Jonathan Frishtick, GIS/GPS Mapping
1. Create Custom Google Maps for Android
“The app lets you quickly create a custom map for your Android phone from any map image or photo file. The image can be a photo or scan of a paper map. It could even just be the photo of a map posted at the beginning of a trailhead or at the entrance to an amusement park, which you can capture with your smartphone camera.” http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2011/10/create-custom-google-maps-for-android.html
2. Searching the Earth for Art From Google Earth Blog
Searthing was created by Mack Lazarus and Tim Schmauch, who are behind the similar EarthArtWorld.com site. The two site both focus on artistic-looking imagery, but Searthing is designed in a blog format to show off much more of it.
3. Occupy Wall Street on Google Maps from Google Earth Blog
The Daily Kos has created a Google Map of over 200 Occupy Wall Street events and Facebook pages throughout the United States.
4. State halts work on Lowell Mountain Wind Project.
From VTDigger.org
Construction on the Kingdom Community Wind Project is temporarily on hold after the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources issued a stop-work order.
Green Mountain Power, the utility that is building the project, violated part of its Clean Water Act permit when it failed to comply with part of its sediment control plan.
5. Strange Agricultural Landscapes Seen From Space
From Wired Science
My favorite is the Bolivian soybean fields. They look like snowflakes.
6. Find out where the Google Street View cars are currently on the road
7. Best Mars Images From Orbiter’s First 5 Years
From Wired Science
Truly phenomenal photos. You can actually see the Mars rover Opportunity in some of the photos.
8. New ArcGIS Online Basemaps
“We added an entry for the new Light Gray Canvas basemap which provides a neutral basemap that makes your thematic data really stand out… We renamed the ‘Physical’ basemap to ‘Physical and Ocean’ and added the Ocean basemap into this as a layer. “
9. Sea Ice Extent Animation updated for 2011
From Google Earth Blog: As they’ve done for the past few years (here is 2010), the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has produced their annual Sea Ice Extent data
While 2011 wasn’t a record year for ice loss, it came close, ending just slightly above the mark set in 2007. You can view the data for yourself by loading this KMZ file .
10. The Guardian newspaper has created a Google Map showing Murder rates Around the World. The map was created using data from the UNODC.
11. Running for Mayor, Ed Lee uses Google Earth to show his plan for San Francisco Job Growth
From the Google Earth Blog:
“I don’t know the details of Ed Lee’s political agenda, and that information is irrelevant for this post, but he’s recently used Google Earth in a very creative way. In one of his recent TV ads, Ed made great use of Google Earth to help show off his plan for creating new jobs across the San Francisco area. Details on how the video was created aren’t available, but it appears that they simply took some carefully-planned Google Earth footage and then added all of the labels and highlights in a video editing suite like Final Cut Pro. As such, no KML or tour are available.”
12. Google partnered with NASA, ESA and JAXA to launch a new YouTube channel called Space Lab. Commander Mike Fossum, from the International Space Station, invites you to come up with a science experiment for space and upload a video explaining it to YouTube.
13. Display Real Time Lightning Strikes in GE
From Google Maps Mania:
“Blitzortung.org works with a community of users, who have built their own lightning receivers, to automatically display live lightning data on a Google Map.”
14. Yipes! From WIRED Threat Level blog:
California Gov. Jerry Brown is vetoing legislation requiring police to obtain a court warrant to search the mobile phones of suspects at the time of any arrest.
“The Sunday veto means that when police arrest anybody in the Golden State, they may search that person’s mobile phone — which in the digital age likely means the contents of persons’ e-mail, call records, text messages, photos, banking activity, cloud-storage services, and even where the phone has traveled.”
15. From Spatial Sustain:
“Boston Rare Maps, a specialist dealer in rare and unusual antique maps, has launched AmericanMapmaking.com, an online exhibit of maps of America from 1782-1800. The exhibit was originally hosted at the Harvard Map Collection, and illustrates an evolution in the country and its mapmaking ability.”
If you particularly like an item or have comments, please email me, gis.gps.mapping(at)gmail.com
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