For once for a slightly different map: PopSci has a geo-centric map of the visible universe as it was acquired over time, from 1950 (top) to 2011 (bottom), precisely: Different object categories are coloured differently in the map. For example, the inner green ring above consists of minor planets, the blue dots are stars. In … Continue reading Map of the Universe
NPR has a nice video on their website with a playful visualization of how humanity grew to count 7 billion living people. Using more or less leaky glasses as a metaphor, the video visualizes the population growth which has been taking place in different regions of the world since AD 1000. Hitting the 7 billion … Continue reading Visualizing the growth to 7 billion
Directions Magazine has an article by Adena Schutzberg and Tina Cary who investigated what 216 companies in the geospatial industry tweeted during two days in 2011. The total number of analysed tweets amounted to 430. The gist of the results: The majority of tweets were sent out in bulk, there was only limited interaction with other … Continue reading What geospatial companies tweet
Having seen a visualization by Robert Kosara of EagerEyes a loooong time ago, I wanted to try to reproduce it for Switzerland using Processing. This is the first installment of a two-parts post covering this project, in which I will describe how to arrive at an intermediate result. I’ll do that in some detail, maybe this is helpful to somebody.
The visualization is called the ZIPScribbleMap: “ZIP” for postal codes, “Scribble” for rather obvious reasons (as in “it looks like what I doodle while on the phone!”): 
Continue reading “ZIPScribble Map: Switzerland – Part I”
Wired has a gallery of ten iconic images of our planet from space, three of which are displayed below – enjoy! Continue reading Blue marble pictures
See the wide channel that runs from left to right with the windy river in it? You are looking at one of the most amazing stories in geological history ever. I’d like to tell you about it. Over on Scienceblogs, Greg Laden has a great article. He starts by looking at above map and digs … Continue reading A tale of times long gone
While the news on Historypin is still fresh, the next project made its way onto my radar. Like Historypin, the “What was there” project crowdsources photos from times past and has them geocoded by users/contributors a.k.a. produsers. You can browse the collection on their website or using their mobile app – provided you’re living in … Continue reading “What was there” project: More geocoded old photographs
While Google Earth is still around, it makes sense to maximise its usefulness. The Google Earth Blog shares some nice pointers how to tune your GEarth installation in case you experience performance issues. They’ve also recently covered a company called KMZmaps.com which offers a set of custom KMZ overlays for use in GEarth. Honestly, I … Continue reading Some GEarth tips
Behold this HD timelapse video of the view aboard the International Space Station (ISS). I can’t find first-hand information on its author, but PopSci claims that it was created by a certain James Drake, who stitched together 600 publicly available images shot from the ISS. The cities’ lights look great, especially together with the frequent thunderstorms lighting up the clouds (watch in HD and full-screen)! Continue reading “Timelapse video lets you ride the ISS – Canada to Chile in a minute”
Apparently, Iranian officials have decided to build a service to counter the success of Google Earth, which is described as a website that “was designed and built by the global arrogance for espionage purposes and to gather information from other countries” (Brigadier-General Mohammad Hasan Nami quoted in a Mehr news agency report). The new website … Continue reading A GEarth challenger from Iran
I don’t know how I managed to miss out on Historypin by an organisation called We Are What We Do. Historypin is a website that lets you overlay old photographs and other media on Google Street View imagery.
Continue reading “Historypin lets you fuse past and present (a.k.a. Street View)”
Crowdsourcing projects like OpenStreetMap, Google Map Maker or Building Maker without compensation for contributors rely on volunteers’ efforts. There are various studies which try to shed light on the motivational factors of such volunteers. One way to motivate people to contribute their time and effort can be to make them feel that they are part of … Continue reading Motivating volunteers
