Apr

26th 2007

GeoHive

Filed Under Data, World | Leave a Comment

Maintained as a ‘hobby’ by Johan van der Heyden, this web site contains a prolific amount of demographic and socio-economic data for the world as well as statistics broken down by country and city.  Browse through the site and you’ll get a feel for the enormous amount of data that is accessible.  There’s even a ‘links’ section if you’re interested in directly accessing the data from various statistical agencies.

GeoHive, a site with geopolitical data, statistics on the human population, Earth and more. The main kind of data you can find here is population statistics of regions, countries, provinces and cities. Next to that there are some statistics on economic factors like wealth, infrastructure; statistics on natural phenomena.

Visit GeoHive: http://www.geohive.com/

Apr

24th 2007

Geography 101 Pop Quiz

Filed Under Games | Leave a Comment

Take a little time out and test your “Introduction to Geography” skills.  The Daytona Beach News Journal has a list of questions from “Geography 101″ professors.

Geography 101: Pop Quiz

Apr

24th 2007

Geography being left behind?

Filed Under Education | Leave a Comment

With the teaching of geography being left up to the discretion of local teachers, it is becoming more and more a side topic in many schools, taught mixed in with other subjects.  As a result, students are often uneducated in aspects of geography with a recent National Geographic Survey showing that even college students are unable to locate well known points of interest on a map.  Help may soon arrive via the Senate:

Sens. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., recently introduced in Congress the Teaching Geography is Fundamental Act. If passed, the bill would authorize competitive grants through the Department of Education to improve K-12 geography curriculum, teacher training and instructional materials.

Read more:

Daytona Beach News Journal: Geography Lost: The Why of Where 

The Rutland Herald: What in the world happened to geography?

Apr

15th 2007

Geospatial One-Stop (GOS) Outreaches to Local Government Web Mapping Services Important Towards Building National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI)

Filed Under Map Servers | Leave a Comment

The Geospatial One-Stop (GOS) project encourages local governments to register and publish metadata for web mapping services on the GOS portal at www.geodata.gov. 

Increased availability of data and web mapping services through the GOS portal significantly supports local, state, tribal, and federal governments, and improves homeland security and disaster relief efforts across the country. It is widely recognized local governments make a tremendous contribution towards building the National Spatial Data infrastructure (NSDI).

New enhancements to the GOS portal include improved spatial search functions, tools to identify potential partners in data acquisition efforts, easy-to-use registration forms to start publishing metadata records, and greater access to a growing number of on-line web mapping services from across the country.

 

Local governments interested in getting started with publishing metadata for web mapping services – which can take as little as 15 minutes – are encouraged to visit the www.geodata.gov or contact Sam Wear, local government liaison to GOS, at stw1@westchestergov.com or 914-995-3047.

Apr

14th 2007

Trimble Launches Premium GPS Content Layer for Google Earth

Filed Under GPS, Google Earth | Leave a Comment

GPS Layer Provides Highly Accurate Outdoor Fitness and Adventure Data, Along with Complete
Multimedia Experience for GPS-Enabled Mobile Phones

SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 12, 2007 Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) today launched the first multimedia layer of GPS-based adventure details for Google Earth. The layer incorporates interactive information from the Trimble Outdoors™ catalog of GPS-on-cellular applications, as well as premium content from contributors to BACKPACKER, Bicycling and Mountain Bike magazines.

Premium GPS-based information from Trimble Outdoors and leading national publications is now available as a Google Earth Featured Content Layer. Users can access a wide variety of multimedia data on fitness and outdoor adventures, including routes, points of interest, pictures, video and audio. This information is designed to support the outdoor enthusiast community with new opportunities to explore the earth and share stories of their adventures.

The Trimble Outdoors solution takes advantage of technology convergence by integrating trip details with its planning software, the Web and mobile phone technology to allow users to view and participate in compelling outdoor experiences. Google Earth users can export the layer data to any WAP-capable mobile phone, experience it via a GPS-enabled mobile phone with Trimble Outdoors fitness and outdoor recreational applications, or download to a stand-alone GPS device.

“Trimble Outdoors is providing Google Earth users with the first multimedia GPS content layer for outdoor adventure seekers,” said Larry Fox, business development, Trimble Outdoors. “Using Google Earth and the Trimble Outdoors GPS layer, users can view a 3D trip of running, bicycling or hiking destinations gaining a unique perspective with the addition of audio, video, photos and detailed editorial. Through this interactive interface, users can not only see an activity, they can share an experience.”

For example, hikers, equestrians or families can experience the Pacific Crest Trail online by viewing hundreds of photos, audio clips and videos from BACKPACKER Magazine through Google Earth. Whether these adventure seekers plan to hike a few miles or a few thousand miles, they can download helpful information and virtually fly through several different regions from Mexico to Canada, through California, Oregon and Washington; guided by expert content along the way.

Google Earth combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings. Featured content, such as the new Trimble Outdoors GPS layer, contains highly informative, multimedia-enhanced data about various places around the planet, overlaid on Google Earth imagery. Trimble Outdoors has populated its Google Earth layer with premium fitness and off-road GPS navigation information, such as GPS tracks and waypoints, trailhead directions, trail descriptions, photos, video clips and audio.

About Trimble Outdoors

Trimble Outdoors is a family of GPS-on-cellular applications for consumers.

With Trimble Outdoors, consumers can use their GPS-enabled cell phones to navigate trails and highways, track workout performance, geocache, and create, manage and share those experiences with others.

By leveraging Trimble’s 28 years of commercial expertise in GPS, software, and communications, Trimble Outdoors delivers cost-effective and convenient position-based services that promote consumers’ well-being, security and active lifestyle.

For more information about Trimble Outdoors, visit www.TrimbleOutdoors.com.

For more information about Google Earth or to download the application, visit http://earth.google.com/index.html.

About Trimble

Trimble applies technology to make field and mobile workers in businesses and government significantly more productive. Solutions are focused on applications requiring position or location—including surveying, construction, agriculture, fleet and asset management, public safety and mapping. In addition to utilizing positioning technologies, such as GPS, lasers and optics, Trimble solutions may include software content specific to the needs of the user. Wireless technologies are utilized to deliver the solution to the user and to ensure a tight coupling of the field and the back office. Founded in 1978 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Trimble has a worldwide presence with more than 3,400 employees in over 18 countries.

Investor Relations Contact:   Willa McManmon of Trimble: 408-481-7838

Media Contact:   LeaAnn McNabb of Trimble: 408-481-7808

Apr

10th 2007

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Join in Online Darfur Mapping Initiative

Filed Under Current Events, Google Earth | Leave a Comment

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Join in Online Darfur Mapping Initiative
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum today joined with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) to unveil an unprecedented online mapping initiative aimed at furthering awareness and action in the Darfur region of Sudan. Crisis in Darfur, enables more than 200 million Google Earth™ mapping service users worldwide to visualize and better understand the genocide currently unfolding in Darfur. The Museum has assembled content—photographs, data and eyewitness testimony—from a number of sources that are brought together for the first time in Google Earth. This information will appear as a Global Awareness layer in Google Earth starting today.

Google Earth’s Elliot Schrage, Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs, joined Museum Director Sara J. Bloomfield and Darfurian Daowd Salih at the launch.

Crisis in Darfur is the first project of the Museum’s Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiative that will over time include information on potential genocides allowing citizens, governments and institutions to access information on atrocities in their nascent stages and respond.

“Educating today’s generation about the atrocities of the past and present can be enhanced by technologies such as Google Earth,” says Bloomfield. “When it comes to responding to genocide, the world’s record is terrible. We hope this important initiative with Google will make it that much harder for the world to ignore those who need us the most.”

“At Google, we believe technology can be a catalyst for education and action,” said Elliot Schrage, Google Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs. “Crisis in Darfur will enable Google Earth users to visualize and learn about the destruction in Darfur as never before and join the Museum’s efforts in responding to this continuing international catastrophe.”

Crisis in Darfur content comes from a range of sources—the U.S. State Department, non-governmental organizations, the United Nations, individual photographers, and the Museum. The high-resolution imagery in Google Earth enables users to zoom into the region to view more than 1,600 damaged and destroyed villages, providing visual, compelling evidence of the scope of destruction. The remnants of more than 100,000 homes, schools, mosques and other structures destroyed by the janjaweed militia and Sudanese forces are clearly visible. Humanitarian organizations and others now have a readily accessible tool for better understanding the situation on the ground in Darfur.

With this release, the Museum also announced the creation of a similar mapping project on Holocaust history available on the Museum’s website: www.ushmm.org/googleearth. The Holocaust took place across the entire European continent, and for all of Europe’s Jews, as well as other victims of Nazism, geography played a major role in determining their fate. The Museum is using Google Earth to map key Holocaust sites with historic content from its collections, powerfully illustrating the enormous scope and impact of the Holocaust. Further information on Holocaust-era sites can be accessed through the Museum’s online Holocaust Encyclopedia at www.ushmm.org.

To find Crisis in Darfur on Google Earth, users must download the Google Earth application at no cost from http://earth.google.com. Once downloaded, users will find Crisis in Darfur by flying over Africa. Information on the Museum’s Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiative and the Holocaust mapping layer can be accessed from the Museum’s Web site at www.ushmm.org/googleearth.

About the Museum
A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum stimulates leaders and citizens to confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity and strengthen democracy. Federal support guarantees the Museum’s permanence, and donors nationwide make possible its educational activities and global outreach. For more information, visit www.ushmm.org.

In addition to educating the public about contemporary genocides, through its Academy for Genocide Prevention, the Museum works with State Department and other U.S. government agencies, the military and non-governmental organizations to develop effective methods for responding to and preventing genocide. In July 2004 the Museum declared its first-ever genocide emergency for Darfur and has been a leading voice in educating policy makers and the American public about the urgent need to respond to the genocide there.

About Google Earth
Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google’s search service to make the world’s geographic information easily accessible and useful. There have been over 200 million unique downloads of Google Earth since the product’s launch in June, 2005.

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Google and Google Earth are trademarks of Google Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contact:
Andrew Hollinger
202.488.6133
ahollinger@ushmm.org

Apr

03rd 2007

Google Maps - April Fool’s Page

Filed Under Google Maps, Offbeat | Leave a Comment

Not to be outdone by the annual April Fool’s joke accessible on April 1st from the home page of Google.com, the coders for Google Maps came up with their own April Fool’s page.  Envisioning a world under attack, you can type in an address and choose the type of disaster for that geographic area.  Living in Los Angeles, I naturally went for the giant fizzure in the earth created by an earthquake.

 Check it out: Google Maps: Wishing you a happy April Fools!

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