Over on his blog, Bill Dollins muses about the range and ubiquity of the Python language in the geospatial realm. It’s true – if you work with ESRI products on a daily basis (like I do) you almost can’t get away without using Python one way or the other, be it for scripting some workflow, … Continue reading Py all means
From Penn State University and partners comes the fourth instalment in the Geospatial Revolution series [18 mins]. The programme is an “outreach initiative about the world of digital mapping and how it is changing the way we think, behave, and interact” – and it’s great for any (soon-to-be) geo-enthusiast! The rest of the episodes can be … Continue reading Geospatial Revolution Episode 4 is available!
According to a presentation by two UK researchers at Where 2.0 conference, iOS4 devices constantly track and timestamp their location and dump that data into a file, which is shared with your desktop computer if you choose to backup your iPhone’s content. This presents a major potential for privacy breach. For some phones, there could … Continue reading iOS4 devices track and store their location
Much has been talked and theorised about, and much has been done to, the London Tube Map, the epitome of the intersection of information design and abstract network cartography. From fourthway comes now a handy tool to draw some interesting comparisons: The Real Underground allows you to morph the current London Underground Map into the 1933 Harry … Continue reading London Tube Maps
Yesterday in the late afternoon the Swiss Federal Office of Topography (Swisstopo) declared (German) the exposure of maps via web service and opening up of their API (press release also only in German) through Swisstopo web access (brief description in English) with the following two options: WMTS option (Web Map Tile Service): This service lets you display current geodata (aerial … Continue reading Swiss maps on your website
A new method developed by Wang et al. claims to be able to geolocate IP addresses much (they claim 50 times) more accurately than has been previously feasible. The new method uses a three-tier approach: 1) sending a data packet and measuring how long it takes to bounce back, indicating an imprecise distance; 2) doing the same with all institutions with known geolocation (for example, universities or businesses) within 200 km distance of the first guess and comparison of bounce-back-times to refine the estimated location; 3) doing a similar refinement to 2) at a finer resolution.
Continue reading “New method locates you within a few hundred metres”
Starting from yesterday the Processing team offers Processing 0195 pre-release for download. Lots of bugs have been fixed and 0195 is considered a stepping stone for a Processing 1.5 stable release in a few days. (via Ben Fry) Continue reading Processing 0195
A rant just arrived in my inbox, by Mikel Maron via the Geowanking mailing list. While I think Mikel has some valid points, I am still (naïvely?) optimistic that the bleak picture he paints will not materialise in really bad outcomes. Hopefully.
But who knows. In two events (about one and about three years ago) I asked two GeoGooglers (Ed Parsons being one of them) about the relationship, and its anticipated development, between Google and OpenStreetMap (OSM). Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), the answers were very vague and suggested that OSM is “not perceived as a competition” by Google and also that cooperation is “not impossible”. Continue reading “GoopenStreetMaple: Information wants to be free”
Above picture shows a potato-shaped earth. It’s called a geoid and shows the actual (but highly exaggerated) form of our planet. The surface of potato earth represents the form of an ideal surface which water would adopt if it covered the whole earth and if there would be no currents induced by tides or wind. … Continue reading Potato earth
Today’s Economist‘s Daily Chart features a diagram of scientific citations per country: The diagram has two parts: a donut chart showing the proportion of citations per country for 1999-2003 and one for 2004-2008. The (not terribly surprising) story (or at least the interpretation of the numbers by the Royal Society) is that research has become … Continue reading Citation donuts
By filing a legal suit against Deutsche Telekom German politician Malte Spitz (Green party) was able to obtain data recorded under the German preventive data retention act. He chose to publish the data which was collected in the timespan from August 2009 to February 2010 and encompassed exactly 35.831 individual records (Spitz’s phone checked for … Continue reading Geoprofiling using cellphone data (and some volunteered information)
Through this post on GIS and Science I learnt about CrisisCommons which appears to be some kind of meta-organisation for disaster relief organisations. I registered with their Google Group and I’m curious to learn what exactly they are doing and whether I can maybe contribute something to their work. Continue reading CrisisCommons
