Monopoly Goes Google Maps; Confuses Geek Dad

Hasbro announced a new online version of Monopoly to launch on Sept 9 built around Google Maps/Earth. It’s called Monopoly City Streets and has its own blog with very little info thus far. The game will run for just four months.

GeekDad at Wired got to test it out early and found it ... not that interesting.

Frankly, the rules don’t help much. It’s not much of a game and the play is not particularly interesting. Although, it’s kind of cool to own part of downtown Boston.

What GeekDad suffered from in part was not reading the directions (which told him to start in NYC, not Boston, as he did) which led him to an area with no critical mass. That’s just like LBS apps that launch country wide and provide many people with no one to interact with based on location! He didn’t get a sense of the goal of the game or the “fun” but that may just have to wait until more people join at launch.

via PSFK

Nokia Opens Map APIs

I know it sounds odd they’ve not been open before, but that was the big news from the final day of the company’s Nokia World event in Europe yesterday. According to execs it’s the first of the APIs to be opened. That may help Nokia gain some marketshare in the U.S. As a blogger noted recently: even those in the U.S. with Nokia phones are not aware of the Ovi Store or OviMaps, the company’s appstore and map app respectively.

- paid content

Education Tidbits

Clarksville (TN) received a state grant of $9000 to input tree cover data into its recently purchase CITYGreen GIS app. The work will be done by students from Austin Peay State University’s GIS Center; they’ll digitize off of National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) imagery.

- The Leaf Chronicle (the local paper, I kid you not!)

Kristina Unis, senior history major at Anderson University, got an internship at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. She was working working with historical objects and archival documents that pertain to the history and operations of the agency. The best part of the intership? She’s got security clearance at and an “in” with intel agencies.

- Anderson University

The University of North Alabama will receive almost $500,000 to fund research and education in emergency preparedness and disaster management. The grant comes via the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, of which Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., is a ranking member and is awarded through NOAA. “Remote sensing is an important emerging technology for severe weather prediction and disaster response,” Shelby said in a press release. “This project will allow the University of North Alabama to shed further light on geospatial technology’s capabilities and, in the process, improve our severe weather warning systems as well as the recovery process from a severe weather event or natural disaster.”

- Daily Times

Unofficial CA Stimulus Map

Stamen Designs is behind an unofficial map of California’s stimulus spending. But map does sit on a state website with this disclaimer:

This representation does not satisfy federal reporting requirements and is not the state’s official, comprehensive reporting mechanism for Recovery Act funding. It has been created and displayed as a service to the citizens of California.

Like all Stamen maps, it’s elegant and easy to use. Map tiles are by Cloudmade and the tabular data is available for download. (Just so Sean can’t complain!)

via @gletham