McLean’s Smell Maps are Hot Stuff

The Scotsman reports on a map of Glasgow. No information on where it might be viewed, but I found it..

A DESIGNER from Edinburgh College of Art has created an unusual map of Glasgow – charting its smells rather than its streets.

Kate McLean tracked familiar odours such as the carbolic soap scent of the city’s tenement stairwells or the whiff of its Subway. The ten dominant scents of the city have now been represented by a series of different coloured dots arranged in circles charting the flow of aromas around Glasgow.  

- The Scotsman

The same artist, it seems, has one of Newport, RI. I found it here.

The Newport Smell Map Exhibit, by Designer Kate McLean, is on display at the Newport Visitor's Center until Sept. 7.  McLean has developed a way of producing portraits of cities by sensory experiences and has "mapped" Newport for the first time by smell.

- Newport Patch

Is it a slow news week?

Update: $3.7 Billion Reasons Why GIS Technology is The Future

You may have read that headline in a press release at Directions Magazine or elsewhere on the Web. The related sentence in the text reads:

The proof is in a new report from Pike Research. Findings indicate that spending on GIS services, software and tools will increase steadily over the next five years, reaching $3.7 billion in 2017.

A press release from Navigant (which acquired Pike this year) from July reads:

Utility spending on electric utility GIS software and services [emphasis mine] will essentially double from 2011 to 2017, growing from $1.8 billion in 2011 to $3.7 billion in 2017, the market intelligence firm forecasts.

The original source I believe is from a Pike Research press release in April.

I have seen the release referenced several times and want to be sure readers know the overall market numbers are expected to be far larger. For example, see this release from January of this year: Global Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Market to Reach US$10.6 Billion by 2015

I contacted the organization that sent the release and have not heard back.

Singapore Wins International Geography Competition and other Education GIS News

Singapore students have come out tops in the 9th International Geography Olympiad (iGeo) held in Cologne, Germany.

The team obtained two gold and two silver medals, which put the team first among 32 countries.

...This annual competition is organised under the auspices of the International Geographical Union, and consists of written, multimedia and fieldwork tests.

This is the second win for Singapore in the competition which includes written and mulitmedia challenges as well as tackling a field challenge.

- Channel News Asia

The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) has awarded USC GIST student Shawn Baldwin one of its 2012 graduate student fellowships.  Recipients of the highly competitive $5,000 awards are selected by an independent panel of geospatial intelligence professionals.  All awardees are invited to participate in the annual GEOINT symposium, to be held this year in Orlando, Florida in October.  Shawn’s award marks the second year running that a student from the USC GIST program has received this prestigious award.

- USC Spatial Sciences Institute via GIS User

The Austin (TX) Independent School District (AISD) is used GPS to encourage 1700 regularly absent students to get to class. Why? Follow the money.

School districts receive state funding and Medicaid reimbursements partially based on attendance. Even a 1% increase in attendance would result in $5.6 million for AISD. If AISD’s attendance rate improves, then the school district will use most of the state funds received to pay AIM Truancy Solutions.

- Austinist

Why is County Mapping Data Six Years Behind and other Government GIS News

Saline County [MO] Assessor Margaret Pond said the assessor's office is six years behind on its mapping. E911 Director Stacie Smith and GIS Technician Brandon Wolfe provided a plan to unclog and update the system. Smith estimates the county will pay $11,632.50 for the system clean up. The county may incur other costs for maintenance and training.

What's interesting about this not uncommon story is the discussion about it. Readers want to know how the data got out of date and one offers GIS experitse! 

- Marshall Democrat-News

King County, Washington's Local Hazardous Waste Management Program released an interactive map that shows users where to find pesticide-free or pesticide-reduced places for kids and pets to play in the area. There are about 800 of them. Tech: ArcGIS Online.

- B-Town Blog

AN electronic food safety map produced by Shanghai's quality watchdog went online yesterday, providing a way for people to easily check whether local food producers have obtained licenses.

The map at http://t.cn/zWujfsQ lists a total of 1,833 food producers in the city that have acquired production licenses. People can find their addresses, the locations of their factories, their products, license numbers and when the licenses will expire. 

- East Day

Collecting Data and Opinions on Guns in Serbia and other Crowdsourcing GIS News

On 6 September, SEESAC [South Eastern and Eastern European Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons ] will launch an online platform designed to test the idea that guns are entrenched in Serbian society and to find out if there is a silent majority that does not support the widespread existence of firearms. The platform is based on one put out by Ushahidi.

Since SEESAC’s project, Mapping the Gun Culture in Serbia, is a prototype project, it will only concentrate on its participants’ views on gun culture and guns that they’ve seen in public.

“Our goal is to test the accepted attitude that citizens of Serbia are overwhelmingly supportive of weapons possession. In this phase of the project, as we collect public opinion, we also hope to collect information about the circumstances and places where guns are seen in public life,” said Iva Savic, the project’s communications officer, in an email.

- NET PROPHET

Land Information New Zealand is looking into the value of crowdsourcing, as one of its team leaders works on his Master's thesis.

LINZ Geospatial Team Leader Andrew Clouston is interested in the possibilities of facilitated crowd-sourced information that could include additional support or encouragement for specific data.

“Crowd-sourced information could be really valuable – for example, in informing the Spatial Improvement Project. The value in incorporating crowd-sourced information in this situation comes from safely meshing authoritative and VGI datasets,” he said.

“This approach would require greater collaboration and understanding – as well as a willingness for volunteers, regulators and professionals to work together.”

Andrew is currently working on the thesis portion his Masters of Geographic Information Studies with a specific focus on whether there is potential for VGI in the New Zealand Cadastre.

At the moment, he’s collecting information and opinions of those who are interested in either VGI or the cadastre in order to help answer this question. You can help him out by going online and filling out his survey.  

In introducing the survey, the author, Clouston, refers to Open Street Map (it's really OpenStreetMap) as an example of crowdsourcing.

- LINZ Blog

A website helps solve that problem by matching prospective beekeepers with landowners who are more than happy to accommodate bees on their land.

The “Hive Talking” site features an interactive map. This tool has the ability to connect you to gardeners and allotment keepers in your area.

The map is UK and Eruope focused.

- Greener Ideal