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It’s been a couple of weeks so that means time again for another Geo Carnival… a fun roundup of GeoMusings and down-right cool, GeoGeekery from around the web. The first 2 GeoCarnivals... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

It's been a couple of weeks so that means time again for another Geo Carnival... a fun roundup of GeoMusings...

The Garmin marine team is in northwest this weekend for the start of the Seattle Boat Show, the largest boat show on the west coast. The booth is full of the latest and greatest in Garmin equipment, including the new GSD black-box sounders, GDL 40 cellular weather receiver and of course, Garmin's wide array of our popular touchscreen MFDs. From 7- to 15-inches, we've been doing demos for customers since the doors opened. With the BlueChart g2 Vision cards, we can easily show the features and benefits of Garmin's exclusive Auto Guidance technology, which searches through all relevant charts to create a route you can actually follow - one that avoids obstacles, shallow water, buoys and other obstructions. 

And Garmin equipment isn't just in our booth - our plotters, radars, instruments and sensors can be found on a wide variety of boats around the convention center, too. From Wooldrige aluminum boats to Ranger Tug trawlers to Pursuit offshore sport cabins, Garmin can be found as installed and standard equipment around the show. Here's a look at the new Ranger Tugs R-31, a trailerable trawler equipped with a GPSMAP 5215 in the main cabin, a GPSMAP 5212 on the command bridge, and GMR 18 radome on the mast, just announced at this show.  

If you're in Seattle for the show, make sure to stop by the Garmin booth, Concourse booth #2132, to check out what's new! 

Sometimes when you’re in a new city, it’s great to be able to find familiar places nearby. Now you can find the closest locations of your favorite go-to spots, right on the business’ foursquare page.

Love Starbucks? On Starbucks’ foursquare page you’ll see a map with all the locations nearby, so you can pick the closest one to visit. Plus, when you’re on a particular Starbucks venue page, we’ll show you the other closest options.

The nearby map is now on hundreds of business pages, with more to come soon. Here are some places to try out!

• Look for the closest Zipcar locations and get away for the weekend!
• Museum lovers, find all of MoMA’s locations in New York (if you’re in New York, zoom out to see them all!).
• Local business love! See The Beanery’s locations in Oregon.
• If your gym has multiple locations, you can find the closest place to work out, even when you’re travelling.

We’ve been rolling out a bunch of features to help make exploring easier, like photos on brand pages, menus, and Explore on the web. Stay tuned for even more improvements!

Merchants, find more information about linking your brand page to your locations here.

Sunday 2/26/12 from 4:40 to 6:20 in Gramercy Suite A, Hilton NY, Second Floor

In over 40 years of GIS development and use, researchers continue to turn to fundamental concepts of GIScience. At a point in time where geographic information has become a key enabler for many information age developments, the GI Systems and Sciences Specialty Group is organizing its annual Tobler lecture on 2/26/12 as an event to engage these issues.

Two esteemed GIScientists, Nicholas Chrisman and Andrew Frank, will offer their thoughts about fundamental concepts in GIScience picking up on past exchanges. These researchers have engaged questions about core conceptual issues in GIScience throughout their careers and are known for viewpoints that bring the range of conceptual issues to the fore. Two observations frame these parts of the discussion. First, is that the field of GIScience is undergoing changes as GI becomes an essential part of ubiquitous computing environments. Second, it will be now 50 years since Waldo Tobler published his dissertation, an academic event that preceded an illustrious career. The Tobler Lecture Event 2012 comes at a highly suitable moment to consider the past, reflect on the present and think about the role of GIScientists in shaping the future. To round off the Tobler Lecture Event Dan Sui will offer a commentary on their presentations and Kate Beard will moderate the event. An online discussion forum (see below) extends the discussion.

The title of this year’s lecture, ”Are there fundamental concepts to GIScience?”,  addresses the continued importance of engaging underlying conceptual issues in science. In this regard, and reflecting Waldo Tobler’s engagement with fundamental concepts that informed the development of GIS and GIScience. The contributions and comments should take up fundamental concepts with an eye towards engaging where geographic information science and technologies are going. Relevant to our contributions and discussion at the lecture is the milestone we are reaching that Waldo Tobler’s PhD was completed in 1961, 50 years ago. One point of engagement for the lecture is thus: Where are fundamental concepts now in relationship to developments of the last fifty years? The 2012 Tobler lecture comes at a good point in time to reflect on where GIScience is going and its relationship to the harnessing of geographic information technologies in ubiquitous computing. The event, online group discussion and publications engage spatial information communication, archival, and analysis issues that remain central to GIScience.

Interactive discussion forum: https://groups.google.com/group/gisciconcepts.

Everyone can read group postings; however you need to join the group to make postings. You can subscribe to the group through the web interface or via email. To subscribe to the group through the web interface, simply log in to your Google Account and visit the group of your choice. Then click the “Join this group” link on the right-hand side of the page under “About this group.” You can also email fharvey@umn.edu to request an invite if you want to post messages to the group. These online discussions will be taken up at the event. Follow-up discussions as well as a publication with written versions of the presentations and discussion contribution are planned.

The 2011 Tobler lecture event promises to offer rich food for thought on the past, present, and future of GIScience.

Further information on Google Groups is at: http://support.google.com/groups/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46601

The Tobler Lecture 2012 Event is scheduled for Sunday 2/26/12 from 4:40 to 6:20 in Gramercy Suite A, Hilton NY, Second Floor.

Plan to come to the Transactions in GIS lecture held in the same room before the Tobler Lecture Event.

Filed under: Geography, GIS, GIScience

Toronto Police Constable Scott Mills, who’s also the Social Media Adviser for Crime Stoppers International, is encouraging officers everywhere to use foursquare to connect with their neighborhoods! Scott checks in when he’s giving community talks, to let people know when and where he’s on patrol, or to keep them posted on breaking crime scenes.

People love to comment on Scott’s check-ins, come say hi when he’s nearby, and even oust him as the Mayor of the police station headquarters! See one of his awesome presentations here.

ZooKeys, 150 (2011), Special issue: 407-417, e-Infrastructures for Data Publishing in Biodiversity Science

Sujit Narwade, Mohit Kalra, Rajkumar Jagdish, Divya Varier, Sagar Satpute, Noor Khan, Gautam Talukdar, Vinod Mathur, Karthikeyan Vasudevan, Dinesh Singh Pundir, Vishwas Chavan, and Rajesh Sood

“The northeast region of India is one of the world’s most significant biodiversity hotspots. One of the richest bird areas in India, it is an important route for migratory birds and home to many endemic bird species. This paper describes a literature-based dataset of species occurrences of birds of northeast India. The occurrence records documented in the dataset are distributed across eleven provinces of India, viz.: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The geospatial scope of the dataset represents 24 to 29 degree North latitude and 78 to 94 degree East longitude, and it comprises over 2400 occurrence records. These records have been collated from scholarly literature published between1915 and 2008, especially from the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society (JBNHS). The temporal scale of the dataset represents bird observations recorded between 1909 and 2007. The dataset has been developed by employing MS Excel. The key elements in the database are scientific name, taxonomic classification, temporal and geospatial details including geo-coordinate precision, data collector, basis of record and primary source of the data record. The temporal and geospatial quality of more than 50% of the data records has been enhanced retrospectively. Where possible, data records are annotated with geospatial coordinate precision to the nearest minute. This dataset is being constantly updated with the addition of new data records, and quality enhancement of documented occurrences. The dataset can be used in species distribution and niche modeling studies. It is planned to expand the scope of the dataset to collate bird species occurrences across the Indian peninsula.”

• Read the paper

Filed under: Environmental Science

Cambridge,MA - Self-Serve Hardware Gets Merchants Up and Running on Nationwide Mobile Payment Network in Minutes - Today, LevelUp announces a new custom hardware line for merchants. Now, any business, regardless of location, can sign up for LevelUp (for free) and be up and running in minutes. Open the box, turn on the T-Mobile terminal, plug it in,...

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There’s an interesting story today in Forbes about hoax signs placed in the streets of New York by an unnamed geospatial analyst. The signs warn, “ATTENTION: Drone Activity in Progress,” and “ATTENTION: Local Statute Enforced by Drone.” The perpetrator is an Iraq veteran who has grown concerned about the use of drones for domestic purposes. [...]

by Ryan Calo, Stanford Center for Internet and Society, January 20, 2012 As robots leave the factory and battlefield and enter our homes, hospitals, and skies, it is not clear who will come to regulate them. But we can begin to spot some interesting patterns. Students of this transformative technology should keep their eye on [...]

Yesterday, Google released Google Earth 6.2. 

From the announcement: "With Google Earth 6.2, we’re bringing you the most beautiful Google Earth yet, with more seamless imagery and a new search interface. Additionally, we’ve introduced a feature that enables you to share an image from within Google Earth, so you can now simply and easily share your virtual adventures with family and friends on Google+. [...] We’ve also made some updates to the search feature in Google Earth. Aside from streamlining the visual design of the search panel, we’ve enabled the same Autocomplete feature that's available in Google Maps." 

On the welcomed seamless globe: "While this change will appear on all versions of Google Earth, the 6.2 release provides the best viewing experience for this new data." Sri Lanka, before and after:

A quick reminder, Slashgeo has its Google+ page too (but it's inactive at the moment, that doesn't mean it's not worth adding it to your circles ;-).

Related, the GEB shares an entry named Google Earth 6 now required for Street View.

In another sign Nokia is reshaping itself comes its decision to get out of the advertising business. Finnish group Nokia has sold its media advertising business to a U.S. startup Matchbin as it focuses on core businesses, a company spokesman said on Friday without disclosing detail... Continue reading

Forgotten.pl is a Polish website dedicated to abandoned buildings, rail-roads, underground tunnels, castles, military sites and any other locations that have long been neglected. The site has a huge database of user submitted abandoned locations. If you are keen to explore the abandoned Poland it is probably best to explore the site using the category filter. Each category (buildings, military, castles etc) has its own Google Map that allows users to search for individual entries by location.

Google Earth 6.2 had a "prettier" version of its imagery. No, it's not new data just a new smoothing algorithm. Today, we’re introducing a new way of rendering imagery that smooths out this quilt of images. The end result is a beautiful new Earth-viewing experience that preserves... Continue reading

Last week we showed you the fresh satellite imagery and tour of the wreck of the Costa Concordia. It was a great file that helped to show what happened, but now Peter Olsen (who just days ago unveiled the excellent Terra Nova models) has built an incredible 3D tour of the wreck, with the entire journey animated!

The speed has been increased to save time, so you don't have to wait 2-1/2 hours for it to finish, but it's otherwise as accurate as possible. To see it for yourself, simply visit the Costa Concordia Disaster Animation page in the Google 3D Warehouse and choose the "View in Google Earth" link.

If you're not familiar with using Tour files in Google Earth, simply click the "Double-click me!" text on the left to get it started, then click the play button at the bottom to step through the introductory slides, as seen here:

Fully animated tours like this are a great way to recreate events, and Peter is one of the best around at creating them. A similar example you might want to check out is his recreation of the 1977 Tenerife Airport disaster from a few years ago. Great job, Peter!

We’re fast into a new calendar year, predictions have been lain and we’re already beginning to see the emergence of some new and exciting technologies that will change future markets.

Last year was an incredibly exciting year for GeoIQ. We were fortunate to work with a number of amazing users that are solving hard and meaningful problems. We launched products that have had an indelible mark on changing the mapping and geospatial web and a few new capabilities that we’re just getting started with.

A New Kind of Basemap

Nearly a year ago today we rethought the basemap when we launched Acetate. Our goal was to move beyond the cookie cutter standard maps that are confusing when visualizing thematic data and instead build a clean context where the data are more easily read and understood. And beyond just a simple “basemap”, Acetate peeled apart the map where data fits within the other layers of roads and placenames for a beautiful composite map.

We made Acetate the default basemap on GeoCommons as well as provided a terrain version. And because Acetate was built with open data and open tools we have distributed it to our users both online and offline in the field and behind firewalls – providing a simple mapping experience to everyone.

What we were hoping for, and happily saw occur, was the adoption of Acetate and the concept across the community.

GeoCommons 2.0 & Collaboration

Last Spring we revamped our user experience and launched GeoCommons 2.0. With the new capabilities, easier to create maps for everyone we felt that we truly opened up mapping and analysis to the world. To date, the community has grown to over 80,000 users per month and 4 million maps – considerably large for what used to be considered a niche domain.

For the first time, we provided free and open access to powerful geospatial analysis. At Where2.0 I spoke about Collaborative Analytics – enabling groups and organizations to quickly and easily share insight and make decisions together. Through GeoCommons anyone is able to ask a question and see their answers within a few minutes. But the true power occurs when they share this with their colleagues or friends – whether that’s within their team’s wiki or posting it to Facebook.

Beyond just a better user experience, we also did a lot under the hood to leverage the scaling of the Cloud. We can now dynamically increase or decrease GeoIQ on demand based on usage, ensuring that data is globally and immediately available. We also made this a core capability to the GeoIQ platform so that organizations deploying the GeoIQ platform behind their firewalls can do it quickly and easily.

The point is that only through collaboration of analysis can we reach concensus. Last year we shared with the world that idea, and looking forward we have a lot of concepts on how to make this more capable for monitoring and alerting on new information.

Graceful Degradation & HTML5

Web Browser innovation has evolved to a new era of web technology that we’re now starting to utilize. Historically Adobe Flash was the only way to provide truly performant and highly interactive visualizations. It still is the most powerful technology with nearly ubiquitous adoption. However, we’re finally seeing the advent of web native formats that are open and provide similar capabilities. Last year we introduced the capability for fully Javascript HTML5 maps when a user didn’t have Flash available. This ‘graceful degradation’ allowed users with Flash available to use the best performance, but also users the viewed maps on iPads or other devices to use the HTML5 maps seamlessly.

Looking forward this concept of appropriate interfaces for the user is being extended to more mobile screens, and even smaller and offline tablets. You can’t presuppose how or where a user will want to see and use their data so we’ll be pushing more into making GeoIQ maps and data available wherever, and however, you want.

Realtime Maps

Never content to merely improve capability we sought to introduce new ways to access and analyze realtime streaming data. Just as much as users are moving from desktops to mobile, data are moving from static captures to continous and dynamic. GeoIQ provides simple and easy access to these new streams of data that can be combined with static and organizational data to not just visualize, but monitor emerging information and see the impact of events.

The new technology we launched powers GeoIQ Social which has been used from monitoring events to helping search and rescue teams respond to cries for help. Like everything we do at GeoIQ our technology crosses domains to the common elements of time and space to help find solutions and measure their impact.

So those are just some highlights of where we’ve been and what we’ve done. It only begins to convey how busy, and excited, we’ve been the last 12 months alone in developing new and innovative technology that have helped our users and improved our customers. We’re looking forward to the upcoming year planning to develop and share with the word just as much – and even more – in pushing the boundaries of collaborative mapping.

The New York World has produced an excellent Google Maps based visualisation of the Proposed New York Senate Districts. This visualisation of the proposed rezoning works brilliantly in map form, not only because of the obvious geographic nature of creating new senate districts but because the map perfectly illustrates the disparity in the population sizes between upstate and downstate proposed districts. The large red area to the north on the map shows that these proposed districts will each have a smaller population than the blue districts to the south of the map in New York City. In effect New York City voters will count for less than their up-state neighbors. As The New York World states this "regional discrepancy is crucial to Republicans' efforts to preserve their narrow control of the Senate".

In a letter to the FCC, Javad CEO Javad Ashjaee reitarates that the testing procedure used to explore the impact of LightSquared on GPS was political, not scientific. He concludes with a familiar quote as to why his filter-enhanced soutions were not tested: There can be only reason... Continue reading

The U.S. Defense Department intends to reduce planned purchases of commercial satellite imagery in 2013 as part of a broader initiative aimed at reducing U.S. military expenditures by $259 billion over the next five years, according to a Pentagon planning document released Jan.... Continue reading