TrackThePack

Features

Here’s another fun application to be mesmerized by instead of working.  TrackThePack is an application that allows you to follow shipments from multiple delivery companies as your packages travel across the United States.  You have to register to take full advantage of the service, unregistered users can only track a single package at a time.  The shipping ... read more

Portable GIS

Features

Jo Cook has announced that the first release of Portable GIS is now available for downloading.  Portable GIS is a suite of open source GIS applications and supporting tool-kits that can be run off of a memory stick including GRASS, PostgresSQL and open source web mapping software.   This concept was presented at FOSS4G2007 in a ... read more

Weird European Names Quiz

Geography

Spiegel, the German magazine, has fun with some of the weirder names of locations found in Germany and other European cities: Germany has a string of cities that take one through the entire digestive tract: Essen (eat), Darmstadt (intestine city), and Pforzheim (which is close enough to the German word for “fart” to make it a ... read more

Google Earth Browser Plug-in

Internet Mapping

Google’s Lat Long blog made the announcement today of a browser plug-in for Google Earth.  Today, I’m happy to announce the release of the new Google Earth Browser Plug-in, which brings the full power of Google Earth to the web, embeddable within your own web site. Driven by an extensive JavaScript API, you can control the ... read more

Mapping Xenophobic Attacks in South Africa

Geography

With violence against foreigners in South Africa increasing, United for Africa has been mapping out incidents.  The site maps out using Google maps the locations of all incidents as well as a rolling table describing each event.  Visitors to the site can submit incidents either online or via SMS (all submitted claims are verified before ... read more

Geographical Superlatives

Geography

If you want to check out your smarts on the “most” of trivia relating to geography (longest, biggest, tallest, deepest, etc) then checkout the Geographical Superlatives quiz at Infoplease.  There are other quizzes to try along with a host of other resources relating to geography.

Geography at Infoplease.com

Largest GPS Drawing Exposed as a Fraud

GPS

An art student claimed to have prepared a self-portrait using the world as his canvas.  Erik Nordenankar explained on his website that he used a briefcase outfitted with a GPS unit on a detailed journey.  The briefcase was allgedly sent by DHL to over 62 countries over a course of 55 days in a very specific order ... read more

Paper Maps Being Phased Out

Maps

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on the phasing out of the cartography division that serves the California State Automobile Association.   By the end of the year, the twelve-person cartographic unit will be disbanded with mapping services done only by AAA’s national headquarters in Heathrow, Florida.  The cause for the demise is the widespread availability of online ... read more

Traveling from Canada to Australia Requires a Kayak

Internet Mapping

Google Maps latest “what the…” in their online mapping directions now occurs when directions from Canada to Australia are requested.  Gizmodo discovered the hilarious directions to kayak the 12,724 km across the Pacific Ocean when requesting directions from Sydney Airport, Canada to Stanmore, Australia. 

Object Oriented Image Analysis For Urban Development and Management

Features, Industry and Subjects in GIS, Remote Sensing

The research topic is land cover mapping with object oriented image analysis approach. The research took urban conglomeration of Vijayawada city as one of the case study. Over the last 30 years remote sensing methods have operationally been used for environmental issues, especially in areas where only insufficient field data are available for urban development ... read more