Everyone has seen maps and videos created to familiarize athletes with the course they’ll run, bike or ski in the coming weeks or months. But Race My Race goes further: you enter 10 (real or projected) splits and your start delay time (how long it take to get to the “line”) and off your avatar goes! Since the app is built on Google Earth you can change views from overhead to street level and watch as you run past key points - but without the cheering crowds.
Todd Goold, a land surveyor and endurance athlete from Wisconsin built the app which now offers eleven courses and hopes to expand to key events like the Boston Marathon. There’s a $15 annual membership. The app includes this statement in the footer: “DUPLICATION AND REVERSE ENGINEERING ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED AND WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW.”
One of the big advantages, some suggest, is getting a sense of the topography before the event. I’m not sure I can get a sense of the nature of a hill without running it. We classify hills in my world based on the local Winter Hill (which we run every Thursday) and Derry (the big hill in the Boston Prep race in that town in New Hampshire). And, no, we don’t use Heartbreak Hill as a reference. I can’t say why.
- Chicago Tribune
by Adena Schutzberg on 10/12 at 07:35 AM |
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The Watchdog at the Dallas News critiques the online crime maps in the area and points out something that’s missing:
What the [City of Dallas’] map doesn’t do is delineate neighborhoods so you can see how yours as a whole is doing as far as crime trends. Such information is important to help neighborhood associations and crime watch programs focus their resources.
The author also notes the “hokey” symbols, but that’s less of an issue.
by Adena Schutzberg on 10/12 at 07:00 AM |
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[Francisca] Dayrit [executive vice president of the GeoData Systems] said the creation of a GIS base map of the Philippines would be nothing short of monumental. It would take 13,000 map sheets to cover the Philippines. It will also take eight months for 100 sheets to be created, she added.
- Inquirer.net
by Adena Schutzberg on 10/12 at 06:50 AM |
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Recent research from Compete found that 55% of iPhone owners use navigation and/or GPS at least a few times a week, compared with just 31% of the total smartphone population. But while people are using navigation on their phones, they’re not downloading many apps (only 22% use something other than the preloaded Google Maps) and they’re not willing to pay much more than $5 for them, said Danielle Nohe, director-consumer technologies at Compete.
by Adena Schutzberg on 10/12 at 06:00 AM |
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The answer for Gray County, Ontario came from the county planning staff but is detailed by Planning Director Jan McDonald:
It’s not a county responsibility to provide site by site information about taxes and assessment,” McDonald said. McDonald explained that Grey County is not responsible for maintaining up-to-date assessment and property tax information about properties across the county. Those responsibilities lie with MPAC and lower tier municipalities. “The concern we have is the date of the information. To provide that information on our GIS website would take some time and effort and if there was an error (a user) would call the county and we wouldn’t have the information to determine what’s right,” she said.
She went on to note the data is available at municipal offices. Chatsworth Mayor Howard Greig had concerns, too.
“I think there is a real legal question with this. With that information somebody could filter out that there is a single person living alone in a million dollar home. This has the potential to be used for the wrong purpose,” said Greig, pointing out that the county is not denying the public information. “The information is available. Somebody can go into any municipal office and go through the tax rolls,” he said.
- Blue Mountains Currier Herald
by Adena Schutzberg on 10/12 at 06:00 AM |
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