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Make (magazine from O’Reilly, which we get in my house) has details of a cheapo GPS tracking solution that includes a pre-paid Boost mobile phone a free app and Google Maps. It’s “(pretty much free if you have the phone, or $60 if you go pre-paid + 0.20 / day).”
The Associated Press reports that Missouri Department of Technology is just about done with a contract to track the location of cell phones to track traffic on the highways. The data will all be anonymous, but privacy advocates are concerned. Other cities, including Baltimore, Norfolk, Va., and around Atlanta use such data but not for real time relay for traffic management. This’d be the first use of such data across a whole state, much of which is rural.
(via SmartMobs)
I don’t usually think about that. But since I found a Google Map hack that promised to tell me, I found out. It’s in San Antonio.
Ideally this is supposed to be “the” killer app for real estate. I’ve heard that so many times I simply ignore it these days. What’s interesting about Dvorak’s take at Investors.com is that he’s enamored by the idea but critical of the data and the “one step above” Google app. It’s interesting to read the ramblings of folks just coming to grips with the power of geographic data and its limitations.
Wired reports that an English teacher in Brazil is doing some “mental mapping” research via the Web at the CommonCensus.org website. After keying in your home you are asked questions about it “to show how the country is organized culturally, as opposed to traditional political boundaries.”
Having “grown up” reading and Wilbur Zelinsky and Peter Gould and Joel Garreau this is old news to many geographers, but it’s new and interesting to the rest of the world. That said, the use of the Web is something these folks didn’t have for (most of ) their work.
