Friday, November 20. 2009

Twitter Geo API Available

It went live yesterday (Twitter blog) and the Twittersphere was excited. The only challenge: it's an API so only developers, not end users, could do anything with it. Further, you can't take advantage of the API from the website, so, no cool location maps when using Twitter.com. But, those developers who build their own apps are already using the API: Birdfeed, Seesmic Web, Foursquare, Gowalla, Twidroid, Twittelator Pro. There's a nice best practices doc for developers, that's also valuable for end-users, I must say.

For us end-users on the site: for now, all you can do is turn the geotagging feature on or off (it's OFF by default). You do that via your settings where you can also delete your location history.

ReadWriteWeb has a nice overview of the kinds of apps the API may make possible.

Update 5: AT&T Sues Verizon over "Map for That" Map Ads

In the latest round AT&T responds to Verizon's ads with its own ads. Most reviewers cast them as "lame" and "slapped together." I don't even know who Luke Wilson is, but he runs down a checklist of features (some say with errors) that the two carriers provide. Verizon only "wins" one "x" - for having a name that starts with a "V." Yep, lame.

- WSJ Blog

Continue reading "Update 5: AT&T Sues Verizon over "Map for That" Map Ads"

Quote of the Week

"Technology has changed a great deal since I went to college. We used to take measurements by hand. We now have GIS systems where you can map a boundary. A new person entering the field really needs to have those skills and the new course curriculums such as the program at UC San Diego Extension provide that kind of training."

Bill Chopyk, director of planning and development services for the City of La Mesa, CA and a planner for 25 years on what new geospatial and CAD skills job seekers need, quoted at the San Diego News Network.

Thursday, November 19. 2009

KUOW Weekday: The Arts of Maps (Thursday)

KUOW, based at the University of Washington, hosts its "Weekday" radio program on "The Art of Maps" (9 am pacific) today (Thursday).

Maps tell you more than simply how to get from here to there. Nearly any kind of information can be put into a map. Perhaps that is why cartography is so compelling to artists. What can artists do with maps? What makes maps such a unique art form? Today on "Weekday," we explore the map as art.

Podcast available as of Friday at the page noted above.

Oregon Data Portal Opens

Phase One of the The Oregon Spatial Data Library was launched in November 18 for GIS Day. "The Oregon Spatial Data Library provides easy and convenient ways to find, access and share geospatial data."

It's all ESRI-based, including an ArcGIS Server viewer. Strangely, the basemap that appears has "For Official Use Only" stamped on it. I could not find out why. You can download data (it's actually e-mailed to you) in many formats (MIF, shapefile, E00, KML, GML, GeoJSON, DWG) from the download page, but the viewer only exports bitmaps from what I can tell.

- press release (Note to PR people: this release has not made it to any news sites yet!)

Seen During Geography Awareness Week III

"Unlike flat paper maps, GIS, short for geographic information systems, allows people to analyze relationships between many layers of information at once."

- From an article on Helena 5th graders who attended a GIS Day event at the Montana State Library on KFBB TV.