The Danish Solution to Crime Mapping

Ernst Poulsen writing in a blog at Poynter points out that while the Chicago crime maps I noted a few days ago are very cool, there’s another model worth exploring.

“I find it worthwhile to mention that the Danish police recently launched a database
with a fairly similar zoom-map integration.
The database also lets you research whether a given type of crime is more or less common than one or two years ago, and has export functions for HTML or Microsoft Excel format.

However, the Danish police have chosen to map the various types of crimes not on a street level, but within a one-square-kilometer area. Furthermore, any sexually related crimes are only reported on a municipality level in order to protect the victims.

I know the Chicago version probably gives me more detail. (The RSS feed especially is cool.) But I’m asking myself: Isn’t the Danish version a fair trade-off between getting the facts and protecting the victims? Or do I need to know the exact block where every “sexual relation in family crime took place?”

Blogs Run Amuck on LBS

I read a number of blogs looking for neat LBS and GIS news. Sometimes, I have to wear my skeptical hat. Ok, all the time! When I read about an LBS app for finding rest rooms in China announced at the “World Toilet Expo and Forum” I was a bit amused. When none of the blogs cited a real newspaper I was further amused. I did track down an article from the AP in my local paper, The Boston Globe, but it didn’t mention the LBS app. And, I did track down the website of the organization. If anyone finds evidence from a reputable source of this actual LBS app, please let me know.

Update: Found one!

A2B

Another “local search engine,” A2B has a bit of a twist. To use it, you must supply a lat/lon pair. It can be from a GPS or entered manually, but once it’s input, search results are displayed outward from your location by distance. The websites that are searched must be manually added (and include location information). That certainly limits the pool and highlights the big challenges of local search: Either the keeper of the site must attach geographic data or the search engine must somehow geocode it.

Oddly, you can only search by distance. So, once I entered my location I found websites of no interest whatsoever! They were blogs, most likely of folks in my city. I say most likely since there was very little of “local” interest in terms of content. One blog was about graphics and the fellow did go on about the death of SVG with the Adobe acquisition and that he was speaking at MITЕ But, basically, the only thing these websites have in common with me is geography. That’s not enough, sometimes, I guess.

Intel Science Fair Winners: Heavily Geospatial

Two of the three top projects in the 2005 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) involved geospatial topics. Ammen Abdulrasool of Chicago, 18, won a top prize for his Behavioral and Social Sciences project, “Prototype for Autonomy: Pathway for the Blind.” He developed a self-contained navigational system for the visually impaired that combines GPS technology, verbal directional signals, and vibratory signal devices worn as bracelets. Gebrielle Gianelli of Orlando, 17, focused on Space Science exploring the “Fractal Dimension Analysis of Putative Martian Coastlines.” She used a topographic map of Mars and statistical methods to analyze geologic features that could indicate an ancient ocean coastline. The third top winner, Stephen Schultz, Gelsenkirchen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany worked on chemistry. Interestingly, his region is a hotbed of GIS activity.

Taxi Game for London

The “London Taxi Rush Hour” game will be out soon. Players collect customers and ferry them to famous London destinations within a specific time limit in order to get paid. Like the real London, there are obstacles and traffic problems. The game features “a realistic map of central London.”