A unit at the State Deptarment has been working with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) to explore the use of OSM and its community in times of crisis. This week there's a proof of concept exercise mapping refugee camps in the Horn of Africa.
How to help: We are going to open access to the imagery on Monday 21 May 2012. We would like to spend two 24-hour periods tracing the areas of interest, which will include 11 refugee sites. All work will be done through the HOT Tasking Manager (http://tasks.hotosm.org), a microtasking platform that will split up the image tracing into ‘tiles’ that will require approximately 30-45 minutes to map.
Accomplishing this task will require that volunteers become familiar with OpenStreetMapand the basic concepts of mapping. But, don’t worry, there are plenty of resources out there to help. For more information on the OpenStreetMap (OSM) process, see the “Beginning OpenStreetMap Tutorial” available from the LearnOSM website (http://learnOSM.org), specifically Chapters 1,2,3,6. For more information on HOT’s work in Somalia see the HOT Somalia project page, and other HOT related materials on the HOT wiki.
- Disruptive Geo Blog via @disruptivegeo
by Adena Schutzberg on 05/21 at 12:09 PM |
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Google appears to be fighting back [fight OSM, others]. On Tuesday [today] it will announce two new sites aimed at encouraging developers of all skill levels to use its maps for location services and mobile applications. One of the sites has easy-to-follow directions, while the other is a gallery of things people have built with Google Maps.
I don't find the "easy to follow directions" just yet.
- NY Times
Released today [March 14], the newest version of Google Earth for Android and iOS adds a long-awaited feature that should make the mobile mapping experience more like that on the desktop: KML file support.
KML, or Keynote Markup Language, is a file format used to display geographic data in the Google Earth browser. The format can be used by anyone to create and distribute custom map overlays on the Web.
It's pretty sad that the news detailed on the Google Lat Long Blog got so muddled in the Cnet's coverage above. KML is Keyhole Markup Language; it's an open format (sorry encoding standard) now managed by OGC.
- C|net
by Adena Schutzberg on 03/20 at 04:56 AM |
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Update: 5:17 pm EST
Wired and other outlets report the individials were contractors acting on their own and no longer work for Google.
Google said that two people behind the accounts were contractors using machines on Google’s network, but a spokesperson for the search giant added that these contractors were “acting on their own behalf.” The spokesperson also said that the contractors are “no longer working on Google projects.”
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OpenStreetMap officials report vandalism from Google IP addresses.
Preliminary results show users from Google IP address ranges in India deleting, moving and abusing OSM data including subtle edits like reversing one-way streets.
ReadWriteWeb reports Google is aware of the issue and investigating.
- OpenGeoData Blog
OpenStreetMap offers a document to help those switching from other basemaps (Google Maps?) to OSM.
- @geohacker
by Adena Schutzberg on 01/17 at 05:28 AM |
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Alexander Zipf, Chair of GIScience, Department of Geography, University of Heidelberg, Germany shared news of an article comparing OSM and TomTom data in Germany.
A new study by the GIScience Research Group of the University of Heidelberg (
http://giscience.uni-hd.de) that compares the evolution of the crowdsourcing project OpenStreetMap (OSM) with the commercial dataset from TomTom/Teleatlas has just been published. It is available fulltext as Open Access at
http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/4/1/1/ and covers the years 2009 to 2011 in Germany.
As shown earlier the data contributions to OSM show a geographically heterogeneous pattern around the globe. Germany counts as one of the most active countries in OSM; thus, the German street network has undergone an extensive development in recent years. The question that remains is this: How does the street network perform in a relative comparison with a commercial dataset? By means of a variety of studies, the authors show that the difference between the OSM street network for car navigation in Germany and a comparable proprietary dataset was only 9% in June 2011. The results of the analysis regarding the entire street network showed that OSM even exceeds the information provided by the proprietary dataset by 27%. Further analyses show on what scale errors can be reckoned with in the topology of the street network, and the completeness of turn restrictions and street name information. In addition to the analyses conducted over the past few years, projections have additionally been made about the point in time by which the OSM dataset for Germany can be considered “complete” in relative comparison to a commercial dataset.
Neis, Pascal; Zielstra, Dennis; Zipf, Alexander. 2012. "The Street Network Evolution of Crowdsourced Maps: OpenStreetMap in Germany 2007–2011." Future Internet 4, no. 1: 1-21.
doi:10.3390/fi4010001
by Adena Schutzberg on 12/30 at 05:25 AM |
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MapQuest is at Adobe MAX in sunny Los Angeles and we are thrilled to announce the official release of our Mobile Flash Maps API on both licensed data [the regular MapQuest data from companies you know] and open data [OpenStreetMap].
Flash? But it's that so over? No, Adobe doesn't think so.
For those who have been following Adobe lately, you’ve seen some very exciting developments within their Flash Builder (Flex SDK) development tools. With the release of Flash Builder 4.5, you can deploy native mobile applications to Apple iOS, Google Android and Blackberry Tablet from a single code base. Yes, code ONE time and deploy native applications everywhere. For those used to Adobe Flex, Flash Builder is the new name of the development tool to deploy applications using Adobe Flex SDK or ActionScript.
If I understand this correctly the magic that allows this is Adobe Air, Adobe cross-platform run-time envronment which runs as a layer on iOS.
MapQuest Dev Blog via @gletham
Per the OSM Sys Admin
tile scraping apps: MOBAC, NaviComputer, OpenMaps, Locus & oMaps are killing our servers & endangering our hosting
That is NOT good.
- @firefishy1
LearnOSM.org provides a simple-to-use, step by step approach to learning how to make maps with OpenStreetMap. If you are new to OSM the Beginner’s Guide is the best place to start. Over seven chapters this guide shows how to get started with OSM, how to start mapping, and how you can use tools such as GPS, aerial photos, and pens and paper to make maps that anyone can use.
- LearnOSM.org
by Adena Schutzberg on 10/05 at 03:00 AM |
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