Here is an interesting new community mapping project in the same vein as the pop vs soda mapping project. Wired magazine has an interesting article about a webpage entitled commoncensus.org, that is designed to help shed light on how Americans perceive their surroundings. Specifically, the website directs you to provide information on where you live (address) and from there it asks you to identify which area (community, city, etc..) you identify with the most. The end product is a U.S. map that provides a better understanding of which areas/regions that people associate themselves with. This appears to …

India, South Korea, Thailand, the Netherlands and a few other countries have expressed concern about the quality of satellite images on Google Maps and their potential use by terrorist groups. Maybe Google is trying to be the new Microsoft. Apparently, not everyone is excited about the way in which Google Maps may change the world. Wired magazine has an article (India: Google Maps Too Graphic, originally titled Google Terror Maps) discussing how security officials in several countries such as India and South Korea are concerned about the possible misuse of Google map data. In particular, security officials are concerned that …

One of the most talked about new uses of mapping has spawned more than a few articles about its impact on society. While Google Maps and its competitors are no competition for a true GIS package it is an innovation in terms of non-technical users. As the map search wars are now just starting to heat up several respected technology magazines have articles sizing up the innovation, uses, and odds of who will win. In particular, Technology Review has an excellent article entitled Killer Maps, while Geospatial Solutions article is entitled Google Sparks Search Wars. Read and enjoy and please …

As is to be expected, GIS and mapping are playing a big role in the analysis, and future prevention efforts, of Hurricane storm damage. While GIS has been used for years to map and analyze hurricanes and hurricane damage it appears that GIS has taken on a bigger role this year. This article in Wired on mapping Katrina's storm surge damage discusses the attempt to map the damage in hopes of using the information to create an atlas for future hurricane preparedness. It appears the data is going to be mapped for all of the gulf coast area and that …

What's all the fuss about the Chicagocrime.org Google hack. While this site gets all the press the Chicago Police Department has been mapping for years and putting it on the web for all to see. The press likes to talk about the great Google hacks that are starting to pop up on the net with the most popular discussion seeming to center on Chicagocrime.org. This is a simple hack in which Adrian Holovarty has taken publicly available crime data and mapped it for all to see using Google hacks. While at first blush this seems an innovative use …

New versions of GeoDa software are being developed as open source software and will be available for the Mac and Unix systems. For all of those of you who conduct spatial analysis of areal data you probably already know about GeoDa, the great FREE software developed by Luc Anselin at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This standalone piece of software allows users to conduct exploratory spatial data analysis as well as spatial regression analysis all without the need of a GIS. Importantly, because Luc Anselin is a Mac guy he decided to create a version for Mac and Unix …

How low has Hollywood sunk? Apparently low enough to make a teen/college killer-in-the-woods movie with geocaching as the main setup. Start lining up now for the 2006 release of this sure to be Oscar contender. Gadget site Engadget had an article about the upcoming low budget movie G.P.S. that appears to be a Blair Witch type movie in which kids get lost in the woods and killed while on a geocaching hunt. I guess this officially means that GPS and geocaching have entered the mainstream. Not enough on the website to give it a review, but as …

Geospatial Solutions has an interesting story about a company (PBS&J Consulting) that created a hurricane debris model for Broward County Florida. The article describes the techniques used in creating the model, and models created by the Army Corp of Engineers, including data sources, assumptions, and problems with the models. For those interested in spatial modeling the article provides an interesting discussion about how models are created including the limitations of data and assumptions.