for systematically exploring, discovering, and developing their skills to successfully…

  • Dynamic Modeling in a GIS Environment Seminars Online

    6 Jan 2010 | 10:11 am
    Just a quick post to highlight that the presentations from the "Dynamic Modeling in a GIS Environment" Virtual Seminars from the Global GIS Academy are now availble online. For those interested in GIS and various aspects of modelling these seminars give a glimpse into some current research.Also if you like to look at online seminars the 2008 Autumn seminar series on Neogeography is also available.

  • modelling4All update

    4 Jan 2010 | 10:23 am
    I been following the progress of modelling4All for a while now and thought it worth highlighting again (click here to see an earlier post), especially after a post on the modelling4All blog noting some improvements.The aim of modelling4All is to reduce the difficulty and effort needed to make agent-based models therefore enabling non-programmers to collaboratively build and analyze computer models. modelling4All allows one to create agent-based models over the web, models are constructed by composing and parametizing model fragments (bits of code) as shown in the movie below.The model…

  • Oxford Circus pedestrian crossing opens

    2 Dec 2009 | 7:58 am
    Apologies for the lack of posts in recent weeks but I been busy finishing up my course about Agent-based Modeling of Urban Systems at Department of Computational Social Science at George Mason University, along with writing a few new papers.One thing I have been meaning to blog about for a while is the opening of the Oxford Circus pedestrian crossing. Actually the crossing opened on the 2 November 2009 but its still worth blogging about. A previous post (click here) shows what the planners had in mind (Click here to read the BBC's coverage of the event).The two movies below show what the…
 
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    What is special about Geospatial?

  • Google Maps with Multi-touch available in the Market

    joesonic
    5 Feb 2010 | 10:12 am
    Recently the new version of Google Maps show up in the Android Market and asks for an update. The current version is called 3.4 and includes Multi-touch as amazing new feature for Map navigation. Now it is really convenient to browse the map using following functions and gestures: double tap to zoom in +/- buttons for zoom [...]

  • Startup: Askaro – Why not to ask your neighbourhood for local events

    joesonic
    25 Jan 2010 | 11:41 pm
    Recently there were some news about Eduardo Manchón, the co-founder of Panoramio, leaving Google and the Panoramio team. After four and a half year he wants to address to his new task at Askaro. He stated in this blog post at Panaramio: Panoramio is the coolest thing I have ever done. I went through the greatest [...]

  • Maybe the best Android 2.0/2.1 custom ROM for HTC Magic

    joesonic
    24 Jan 2010 | 12:39 pm
    Update (05.02.2010): Now called OpenEclair (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=624545) Update (26.01.2010): Version 1.3.3 is out now (no wipe required for update). Watch this video to see ctso’s Intension ROM in action: This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video. What is the best Android 2.0 or 2.1 custom ROM for a [...]

  • How to make some extra money with WebGIS development?

    joesonic
    22 Jan 2010 | 11:31 am
    Update (06.02.2010): Motivational Video by ESRI, if you don’t know what a mashup or a mapping mashup is or how you can create one. Important is that your mashup has to tell a story: This video was embedded using the YouTuber plugin by Roy Tanck. Adobe Flash Player is required to view the video. The anwser to this [...]

  • ArcGIS 9.4 transformed to ArcGIS X (10) – What is ESRI secret?

    joesonic
    17 Jan 2010 | 3:30 pm
    Recently ESRI (Jack Dangermond) announced to change the name for the next release from 9.4 to 10.0. In my opinion there has to be more than already promoted features for this release there have to be another joker which is not announced yet. What do you think? What will be the next big thing in [...]
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    GeoMusings

  • SpatiaLite Provider Now In SharpMap Repository

    Bill Dollins
    1 Feb 2010 | 4:04 am
    I got a surprise e-mail from Felix today letting me know that the SpatiaLite provider I posted some time ago, along with Kev’s great spatial index work, has been included in the SharpMap repository. If you’re looking for one place to pick them up, now you’ve got it. If you haven’t checked out SharpMap or SpatiaLite, [...]

  • gvSIG Extensions Available

    Bill Dollins
    21 Jan 2010 | 6:52 am
    My inbox has been busy this week with announcements from gvSIG. New builds of the network extension and the 3D extension have been released. New features of the network extension are described as: “- Create and define network topology (using velocities, or sense of direction, modified costs, barriers, turn costs …) - Calculate shortest path - Travelling Salesman Problem [...]

  • QGIS 1.4.0 Released

    Bill Dollins
    16 Jan 2010 | 6:50 am
    QGIS 1.4.0 has been released. As Terry mentioned on Twitter, that news seemed to get lost amongst the discussion of the GeoDesign Summit and the rebranding of ArcGIS 9.4 to 10.0. I have made use of QGIS in the past and have been perusing 1.4.0 lately. I must state that I am not an analyst [...]

  • First Thoughts on ArcGIS 10.0

    Bill Dollins
    13 Jan 2010 | 3:12 am
    The announcement that ArcGIS 9.4 is being re-christened as 10.0 leaves me feeling somewhat bemused. I have seen the new version of Desktop and it is nice and will finally update the current Office-97-feeling UI. The list of changes coming in 10.0 (published so far) is impressive but I haven’t seen any discussion of the [...]

  • Foursquare – Teetering On the Edge of YASN

    Bill Dollins
    30 Dec 2009 | 8:33 am
    I read with interest this article that was brought to my attention by @gis_Todd on Twitter. I have been playing with Foursquare for a few weeks now and I think this article is in sync with some observations I have had about it but also misses the mark on one key point. I am one of [...]
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    Strange Maps

  • 433 – Secret Caves of the Lizard People

    strangemaps
    8 Feb 2010 | 4:37 am
    This map is an essential ingredient of a story that has ‘Indiana Jones’ written all over it: secret caves, a lost civilisation and above all, a treasure trove of gold in unimaginable quantities. And all this in the ground below the present-day metropolis of Los Angeles. Below are two extracts from the LA Times of 29 January 1934, in the first of which reporter Jean Bosquet details the incredible story of G. Warren Shufelt, a mining engineer, who had been told of the underground city and its treasures by a wise old Indian, had consequently located it via ‘radio X-ray’…

  • 442 – Distilled Geography: Europe’s Alcohol Belts

    strangemaps
    30 Jan 2010 | 5:17 am
    It matters where we are, for it helps determine who we are. Or, as the quote often attributed to Napoleon states: Geography is destiny. That destiny extends to drink, as demonstrated by this map. Where we are determines to a statistically significant degree what kind of alcohol we prefer. Or is it the other way around: the kind of alcohol preferred is determined by the place where it is produced? This map shows Europe dominated by three so-called ‘alcohol belts’, the northernmost one for distilled spirits, a middle one for beer and the southernmost one for wine. Each one’s…

  • 441 – Sense of POPOS: Secret Spaces of San Francisco

    strangemaps
    27 Jan 2010 | 6:11 pm
    Scattered across the centre of San Francisco are almost seventy semi-secret spaces, privately owned but open to the public. Subject to the fine print of a little-known pact between City and Commerce, these so-called POPOS (Privately Owned Public Open Spaces) allow alluring vistas of San Francisco and access to its intimate interiors. However, they are often poorly indicated – perhaps a deliberate tactic by the private companies who own the spaces to prevent the pesky public from using them. Accessing POPOS sometimes even requires walking past security guards, or through unmarked…

  • 440 – Dissuasive Cartography: the Emerald Desert

    strangemaps
    24 Jan 2010 | 5:07 pm
    With an army numbering a mere 7,000 soldiers and an official policy of neutrality, the Irish Free State’s attitude at the outbreak of the Second World War was that of a very nervous bystander. While covertly providing the Brits with some intelligence and assistance, the overt goal throughout what was called the Emergency was to remain non-involved enough to prevent both a British and a German invasion. If it could, the Emerald Isle would have taken on, chameleon-like, the colour of the surrounding ocean waves. This map shows the next best thing: dissuasive cartography. Its actual title…

  • 439 – Australia is BIG!

    strangemaps
    16 Jan 2010 | 4:17 pm
    We could rattle off some statistics, about size and distance. But sometimes a picture is more eloquent than a thousand words. Here are two postcard maps. That’s two thousand words right there. Many thanks to Anna Chlebinska, a collector of cartographic postcards, for sending in these beauts.
 
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    mapdango

  • Would You Use Google Wave to Foster Discussion of News?

    Andres
    19 Jan 2010 | 11:06 am
    Journalism 2.0 has a new guest post by Hilary Fosdal entitled “Using a public Wave to engage a news audience.” The post highlights how the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication is using Google Wave to connect with readers by creating a new public wave to discuss a different news item each day. In essence, the Chicago Tribune has found a valuable way to foster discussion of news items in real-time with a targeted audience. The RedEye’s public waves have a regular schedule (10:30 a.m. CST) and they have a thirty minute duration. However, the public waves don’t exist…

  • Five Easy Ways to Search for Interesting Public Waves

    Andres
    30 Dec 2009 | 5:43 pm
    If you’ve been using Google Wave for a while, then you likely already know about public waves. These waves are viewable by anyone, and most people know that they can find public waves by entering the following terms into the search box at the top of the inbox pane: with:public [keywords] The search above essentially gives you the “river” of public waves, and it displays a bunch of different types of waves. Searching by keywords is nice, but to truly leverage the search capabilities of Google Wave, you need to use some additional operators and expressions.  Below are some…

  • Google Wave at Work and at Play

    Andres
    29 Dec 2009 | 8:22 pm
    So a few examples of collaboration in Google Wave caught my attention today. The first example is the use of Google Wave to collaborate on the development of a beer recipe for a home brew project. Some enterprising brewers alternated between Google Wave and Twitter to put together the xBrew project, in which home brewers across the country will brew same beer on the same day. An interesting project (and niche), and a good example of how Google Wave has appeal to a broad set of users. The second example is based on the evolution of an experimental wave by an independent filmmaker in North…

  • Google Wave and the Topic of Open

    Andres
    22 Dec 2009 | 11:51 am
    Jonathan Rosenberg, Google’s SVP for Product Management recently posted some thoughts about the “meaning of open” in the context of Google’s efforts. I won’t dissect all of the points that Jonathan has made, although I encourage you to review his post to get a better idea of how Google approaches open technology and open information. However, I do think it’s worthwhile to informally review a few salient points relevant to Google Wave, which itself is a relatively open platform. Jonathan argues that open systems win. That is to say, open systems are mutually…

  • Global Youth Panel Uses Google Wave to Debate Climate Change and Copenhagen Conference

    Andres
    17 Dec 2009 | 4:19 pm
    In Google Wave: Up and Running I include a sample use case for using Google Wave to hold a virtual international conference. The idea behind the use case is that Google Wave is quite suitable for multi-national communication and collaboration that can occur in both real-time and delayed time. Adam Vaughan at The Guardian (UK) has a real life story that highlights this point. In “Young people negotiate Copenhagen deal using Google Wave” we can see how over 1,000 people from 140 countries have been using Google Wave to discuss, debate, and collaborate on issues related to the UN…
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    Mapping Center

  • Bar chart legends

    abuckley
    8 Feb 2010 | 1:00 am
    We recently received this question on Ask a Cartographer: "I am using a bar chart with 2 data fields to display data on my map. In the legend, I have my 2 data fields displayed, and there is a random number (not sure if it is a mean or median of one of my data columns) which is also displayed in the legend, and I cannot remove it. I'd like to remove this random number from the legend. Can anyone help?" In this blog post, we'll go into a little more detail about charts and their legends since this seems to be a question that has been raised before…

  • Simultaneously displaying hillshades of multiple resolutions and extents

    makella
    4 Feb 2010 | 5:00 pm
    I have been working on an online, multi-scale map of Yosemite National Park. This map will be incorporated into the World Topographic Map at map scales of approximately 1:9,000, 1:4,500, 1:2,000, and 1:1,000. From Yosemite National Park, we received elevation data at two grid cell resolutions: ten meter data for the entire park and 1 meter LiDAR data for seven or eight smaller areas within the park. Figure 1 shows examples of these two data sets. The hillshade symbolized with the black to white color ramp was generated using the 10 meter DEM data, and the smaller extent symbolized with red…

  • Symbolizing world water

    abuckley
    1 Feb 2010 | 1:31 pm
    I am working on a small scale map of the world that shows political boundaries over time from about 2000BC to the present. For this map, I want to show the world's water with a bit of variation along the coasts. This is desirable for a couple of reasons: 1) to better indicate where the islands are, and 2) to provide better figure-ground by separating the land areas visually from the ocean areas. And easy way to do this is with a coastal vignette, as we have discussed previously (Symbolizing Shorelines). In this blog entry, I demonstrate an easy way to achieve this effect for the ocean waters…

  • A Concise History of Bump Mapping

    nighbert
    27 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am
    Hi, folks— I have never blogged before so forgive me if I ramble on too much. I have been working with ESRI to convert ideas and snippets of code from my past work presented at the ESRI International User Conferences into a usable set of tools for all to use. This is a great honor indeed, and I thank them for the opportunity. My ideas on landscape presentation have now taken on a life of their own as a set of tools in an ArcToolbox that you can download from Mapping Center. I hope others will find them easy and fun to use. To learn more about them you can read two blog entries that were…

  • Symbolizing the Bump Map

    abuckley
    25 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am
    In our previous blog post, we introduced the ArcGIS Bump Map tools and described the structure of the model and how to run it. Now we want to talk about how you can symbolize the results and use additional tools to create stunning bump maps!  The Bump Map Tools can be downloaded from the ArcGIS Resources-Model & Scripts page of Mapping Center. Symbolizing the results of bump mapping involves three steps – 1) symbolizing the hillshade, 2) symbolizing the elevation with a hypsometric tint, and 3) symbolizing the vegetation overlay with a layer tint or other…
 
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    The Map Room

  • Grover's Map of South America

    Jonathan Crowe
    6 Feb 2010 | 4:21 pm
    I remember well this Sesame Street bit, starring Grover the waiter and his restaurant customer, who misses his flight to South America because Grover won’t shut up about “this wonderful, glorious map.” When I stumbled across it again tonight, I noticed something interesting: take a good look at that map and tell me it isn’t a Gall-Peters projection! Grover’s Map of South America first appeared on The Map Room: A Weblog About Maps on February 6, 2010. Copyright © 2010 Jonathan Crowe. Distributed under a Creative Commons licence.

  • Leventhal Does RSS, Flickr

    Jonathan Crowe
    5 Feb 2010 | 9:54 am
    Via MapHist, I learn that the Boston Public Library’s Norman B. Leventhal Map Center has a newish RSS feed. It also has a Flickr account, though that’s been up and running for some time. Leventhal Does RSS, Flickr first appeared on The Map Room: A Weblog About Maps on February 5, 2010. Copyright © 2010 Jonathan Crowe. Distributed under a Creative Commons licence.

  • Apple, iPhone Developers, and Location-Based Ads

    Jonathan Crowe
    5 Feb 2010 | 9:48 am
    Apple says that iPhone developers should not use Core Location, the API that provides an iPhone user’s location, just to provide location-targeted ads. Ed Parsons and GPS Review have what I think is the correct take on this: if you’re going to tap into Core Location (which drains battery life, requires user approval and reveals personal information), for God’s sake make it for something more than just local advertising (which I presume is still allowed, just secondarily). Apple may be getting into mobile advertising, but I don’t think preemptively stomping on the…

  • New Maps of Pluto Show Seasonal Changes

    Jonathan Crowe
    4 Feb 2010 | 1:04 pm
    NASA has released new maps of Pluto, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Even through the Hubble, everyone’s favourite Kuiper Belt Object is only a handful of pixels across, and the Hubble can only make out surface variations a few hundred kilometres in size. Even so, this is probably the most detail we’ll get until New Horizons arrives in five years’ time. And it’s still of use to scientists: The images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope show an icy and dark molasses-colored, mottled world that is undergoing seasonal…

  • Google Earth Updates: World War II Iimagery, Higher-Resolution Sea Floor Data

    Jonathan Crowe
    4 Feb 2010 | 1:01 pm
    Recent updates to Google Earth include higher-resolution underwater terrain data for some parts of the ocean floor and historical aerial photography taken over European cities during the Second World War. Google Earth Updates: World War II Iimagery, Higher-Resolution Sea Floor Data first appeared on The Map Room: A Weblog About Maps on February 4, 2010. Copyright © 2010 Jonathan Crowe. Distributed under a Creative Commons licence.
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    Google Maps Mania

  • Google Map of Toronto Free Parking

    Keir Clarke
    9 Feb 2010 | 8:00 am
    Toronto Free ParkingApparently there are hundreds of free parking locations in Toronto, just a few minutes walk away from most of the city's important hubs. The secret is knowing where they are located. Thankfully, Toronto Free Parking is willing to share the secret. Toronto Free Parking uses the Google Maps API to show the location of free parking locations. The map uses different map markers to

  • California Science Center with Google Maps

    Keir Clarke
    9 Feb 2010 | 6:33 am
    California Science Center Multitouch MapIdeum create technology-enhanced visitor experiences for museums and other public settings. They have just created a multitouch exhibit for the California Science Center.The exhibit consists of an interactive multitouch enabled Google Map with KML overlays allowing visitors to pan and zoom around the L.A. Basin while learning about the weather patterns,

  • Street View Arrives in Norway & Finland

    Keir Clarke
    9 Feb 2010 | 3:47 am
    Google have released Street View imagery in Norway and Finland. There also seems to have been lots more Street View imagery added in Canada (including what looks to be the ski runs for the Winter Olympics), the USA, and Mexico.Stortinget, OsloUspenski Cathedral, HelsinkiHelsinki CathedralIn Whistler, Canada there seem to have been a lot of ski runs added. I assume these must be related to the

  • Pretend that Google Maps has Cycle Routes

    Keir Clarke
    8 Feb 2010 | 10:36 pm
    Transparent Map ComparisonsImagine a world where Google Maps had cycle routes!This map mashup allows you to compare Google Maps with OpenStreetMaps. It is possible to select from Google Street maps, satellite imagery, topographic maps and Yahoo Maps as a base layer and then view various OpenStreetMap layers superimposed on top.The map includes a transparency slider so it is possible to adjust the

  • Flickr Photos Added to Street View

    Keir Clarke
    8 Feb 2010 | 12:38 pm
    The Geobloggers website noticed today that Google have started using Flickr photographs in Street View.When you open Street View in Google Maps the 'User Photos' option often appears in the top right hand corner. If you select this option you can view photographs of the same view from Panoramio, Picasa and now from Flickr.The User Photos option includes a neat 'Photosynth' type experience
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    Mapperz

  • New Street View Coverage for Norway & Finland

    9 Feb 2010 | 5:04 am
    New Street View Coverage for Norway & FinlandNew Suomi (Finland) Street View CoverageView the New Coverage and drag the yellow pegman, drop on anywhere that is blue.Norge (Norwegian) Street View CoverageView the Norge Streetview Also available on the Desktop via Google Earth seehttp://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2010/02/streetview_added_to_norway_and_finl.htmlSource:http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2010/02/street-view-arrives-in-norway-finland.htmlMapperz News Blog

  • 'Eye on Earth' EEA and Microsoft Bing Mapping

    5 Feb 2010 | 9:41 am
    'Eye on Earth' EEA and Microsoft Bing MappingGreen EU citizens are being encouraged to contribute their own environmental observations to a website.The Eye on Earth platform is a joint venture between the European Environment Agency (EEA) and Microsoft.Features:Air QualityAir Quality ModelBathing Waters1 is Very Good (Dark Green)5 is Very Bad (Red)Overlaying Air Quality data from Official EEA sources and from 'user' feedback using Bing Maps. An impressive language support exists for covering all European Languages.View Eye on Earth - http://eyeonearth.cloudapp.net/*The project makes use of…

  • British Geological Survey (BGS) Bedrock Maps

    4 Feb 2010 | 2:51 am
    British Geological Survey (BGS) Bedrock Maps04/02/2009 17.20 update: Apologies if your getting this message"The bandwidth or page view limit for this site has been exceeded and the page cannot be viewed at this time. Once the site is below the limit, it will once again begin serving as normal. "This has been more popular than expected @mapperz will find a backup host asap.04/02/200918.10 FIXED!!! see below for Alternative site. Attributes of the bedrock can be obtained my click on the coloured polygonsThe data has been available from the British Geological Survey (BGS) Website in KMZ (Google…

  • FREE the PostZon (UK Postcode Data)

    1 Feb 2010 | 11:39 am
    From the Free Our Data Blog:A new No.10 petition: FREE the PostZon and help innovate the UK Geo-spatial industry(We are in 21st Century now aren't we?)Mark Goodge added this as a comment to the data.gov.uk post, but it seems worth making more visible. So here it is:This is not asking for Full Postcode (PAF) data but This is about Ordnance Survey's data, not Royal Mail's -- so it won't affect PAF, but it will affect postcode coordinate data."Postzon™ data allows you to link geographic and administrative data from government bodies, such as local authorities and the NHS, for all known…

  • Mobile GeoRSS Maps *Beta* (Map Channels)

    29 Jan 2010 | 2:13 am
    Mobile GeoRSS Maps *Beta* (by Map Channels"The easy way to add mapping for mobile websites"Mobile GeoRSS Maps combines the Google Maps v3 API and Google Feeds API to display a GeoRSS feed on a map that is optimized for mobile phone display.Create your own Map with feeds for your mobile, mymaps or georss feeds can auto-update and provide you with latest information whilst on the move.Use Mobile GeoRSS Maps to simply add your map to your mobile website, or to generate a map link for emailing.Google My Maps are supported. Use Mobile GeoRSS Maps to generate a mobile version of a My Map in…
 
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    MapPoint Forums

  • Bing Maps Book in French

    Eric Frost
    9 Feb 2010 | 3:50 am
    New Bing Maps Book Helps Developers - howdous's blog Amazon.com France web site: “Ce livre sur Bing Maps (anciennement Virtual Earth) s'adresse à des développeurs débutants à confirmés, curieux de la cartographie interactive et des nouvelles technologies orientées Web. Le livre couvre l'ensemble des possibilités de l'API Bing Maps for Entreprise de Microsoft, à travers des cas concrets, rencontrés en entreprise, pratiques et réutilisables. Ces exemples illustrent comment intégrer des données géolocalisées de manière simple mais proposent aussi des fonctionnalités de…

  • Oval adjustments access denied

    timllens
    9 Feb 2010 | 3:22 am
    Hi I am having a nagging problem i am trying to alter the angle of a oval which i have placed on the map with the following code im myshape As MapPoint.Shape AxMappointControl1.ActiveMap.Shapes.AddShape(MapPo int.GeoAutoShapeType.geoShapeOval, MAPLOCS1(MAPLOCS1.Length - 1), 3, 2).Name = "Zone" myshape = AxMappointControl1.ActiveMap.Shapes.Item("Zone") myshape.Adjustments(1) = 90 However when i run the program an error is thrown saying access denied?????:helpsmilie: does anyone have an idea of how it is possible to overcome this or what i am doing wrong? Kind regards Tim

  • Bing Maps Powers The National Grid

    VirtualEarth MSDN Blog
    9 Feb 2010 | 1:22 am
    Remember when President Obama announced support for a national smart grid? Well, we’re seeing some of this money being put to good use on the National Grid web site in the form of smart grid data visualization using The Bing Maps Platform. In partnership with iFactor Consulting, The National Grid now has 5 areas (Massachusetts, Nantucket, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Upstate New York) online outlining coverage areas and pinpoint outage issues in a simple to use application. In a mail from Brad Selio,” National Grid US recently completed the release of a new section of their…

  • bingmaps: RT @BingMapsDev: Great new book in French on Bing Maps from @NicolasBoonaert http://bit.ly/ba72nc

    Bing Maps
    9 Feb 2010 | 1:22 am
    bingmaps: RT @BingMapsDev: Great new book in French on Bing Maps from @NicolasBoonaert http://bit.ly/ba72nc Link...

  • New Bing Maps Book Helps Developers

    VirtualEarth MSDN Blog
    9 Feb 2010 | 1:22 am
    Parlez-Vous Français? Well, if you do and you want to learn how to build applications using The Bing Maps Platform have I got a book for you. Yesterday, at Microsoft Tech Days France, I met Nicolas Boonaert who is the author of the first and only book about Bing Maps, “Bing Maps - Guide complet de la cartographie interactive (Broché).” Now, this is not to be confused with my good friend Chandu Thota’s book “Programming MapPoint in .NET” or Microsoft Research’s (and former MapPoint Technical Evangelist) B.J. Holtgrewe’s “MapPoint…
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    GeoNames Blog

  • Links for Toponyms

    marc
    31 Jan 2010 | 9:37 pm
    A new pseudo language code ‘link‘ has been added to the alternate name edit function and the links to the English Wikipedia have been inserted as alternate names. The links to the corresponding wikipedia articles have often been requested. While they were available on the forum linked in some threads, they were not included in the normal dump. With this simple change they can now be included in the dump as alternate names and they can easily be maintained using the wiki interface. All other kind of links, I think of hotel websites for hotel entries, can also be added in the same…

  • New York Times data API with GeoNames

    marc
    17 Jan 2010 | 9:48 pm
    The New York Times is adding GeoNames data to their subject headings and making it available as Linked Open Data under a cc-by license. For ages the NYT has indexed articles with keywords (tags/subject headings) from an extensive vocabulary. Thousands of these keywords have now been mapped to their respective geonameId. This will help for instance enhance the search function with additional information from geonames like lat/lng for a reverse geocoded article search. The vocabulary is available under a cc-by license in various ways and formats. You can download a huge file or you can browse…

  • GeoNames Logo

    marc
    6 Jun 2009 | 7:56 am
    Some weeks ago GeoNames got a fantastic new index page design to replace the oversimplistic previous index page. The new index page does not only look nicer it also makes it easier for visitors to quickly get to the information they are looking for. Many thanks to Erik Bolstad for this great contribution. GeoNames Homepage Mai 2009 Today I would like to ask you for your preference for a GeoNames logo. GeoNames did not have a real logo for many years, till Alexander Torrenegra and his team from LetMeGo finally stepped in and designed some cool logo ideas. View This Pollsurvey software

  • What to do against DDOS effects?

    marc
    25 Jan 2009 | 12:58 pm
    A week ago we had to take down the subdomain ws.geonames.org that we use for the free web services. The server was flooded with requests from iMob an iPhone application that has gone viral and become one of the most popular iPhone applications. It is currently number one in the free games section. There were too many connections attempts that blocking the requests by their user agent did not help and we had to disable the domain completely to get the service to work on an alternate sub domain. To avoid a complete knockout by a single application we have now defined a list of alternate…

  • Twitter GeoVisualisation

    marc
    7 Jul 2008 | 9:00 pm
    Walter Rafelsberger from MODUL/University Vienna/Department of New Media Technology is using GeoNames for some interesting and beautyful geo visualisation projects. Twitter Conversations The twitter conversation map shows where people talking to each other are located. Twitter Weather Map For the Twitter Weather Map the location and weather information twitter users are posting is parsed and visualised: GeoNames cities over 1000/5mio GeoNames cities over 1000
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    webmapper: what the map can be

  • Paper maps, improved

    Edward Mac Gillavry
    28 Jan 2010 | 4:57 am
    Go check out Map 2, the Zoomable Map on Paper. It's a brilliant idea put on paper (no pun intended): unfolding a map gives you a larger-scaled version of the same area you were looking at when it was unfolded. Fair enough, we have seen inset maps on cartographic products for centuries that highlight a particular area (e.g. a town plan) or of the main map or display a different topic (e.g. the

  • Advanced mappery

    Edward Mac Gillavry
    14 Dec 2009 | 5:36 am
    Tonight, I will attend the discussion Advanced Mappery, hosted by De Balie in Amsterdam. The discussion will be among Michiel de Lange, Henk van Houtum, and Ferjan Ormeling, who taught me in cartography. Together with representatives of Bliin and InformationLab, Webmapper will be in the audience and show some new applications of cartography. The discussion tonight marks the launch of the New

  • Atlases win Rotterdam Design Prize 2009

    Edward Mac Gillavry
    5 Dec 2009 | 3:46 am
    The prestigious Rotterdam Design Prize 2009 was awarded this year to graphic designer Joost Grootens for his set of four atlases: Vinex Atlas Metropolitan World Atlas The Big KAN Atlas, mental atlas of the Arnhem-Nijmegen urban network Limes Atlas [...] Grootens's atlases are indicative of the moment, representing an extraordinary redesign of the atlas typology. The atlases made clear the

  • New looks: MapQuest v. Google Maps

    Edward Mac Gillavry
    6 Nov 2009 | 11:53 am
    Earlier this year, Google Maps finally took over MapQuest's lead position in the US mapping arena based on the number of monthly unique visitors. Within a week of each other, both mapping websites have just changed their cartographic styles improve the legibility of their maps in another attempt to differentiate themselves and to attract more visitors. Google Maps was the first to unveil its new

  • QGIS Developer Meeting

    Edward Mac Gillavry
    2 Nov 2009 | 12:14 pm
    Just recovered from his jetlag upon his return from Sydney, where he attended FOSS4G 2009 together with other members of the OpenGeoGroep, Richard has already booked his next trip. He'll be attending the Quantum GIS Developer Meeting in Vienna, 5-9 November. For about a year now, Richard serves as a member of the Release Management Team for Quantum GIS. Also, he is the gatekeeper for the Dutch
 
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    GPS World - Latest News

  • Problems with GPS Ground Control Software Update: AEP 5.5C

    8 Feb 2010 | 11:20 am
    The GPS Wing and 2SOPS (2nd Space Operations Squadron) initiated a software update of the ground command and control (C2) system for GPS on January 11, 2010. The update has not gone as smoothly as planned, and the second of two NANUs has now appeared.

  • New Details of 24+3 GPS Configuration Released

    5 Feb 2010 | 12:15 pm
    The US Air Force has released more details surrounding the new 24+3 GPS configuration.

  • ION Announces Award Winners, 2010 Elected Fellow Members

    4 Feb 2010 | 9:48 am
    The Institute of Navigation (ION) presented its Annual Awards during the ION International Technical Meeting (ITM) 2010 in San Diego, California, January 25-27, 2010. The ION Annual Awards Program is sponsored by The Institute of Navigation (ION) to recognize individuals making significant contributions or demonstrating outstanding performance relating to the art and science of navigation. ION also announced recipients of the 2010 fellow membership.

  • Joint Nav Conference Abstract Deadline Extended

    4 Feb 2010 | 9:40 am
    The abstract submission deadline for the JSDE/ION Joint Navigation Conference (JNC) has been extended to February 19. The JSDE/ION Joint Navigation Conference is a positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) conference for the U.S. joint services, Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security and is being held June 7-10, 2010, in Orlando, Florida, at the Wyndham Orlando Resort.

  • GLONASS at 18 with Three More Satellites Operational

    2 Feb 2010 | 9:52 am
    The three new GLONASS-M satellites launched on December 14 have been set operational: GLONASS 730 in orbital slot 1, was set healthy on January 30. This brings to 18 the number of satellites currently in service, although GLONASS 722 continues to provide a healthy signal only on its L1 frequency. At present, the constellation only suffices to provide a 24-hour regional signal over Russian territory, although satellites can and frequently are pulled in by global high-precision users to complete an RTK solution, along with GPS satellites.
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    Ogle Earth

  • links for 2010-02-08

    8 Feb 2010 | 10:06 am
    Satellite Imaging Provides Glimpse Into Past, Future Problems - AOL News An article about Tom Sever, NASA's recently-retired staff archeologist. Comments (0)

  • Where does Google stand on the Thai-Cambodian border at Preah Vihear Temple?

    7 Feb 2010 | 10:49 am
    There are border disputes aplenty, but when Reuters reported on Feb 5 that the government of Cambodia had sent a letter of complaint to Google about how the Thai-Cambodian border is displayed in Google Earth and Maps in the vicinity of Preah Vihear Temple, I was intrigued. The complaint? The displayed border is "radically misleading", "devoid of truth and reality, and professionally irresponsible, if not pretentious," and, in case that wasn't clear, "very wrong and not internationally recognised". A rainy Shanghai Sunday afternoon spent googling for context led me to a fascinating story, and…

  • links for 2010-02-05

    5 Feb 2010 | 10:06 am
    Cambodia blasts Google map of disputed Thai border | Reuters "(The map) is devoid of truth and reality, and professionally irresponsible, if not pretentious," Svay Sitha, secretary of state of the Cambodia's Council of Ministers, wrote in the letter seen by Reuters on Friday. Comments (0)

  • links for 2010-01-31

    31 Jan 2010 | 10:06 am
    eCanadaNow » Google Street View Catches illegal Tree Cutters There has been no decision to use the Google Street View, but City official Theresa Beer said, “Our city’s legal department is aware of that. How they will use that as evidence, I’m not clear. But it is an interesting new dimension, perhaps, of legal evidence.” Comments (0)

  • links for 2010-01-22

    22 Jan 2010 | 10:08 am
    Digital Urban: Google Earth - Live Building/Billboard Texturing from Webcams: Live3D Live3D = live textures on buildings in Google Earth from webcams! Comments (0)
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    All Points Blog

  • South Dakota Watershed Data Made Available in Google Earth

    8 Feb 2010 | 4:00 am
    The data had been available from Natural Resources Conservation Service, but it required software most people don't have. Once the data was converted to Google Earth format (KML) anyone can view it in Google Earth. The cost? "It only cost $10,000,...Read more

  • Podcast: A Hallway Conversation with Crispin Flower about ArcSquirrel

    28 Jan 2010 | 11:00 pm
    Adena Schutzberg, executive editor, interviewed Crispin Flower, application developer and Associate Director of exeGesIS SDM Ltd, about his company's new product that links ArcMap and Microsoft SQL Server, ArcSquirrel. This conversation is one in a c...Read more
 
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    Google LatLong

  • Nearby places you might like...

    Kate
    5 Feb 2010 | 1:37 pm
    When you live in New York City, everyone has an opinion on where to eat. And usually, telling someone a place you love will lead to a long conversation of a string of other places you should try. For example, one of the more interesting restaurants I've eaten at in NYC was recommended to me by someone who knew I loved a different restaurant by the same owner. And, when I told a friend I was heading to the Lower East Side to get some yummy knishes for lunch, he told me to make sure I checked out the famous Guss' Pickles right around the corner and that I might consider picking up some smoked…

  • Dive in to our Ocean Showcase

    Kate
    4 Feb 2010 | 5:30 pm
    With the launch of our new Ocean Showcase, you can now tour the ocean from the comfort of your web browser using the Google Earth plugin.Follow along as National Geographic explorer, Sylvia Earle, narrates a tour through highlights of the Explore the Ocean layer in Google Earth. You can pause the tour at any time to watch videos of the surrounding areas and marine animals, like the humpback whales below.Take a ride with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), as their Western Flyer research ship works off the U.S. west coast. View the discoveries they've made, like the…

  • WWII historical imagery in Google Earth

    Kate
    4 Feb 2010 | 10:15 am
    Many of us have heard stories, read books and watched films which show the many impacts of WWII across the world. Today we're giving you another way to understand this period in time - by exploring a new set of historical aerial images, taken over European cities during World War II, via the historical imagery feature in Google Earth. They can now be compared directly to images from the present day.The historical imagery feature gives people a unique perspective on the events of the past using today's latest mapping technology. We hope that this World War II imagery will enable all of us to…

  • Spotlight on historical imagery: Warsaw in 1935, 1945 and today

    Kate
    3 Feb 2010 | 9:54 pm
    When I think about Poland, I think about my grandma. Babcia fondly recalled the Polish-American community of her childhood in Yonkers, N.Y., she told stories of traveling to Poland with my uncle, she read out loud the letters she received from our family there, and during Christmas she led aunts, uncles, and cousins in sharing a wafer called opłatek, which prompted hugs and kisses around the table. These are all good memories.Like many, I have often used Google Earth to explore the world around me. When it comes to Warsaw, Poland, imagery now available from 1935 and 1945 reveals an…

  • Wander the seafloor like never before

    Kate
    2 Feb 2010 | 11:36 pm
    If you happen to be a bathymetry buff, we've got an update that you'll be excited about (and if you're not, I hope you will be one by the end of this post). Most of the underwater terrain currently featured in Google Earth comes from the low-resolution US Navy/NOAA/SIO global grid. They're able to predict what the seafloor looks like using an extrapolation of water surface heights to estimate undersea mountains and canyons, based on radar data collected by satellite (if you're curious about this process, you can read Smith and Sandwell's more detailed explanation here). For most of the sea,…
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    Between the Poles

  • NIST Releases Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards 1.0

    Geoff
    8 Feb 2010 | 12:51 pm
    The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released the Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards 1.0.  The NIST sees an urgent need to establish standards for the smart grid because without standards, there is the potential for technologies developed or implemented with sizable public and private investments to become obsolete prematurely or to be implemented without ensuring security. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) designated development of a Smart Grid as a national policy goal and specifically said that the…

  • Modest Increase in Nuclear Power Predicted

    Geoff
    8 Feb 2010 | 7:28 am
    A study released last week by the Centre for International Governance Innovation predicts only a modest increase in the number of nuclear power plants and a small number of new countries joining the 30 or so countries that currently have nuclear power plants.The report suggests that a significant worldwide expansion is unlikely before 2030, and that a window of opportunity exists to fix the currently inadequate global governance system to avoid nuclear accidents and weapons proliferation. The report says that since the 1986 Chernobyl accident, nuclear safety has improved around the world, but…

  • 3D Visualization of Road Design

    Geoff
    8 Feb 2010 | 7:00 am
    Autodesk has acquired Dynamite VSP and Dynamite SIM visualization software products from 3AM Solutions in the UK.  Dynamite VSP and Dynamite SIM help automate the process of creating visualizations for civil engineering projects designed with AutoCAD Civil 3D by providing simple and efficient ways to bring Civil 3D designs into Autodesk 3ds Max Design.  3D visualization helps communicate engineering designs with technical and non-technical people and is especially helpful for processes involving public consultation and approval.  Autodesk intends to integrate core technology from the…

  • Nuclear Power on the Rise

    Geoff
    5 Feb 2010 | 9:55 am
    President Obama's request in the 2011 Budget for additional funds for nuclear power reminded me of a post I made last July. At that time there were 436 operable nuclear power plants (373 GW) in about 30 countries generating about 15% of the world's power, 45 new plants were under construction, 131 were planned, and 282 had been proposed.  Since then the worldwide development of new nuclear power has increased.   As of February 1, 53 new plants (51 GW) are under construction, 142 (156 GW) are on order or planned, and 327 (343 GW) have been proposed.  One of the major drivers for…

  • National Renewable Energy Standard Would Create Quarter of a Million Jobs

    Geoff
    5 Feb 2010 | 8:45 am
    The RES Alliance for Jobs is a coalition of renewable energy companies in wind, solar and biomass.  The Alliance argues that a strong Renewable Energy Standard (RES) would provide the national commitment to renewable energy enabling manufacturers to invest billions of dollars in the U.S. economy and job creation. The Alliance hired Navigant Consulting Inc. to study the impact of a national mandate for 25 percent renewables by 2025.  The study concluded that A national RES of 25% by 2025 would result in 274,000 more jobs than without a national RES. A national RES will lead to job growth in…
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    GPS Tracklog

  • Waypoints — February 6th, 2010

    Rich Owings
    6 Feb 2010 | 7:06 am
    This has been a crazy week due to the new design, and I apologize if I lost attribution info for any of the items below. Waypoints is a weekly link roundup of GPS related odds and ends. Garmin Is the Garmin Oregon more popular than the 60CSx? So far the vote is 15 to 4. How to change which map is displayed on your Garmin GPS Garmin Connect to fitness types: You’ve got multiple things to keep updated Northern Arizona topo overlay (Garmin compatible map) Maps MTB Guru moves to MyTopo maps, and with good reason GIS Data For US National Parks And Monuments – Nice; it was a breeze to…

  • A new look for GPS Tracklog

    Rich Owings
    5 Feb 2010 | 4:17 am
    Today I’m rolling out a new design for GPS Tracklog. At nearly five years of age(!), its about time. I had planned this for last year following the move to WordPress, but I had a few distractions in my life, so I’m just now getting around to it. Let me give you a brief guided tour; after all, this site is about navigation! It’s pretty intuitive, but there are a few items I want to call your attention to: There are two navigation bars under the header; most items are self-explanatory. Please note though, the “Recent” item on the top nav bar. You can always go there for the latest…

  • TomTom to offer daily map updates?

    Rich Owings
    3 Feb 2010 | 5:17 am
    I’m never sure how much to trust Google Translate, but if they got this German article right, TomTom’s CEO Harold Goddijn (pictured) claims they will be offering map updates every day or two by the end of the year. It sounds like we are definitely moving towards connected devices with constantly updated maps. Here’s the translated quote: Among other things, TomTom chief executive Harold Goddin announces radically shorten the update interval for road maps to: "By the end of the year we will offer every one to two days updated maps for download," said Goddijn in conversation…
 
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    GPS Insight Blog

  • About to send our MILLIONTH Alert and perform our BILLIONTH Alert Check

    rdonat
    3 Feb 2010 | 10:50 pm
    I have a daily report which comes to me which tells me how close we are to hitting 2 major Alert milestones: GPS Insight's Millionth Alert and Billionth Check are coming soon! We are very close to sending our MILLIONTH alert out. Shortly thereafter (unless drivers stop causing alerts which, uh, isn’t very likely…), we will process our BILLIONTH alert check. We process a huge number of alerts checks and send quite a few each day. In the short time I’ve been typing this blog article, we have processed 15,282 checks, yielding a relatively small number of alerts — 3.

  • New Map Dashlet size & “Follow Me” capabilities

    rdonat
    3 Feb 2010 | 10:28 pm
    We recently made some new enhancements to our Dashboard Maps. Now you can size them in any of 4 heights (and the width is determined by the dashboard style you choose). Additionally, we allow you to display 8 maps per window now, vs. 4. You can still open as many windows as your PC is OK with. In addition, we now allow you to “follow” a single vehicle, and display ALL the vehicles around it (determined by which vehicle group you choose). Here is a screen shot of 3 “half-height” maps which are all “following” a different vehicle (noted in the title area of…

  • HUGE safety addition to GPS Insight — the Speed Summary Report

    rdonat
    2 Feb 2010 | 5:24 pm
    This new report shows the speeding and “slow-poke” tendencies of your individual drivers. It can be run for a month at a time, and is available here (we are running the report for just the OKL group for the month of January): Launching the GPS Insight Speed Summary report Here is the part which allows you to rank by any of the major columns (click on the column heading) and you can see that OKL-69633-Service-Jasoncb is the top speeder on average. This is relative to the speed limit ONLY when he is exceeding the speed limit. Ranking your speeders using GPS Insight's new Speed…

  • Lots of new dashboard features just released!

    rdonat
    23 Jan 2010 | 10:25 am
    We have been busy this month and released several new features to the dashboard (as well as posted speed limit reports/graphs which I will talk about separately). First, there are new dashboard layouts, and they are more intuitively labeled: Intuitive dashboard styles Choosing “2 wide L” will give you a wider column on the left and a thinner column on the right.  Choosing “4 wide” will give you 4 columns.  These various layouts are useful depending on what type of style you like for your dashboard setup. As always, after making changes, make sure to save your…

  • We have launched our brand new GPS Insight website!

    rdonat
    23 Jan 2010 | 9:52 am
    After months of work, we are pleased to announce a brand new www.gpsinsight.com! The new one will allow us to keep our rapidly enhanced product better documented for our customers and prospective customers. Brand New GPS Insight website Additionally, we have begun work on a comprehensive training site at training.gpsinsight.com.  This site will allow us to keep all of the documentation for GPS Insight up to date and available for both customers and prospective customers. Brand New GPS Insight Training website Please check them both out and expect many new features and much more content for…
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    V1 Magazine

  • The Need to Monitor the Performance of GNSS

    Jeff Thurston
    6 Feb 2010 | 12:53 pm
    Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) technologies are now universally regarded as critical elements within modern transport, energy and communications infrastructures. However, GNSS is also vulnerable to faults and failures at system, signal and service levels which can severely impact the service and degrade performance.

  • Cartography in Geomatics Curriculum – The Czech Example

    Jeff Thurston
    28 Jan 2010 | 8:25 am
    Cartography and geomatics are rapidly changing. These changes are impacting the needs for a highly trained and capable workforce. Education is attempting to adapt and to provide a solution to these demanding and changing circumstances. Education professionals in the Czech Republic have developed a unique geomatics curriculum on themes related to “the relation of cartography and geomatics” and “the content of cartographic courses and its update”.

  • Luanda Bay Initiative To Revive Angolan Seaport

    Jeff Thurston
    23 Jan 2010 | 11:25 am
    As the chief seaport and capital city of Angola, Luanda is undergoing major reconstruction with the development of infrastructure projects that include new public housing, highways, and business and commercial space. The African nation was ravaged by 27 years of civil war before a cease fire was reached in 2002, and the Angolan government has since looked to the private sector to help rebuild the country’s center of commerce.

  • GIS Puts Culver City Sewer Maps in their Place

    Matt Ball
    18 Jan 2010 | 12:42 am
    Like a lot of small towns, the effects of time and growth compromised Culver City’s public works data, especially the city sewer system. In 2007, a committed collaboration between the Public Works Department  and the Culver City Information Technology Department began to update citywide sewer maps. The redevelopment of the sewer data is ongoing using geographic information system (GIS) technology from ESRI.

  • World Forestry At The Crossroads - Going It Alone or Joining With Others?

    Jeff Thurston
    8 Jan 2010 | 9:40 pm
    The World Forestry Congress (WFC) took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 18 to 23 October 2009. In this paper, we will set out some of the results and findings. We have attempted to identify a number of trends and to indicate what their significance may be for us as forestry specialists. We have had valuable input from a number of Dutch colleagues who also attended the congress.
 
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    Geographic Travels with Catholicgauze!

  • Cartoon Map of European Union Dissolution

    8 Feb 2010 | 10:01 pm
    When I was I remember asking a British immigrant in America what it was like being an European living in the United States. The Brit snapped back with the reply "I am not an European!" That confused me immensely as I had always learned that the island of Great Britain was in Europe and therefore everyone there was European. What the immigrant was saying was not that she was a different continent but did not consider herself or the United Kingdom as part of the European nation as manifested by the European Union. A new cartoon map featured in this week's Economist features a map with Greece…

  • Interview with Harm de Blij

    7 Feb 2010 | 10:00 pm
    On the second day of graduate school I was asked by the professor who my favorite academic geographer was. After a brief moment to think I chose the geographer who has published probably the most popular geography textbooks in English, Dr. Harm J. de Blij. The professor responded with a shocked yet disappointed "oh" while a few other students giggled.My response was dismissed by the others because de Blij's work was too mundane for them. De Blij foscused more on world geography with the studies of people, countries, and cultures. The others in the class preferred studying small niches of…

  • British Royal Navy Interactive Deployments Map

    5 Feb 2010 | 10:05 pm
    The Royal Navy is perhaps the most storied navy in the world. It was the primary driver of the British Empire. His/Her Majesty's Ships sailed in all the world's major and most of the minor bodies of water do things like claiming Arabian coastlines as protectorates, opening up China's opium trade to the West, ending Brazil's slave trade with Africa, and exploring islands in the South Pacific. Among the main things the Royal Navy does today include supporting the international War on Terrorism, participating in anti-piracy efforts around Somalia, and paying port visits to the United Kingdom's…

  • Infamous Censuses Throughout World History

    4 Feb 2010 | 10:01 pm
    It is 2010 and that means it is time for another American census. As with any counting by a government some Americans have feelings ranging from reservation to out right fear about the upcoming census. Looking back on history I realize how lucky Americans are to have this upcoming census, even with some potential flaws in it, compared to the most infamous censuses in world history.The Census of King David (~1000 BC)According 2 Samuel 24, King David felt the urge to conduct a census in his realms of Israel and Judah. The primary motivation of the census was to count the number of available…

  • Geographic Names Boards Around the World

    3 Feb 2010 | 10:00 pm
    The United States Board on Geographic Names is the government body that has the power to change place names of locations within the United States. It also has the ability to change government policies of foreign places names. For instance, when working with the State Department the board recognized the "Republic of Macedonia" instead of "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia." It also changed American recognition of the spelling of Ukraine's capital from the Russified Kiev to the Ukrainian Kyiv.The US Board though is not the only geographic naming body around, though. According to the…
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    WordPress Tag: Geography

  • Lake Burley Elephant

    mitchbeard
    9 Feb 2010 | 4:24 am
    Hooray for random doodlings because I was finished what I was supposed to be doing with that map!

  • Changing Geography Masterclass

    David Rawnsley
    9 Feb 2010 | 4:00 am
    I recently had a trip down to Southampton to give a couple of talks on census and related matters. The first was a bit like taking coals to Newcastle – myself and Carol Blackwood from EDINA were at the Office for National Statistics in Titchfield to give them an overview of the census. It turns out that in response to the upcoming census the ONS has hired lots of new people who don’t all have a census background and so they wanted a grounding in the basics. We turned it our way slightly by trying to inform them of how it is used in academia, why it is so useful to us and what…

  • I didn't even have my shots

    ohsimone
    9 Feb 2010 | 12:50 am
    loughborough estate 2 by secretlondon123. Click pic for link. There’s something to be said in the notion of the academic ivory tower, and that’s why I particularly like geography: you can’t go back in time to look at history, you can’t jump inside an equation, but you can definitely go out and pound the streets of the city and see geography as it actually is. There’s a lot of value in just walking around, even more so than driving places to look at them (which I admittedly do enjoy), even more so when it’s somewhere new. Studying social changes is all very…

  • Information Please

    Collin
    9 Feb 2010 | 12:15 am
    When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished, old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it. Then discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person – her name was “Information Please” and there was nothing she did not know. “Information Please” could supply any body’s number and the correct time. My first personal experience…

  • Geography: Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel 2-9-10

    misshagberg
    9 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am
    What We Did Today: * We started off with This Day in History. * Then we played a review game were groups were given facts and they had to determine which country they belonged to.  The facts had numbers and if they were correct they should each add up to 34. * Then we took a few notes to review the key concepts of Syria, Jordan and Israel.  REVIEW OF SYRIA, LEBANON AND JORDAN * If there was time I began to explain tomorrow’s activity which starts to look at economic concepts and data in the Middle East.  We will be working in the computer lab. Homework: * NONE!! * If you have late…
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    Google Sightseeing

  • Mount Everest no longer world’s highest mountain

    Chris Hannigan
    8 Feb 2010 | 6:47 am
    Which is closer to the surface of the moon, the summit of Mount Everest or Ecuador? Contrary to popular belief, the answer is Ecuador, as the Earth isn’t a perfect sphere. As the Earth is constantly spinning, centrifugal force causes it to bulge out at the equator much like a water balloon would if you placed it on a table and pressed on the top. Let’s look at Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. The summit of Chimborazo is 6,267 m (20,561 ft) above sea level, which is quite large but not quite the highest mountain in the Andes. If you take into account the Earth’s equatorial bulge,…

  • Leaning Buildings

    Chris Hannigan
    4 Feb 2010 | 6:04 am
    We can’t always be perfect right? Even some of history’s best architects made mistakes when they designed some of the world’s most beautiful structures. Maybe the ground was too unstable, or adding another 20 meters to the top wasn’t such a great idea, in any case here is a list of five sites that ended up just a little bit different from what the designer imagined… Asinelli and Garisenda Towers in Bologna, Italy - The Asinelli (the taller tower) has a height of 92 m and overhang of 2.2 m, while the Garisenda (the smaller tower) has a height of 48 m and overhang…

  • The Day the Music Died

    Noel Ballantyne
    3 Feb 2010 | 6:11 am
    Today, February 3rd, is the 51st anniversary of the death of Buddy Holly. The day before his death, Buddy Holly and associated acts Dion & The Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, had played the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. After issues with their tour bus, and due to appear in Moorhead, Minnesota the next night, the group decided to charter a small plane from the nearby Mason Airport. There was only space on the small plane for 3 passengers, so there was much debate as to who would fly. Dion DiMucci of Dion & The Belmonts had turned down…

  • Groundhog Day

    James Turnbull
    2 Feb 2010 | 5:39 am
    Today is Groundhog Day, a North American festival which reckons that: if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and fails to see its shadow because the weather is cloudy, winter will soon end. If the groundhog sees its shadow because the weather is bright and clear, it will be frightened and run back into its hole, and the winter will continue for six more weeks. So in celebration, we’re posting Woodstock, Illinois, the location where most of the scenes from the excellent Bill Murray comedy of the same name were filmed (although it was actually set in Punxsutawney,…

  • Alert, Nunavut

    Chris Hannigan
    28 Jan 2010 | 5:54 am
    Welcome to Alert, Nunavut, the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world. Only 817 km (508 miles) from the North Pole, Alert1 has a chilly average high temperature of -14.7 C (6 F), and winter lows of around -46 C (-51 F)! For 10 months out of the year, Alert is either in complete sunlight or darkness all day long. The remaining two months offer a tease of the regular sun up, sun down process the rest of the world is used to. According to the 2006 Canadian census, Alert is home to only five permanent residents, but the presence of a military intelligence facility adds 74 more…
 
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    Virtual Earth, An Evangelist's Blog

  • New Bing Maps Book Helps Developers

    Chris Pendleton
    9 Feb 2010 | 12:29 am
    Parlez-Vous Français? Well, if you do and you want to learn how to build applications using The Bing Maps Platform have I got a book for you. Yesterday, at Microsoft Tech Days France, I met Nicolas Boonaert who is the author of the first and only book about Bing Maps, “Bing Maps - Guide complet de la cartographie interactive (Broché).” Now, this is not to be confused with my good friend Chandu Thota’s book “Programming MapPoint in .NET” or Microsoft Research’s (and former MapPoint Technical Evangelist) B.J. Holtgrewe’s “MapPoint…

  • Bing Maps Powers The National Grid

    Chris Pendleton
    8 Feb 2010 | 11:59 pm
    Remember when President Obama announced support for a national smart grid? Well, we’re seeing some of this money being put to good use on the National Grid web site in the form of smart grid data visualization using The Bing Maps Platform. In partnership with iFactor Consulting, The National Grid now has 5 areas (Massachusetts, Nantucket, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Upstate New York) online outlining coverage areas and pinpoint outage issues in a simple to use application. In a mail from Brad Selio,” National Grid US recently completed the release of a new section of their…

  • Vancouver Applications Feature Bing Maps

    Chris Pendleton
    4 Feb 2010 | 4:10 pm
    All eyes will be watching Vancouver in the next couple weeks since the 2010 Winter Olympics roll into town. For those of you who won’t just be watching, but instead living the Olympics the Microsoft Canada Development Centre published a contest challenging developers to create interesting applications featuring the Bing Maps Platform and below are the resulting, quite helpful visitor applications. The Apps were developed by Developers at the Microsoft Canada Development Centre (MCDC) in Richmond, Vancouver.  They are developing these apps in their ‘spare time’ as an…

  • Bing Maps Imagery Release, January 2010 (Part 2)

    Chris Pendleton
    1 Feb 2010 | 1:52 pm
    As I mentioned in my previous content update blog post, Bing Maps Imagery Release, January 2010 (Part 1), the amount of data being released into Bing Maps for January was so large that we have to break it into two releases to publish it. So, with that, I give you the second half totally 446,000+ square kilometers of new ortho imagery:   Brisbane (Australia) Brisbane International Airport Area (Australia) Gold Coast (Australia) Murarrie-Raby Bay (Australia) Auckland (New Zealand) United Kingdom (21,000+ sq km) Santa Barbara, CA (USA) Crested Butte, CO (USA) Copper Mountain, CO (USA) Erie,…

  • Bing Maps Challenge, Win $100 Gift Card

    Chris Pendleton
    25 Jan 2010 | 11:35 am
    Think you’re savvy enough to navigate Bing Maps faster than anyone else? Answer 4 questions and you’ll be in the running to win a $100 gift card courtesy of the Bing Maps team. Take the Bing Maps Challenge now. CP – Follow me on Twitter @ChrisPendleton
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    Digital Earth Blog

  • More aerial views; National Geographic app; Google Maps for the indoors

    mickey
    23 Jan 2010 | 10:30 am
    A few cool things to point you toward today: More Cities get “Aerial View” in Google Maps — Portland, OR and Sacramento and Oakland, CA all have new “bird’s eye” imagery from Google. National Geographic launches iPhone app — It allows a variety of mapping sources, styles and other cool stuff. Micello Launches “Google Maps for the Indoors” — This thing could be very cool if they can expand their coverage.  They have “over 250″ maps so far, but none on the eastern half of the US. Post from: Digital Earth BlogMore aerial…

  • Bing leaves beta, adds lots of data

    mickey
    19 Jan 2010 | 7:30 pm
    Lots of big stuff happening with Bing Maps lately… Vancouver and Whistler added to StreetSide: Good timing for both of this, with the Winter Olympics getting ready to start. Two big imagery releases: 274K sq/km on January 5, and another 558K sq/km yesterday.  Even better, yesterday’s release was apparently just part 1 of 2, so more is coming soon. Bing Maps is no longer “beta”: The Silverlight version of Bing Maps is slowly being rolled out as the default.  It’s starting in the US with just a few people, and slowing rolling out to everyone in the next few…

  • Bing releases iPhone app with nice Maps implementation

    mickey
    16 Dec 2009 | 3:34 pm
    Microsoft just released the “Bing” application for iPhone and it is a solid effort.  It was voice search that is similar to the Google app, and Maps implementation that is similar to Google Maps on the phone. It’s a free app, so it’s certainly worth downloading and trying out.  Chris Pendleton has a nice writeup of it on the Bing Community blog, where he highlights some the new features on it.  Most of the features are similar to the pre-installed Google Maps, but the voice search in Bing Maps is a slick feature that Google Maps doesn’t have.  The rest of the…

  • MapQuest launches its own StreetView clone: “360 View”

    mickey
    14 Dec 2009 | 7:14 am
    Less than two weeks after Microsoft launched “Streetside” imagery to compete with Google’s StreetView, MapQuest has done the same.  They call it “360 View”, and it’s remarkably similar to Microsoft and Google’s offerings. Like many of the “new” features on MapQuest lately, it’s far behind what Google has already done, and it’s not nearly as good.  Not only is their coverage area a fraction of what Google has done, but the quality of the imagery doesn’t seem to be as sharp.  It’s not horrible, but it’s a bit…

  • Bing to take over MapQuest? It’s possible.

    mickey
    11 Dec 2009 | 1:48 pm
    An article over on Screenwerk today seems to think that Microsoft may start powering the engine behind MapQuest, similar to how they power the search results for Yahoo. It would make a lot of sense.  Tons of people still use MapQuest, but the technology is getting rather stale.  Putting Bing’s power behind all of those MapQuest eyeballs would be a win for both companies, and it would create a better experience for the end user. Of course, this is all just speculation at this point, simply because it seems so logical.  Do you think it’ll happen? Should it happen? Post from:…
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    A Darker View

  • Postcard from the Universe - Seagull Nebula

    9 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am
    IC2177 is part of a large, faint nebula complex in Monoceros, just north of Sirius and the head of the Big Dog, Canis Major. A wonderful area to explore in good binoculars or low power telescope. The whole region abounds with faint wisps of nebula interspersed with multiple open clusters. Best appreciated with truly dark skies where even a small telescope will show the nebulosity. IC2177, the Seagull Nebula in CMa, 22x4min with Canon 20Da and TV-76mm telescope

  • West Hawai'i Astronomy Club Meeting

    8 Feb 2010 | 5:00 pm
    A reminder that the February WHAC Meeting is tomorrow evening, Feb 9th. We will have Sandra Dawson, from the TMT here to give us an update on the status of the project. This month's meeting will be taking place at the CFHT Headquarters conference room at 7pm in Waimea.

  • Postcard from the Reef - Gold Lace

    8 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am
    Another Nudi! And one of the prettiest to be found in local waters at that. Upon going through I cave I will always carefully check the rubble to be found along the floor. This is one of the best places to find nudibranchs, and a close look will often reward the observant diver. This time it was a species of nudibranch I knew was present on the Kona and Kohala Coast but had yet to find. The instant I saw it I knew what it was and yelled "Yes!", even with a regulator in my mouth. Photography ensues, as the other divers wait for me and wonder just what is worth all those camera flashes on the…

  • Impact

    8 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am
    I really need to keep track of the Photomixers YouTube channel. Yes, these are the folks who brought us Hotel Mauna Kea and Getting Lucky at the Cassegrain. Ted, Tim, Kelly, and Ramsey, astronomers and sometimes observers on the IRTF telescope give us a musical version of astronomy. They have a few new ones posted since I last checked, always worth a listen...

  • Driveway Astrophotography

    7 Feb 2010 | 6:32 pm
    The astrophotography rig awaiting full dark in the drivewayIn the driveway again. Unexpectedly the skies are dark and clear over Waikoloa. Shooting some targets I have shot a few times before, this time attempting to go deeper, with more exposures and autoguiding. Right now the camera is shooting M42 again, but I plan on several hours of exposure. My old ST-4 autoguider seems to be running perfectly, we shall see what I get.
 
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    BrickHouse Security Blog

  • Google Street View Car Gets GPSed by F.A.T. Pranksters

    Devin McDonald
    8 Feb 2010 | 3:43 am
    No, it’s not yet April Fool’s Day, but Google has been duped by its own game. According to Mashable.com, when members of the German Free Art and Technology group (F.A.T.) observed the Google Street View car (the car that drives around taking pictures for Google maps) rolling down a street in Berlin, they decided Google wasn’t playing fairly. The group covertly attached a GPS device to the vehicle so that its location could be detected. Some people have not appreciated their privacy on public streets being infiltrated by Google’s Street View car, which is equipped with…

  • Over 50% of Power Plants and Other “Critical Infrastructures” Admit to Being Hacked

    Stan Shyshkin
    8 Feb 2010 | 12:31 am
    McAfee, a security software company, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, recently surveyed 600 executives and technology managers from infrastructure operators in 14 countries and came up with a report that will shock the public. In the wake of the recent explosion at a power plant in Middletown, Connecticut, for which the cause has yet to be determined, this news is especially unsettling. The survey shows that 54% of vital institutions such as power grids, water and sewage systems and oil and gas companies admitted to being hacked, and in most cases, foreign…

  • Car Dealer Enlists YouTube To Help Him Catch Car Thieves

    Stan Shyshkin
    8 Feb 2010 | 12:06 am
    After having 3 cars stolen from his car dealership and the police not coming up with any leads, despite the use of a surveillance tape, Adnan Sheikh (the owner) decided to use the power of the Internet and the social networking giant, YouTube, to help bring the thieves to justice. To make sure that anyone with any relevant information comes forward, Mr. Sheikh is also offering a $500 dollar reward. The video that Sheikh put up on YouTube shows two people breaking in and leaving with two cars. Shortly after, one of the thieves crashed the stolen 2006 Chevy Silverado (insurance claims that the…

  • Tracking Athletes Vital Signs Mid-Game

    Stan Shyshkin
    4 Feb 2010 | 11:22 pm
    When you play a sports video game you often see your player’s vitals signs such as health and stamina, but never before could you see a real life athletes vitals. With technology that’s currently being developed, this might not be just for video games anymore. GPS Sports, an Australian company, is working on making this something that coaches can use during the game to monitor their own players. Currently being tested by Australian Aussie rules football (soccer) players it works by attaching a GPS enabled vest or small GPS tracker on the backs of players that will tell the coaches…

  • Cyber Warfare - No Longer Only a Future Threat

    Stan Shyshkin
    4 Feb 2010 | 10:24 pm
    Using the Internet to attack governments, military infrastructures, communications systems, and financial markets is no longer only something that you hear or see in science fiction movies.With the widespread use of technology like cell phones, power plants, military communication, etc.  that all rely on Internet functionality, experts say that this creates a much higher chance of incurring a cyber attack by a terrorist organizations or foreign entity. Another issue with using the Internet to launch cyber attacks is that they can be masked or hidden so that the victim won’t know what…
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