Map Highlight Green-ness of New Chicago Apt Building

The building 215 West has its own website as the developer tries to sell apartments. The site, developed by Jupiter Communications, includes an interactive local 3D map with points of interest within a 2 mile radius. You can get directions to the locations by clicking through to a Google Map. There’s also a tool to show the carbon footprint of the trip if done by different sizes of car, walking or public transit. For those who don’t think about such things: walking and public transit are always lowest, followed by compact cars, then larger cars.

Also noteworthy: a flash furniture arranger to help potential residents layout their new digs.

- press release

U Calgary Unveils GPS Training Tool in Use by Canadian Olympic Ski Team

...the Sensor for the Training of Elite Athletes (STEALTH). It is a GPS-based system that helps alpine skiers perfect their technique and route, or line selection, down a course. It helps them get down a slope in the fastest and most efficient manner.
...
The system includes a small sensor worn on a skier’s belt. It tracks the speed and position of a skier down the mountain. When the run is played back later on a monitor using STEALTH’s Alpine GNSS Graphics software, coaches and skiers can easily see where improvement is needed.

The sensor is quite accurate: “STEALTH performs with an accuracy of five centimeters and up to a timing accuracy of .1 millisecond,” which is key because the skiiers are moving very fast.

In my sport of running we are moving slowly enough (or at least I am!) that ideally we can find the best route on a curvy course. That said, when I ran tangents in a recent race on curvy forest roads, my competitors gave me strange looks.

- First Tracks Online

Largest Cruise Ship offers Kid Locator

If I follow the article correctly, all youth from 3-11 must wear a wristband while on the boat. Their folks can pay $17.50 to use the tracking feature is provides. If the trial on the Oasis of the Seas is successful, the service will be offered on other vessels. The article says the tech used is GPS, but it’s supposed to work across 16 decks, so something is in use, too.

- Telegraph

Another Field Losing Practioners: Eyes in the Sky

It turns out many radio stations are grounding their helicopter traffic reporters. Now many report from in front of multiple monitors tracking feeds and video cameras. Some do reports for multiple stations under multiple names, often for far less pay than when they were in the air.

Traffic information (if not the causes of backups) provided on GPS or phone-based apps are part of the reason traffic is less of importance. Another reason: music stations find they do better (that is have more listeners) when the don’t interrupt with traffic reports.

- AP

Quote of the Week

“The Geographic Information System has been a valuable tool for the county. But the map it uses of the county was made in 2001 through aerial fly-overs. Now, nearly a decade later, that map is quickly becoming outdated.”

- Joe Benedict, writing in the Fort Madison Daily Democrat about how Lee County, Iowa is considering new aerial imagery.