Thursday, March 26. 2009

Update: OneGeology-Deeper Dive into the Portal

Update: The project now has 100 countries participating. Number 100 was Burkina Faso.

- One Geology News, via Carbon Cloud

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At AAG: Mapping Seven Deadly Sins in Nevada, US

Remember the seven deadly sins? Kansas State geography research associate Thomas Vought presented a paper for a team that mapped them for the state of Nevada and the whole country based publicly available data. "For example, Greed was calculated by comparing average incomes with the total number of inhabitants living beneath the poverty line....Envy was calculated using the total number of thefts — robbery, burglary, larceny and stolen cars. Wrath was calculated by comparing the total number of violent crimes — ... — reported to the FBI per capita."

- Las Vegas Sun

MapAction Offers Guide to GIS for Humanitarian Aid

MapAction argues in a piece on AlertNet that GIS is too complex and jargon filled to be widely used in emergency situations. Thus, it offers a guide (announcement) to using Google Earth and open source MapWindow.

My organisation, MapAction, is doing its best to cut through to the simple truths of "geospatial methods" (yes, it's hard even to come up with a word in plain English - "mapping" doesn't quite cover the whole thing). We have just published a guide to mapping for humanitarian emergencies, available free to aid agencies.

It gives step-by-step guidance on using Google Earth (free) in the emergency environment, based on the advantage that it can be run without an internet connection.

For the slightly more adventurous, there's also a tutorial on MapWindow - an open-source (so also free) GIS software toolkit that takes mapping a stage further yet can be grasped by an enthusiastic beginner in a couple of hours.

GPS-enabled Car Finder: $79

I'm betting there is already an iPhone app that does this, but here goes. Yes, you can pay $79 for a real live GPS-enabled key chain ornament that has one purpose to guide you back to your car. Based on my reading, you click a button a the location of your car. Go off and do whatever and when you want to get back there an arrow points the way back. Most GPS' can do that (and more) and some are but a few dollars more but are not as tiny or cool.

I must point out the manual device I reviewed years ago in GIS Monitor (sorry, no longer available online for historic reference) that did the same thing manually by acting like a simplified compass. Cost? <$5. The manufacturer sent me a handful.

- PopGadget

ITT Sues Phone Carriers Over GPS Patent

A corner of manufacturer ITT Corp filed a lawsuit against Verizon Wireless, Nokia, Motorola Inc and LG Electronics alleging patent infringement of patent 5,365,450: Hybrid GPS/data line unit for rapid, precise, and robust position determination.

The suit calls for an injunction and royalty payment, but allows for some flexibility for continued use of the devices for E911 purposes.

- Reuters