As mentioned before, I tend to wonder if the people in Googleville ever sleep. The latest evidence is a Map that shows the worldwide distribution of Google searches over the period of a day. In analyzing the map it is possible to see a wave of search use as the sun mover across the earth, although it appears that use remains pretty high in the US no matter what the time. In addition to the map is an article entitled "Interpreting the Data: Parallel Analysis with Sawzall". For those who care the article is being submitted to Scientific Programming Journal …

The Daily Telegraph has an interesting article about the discovery of the oldest "western" map. The map, named the Soleto map, was unearthed two years ago in southern Italy and depicts the heel area of the boot of Italy. Dating from 500 BC, the map contains Greek script marking towns that still exist today. The article details that this map provides the first physical evidence that the Greeks were making maps before the Romans, although maps were already being created in other parts of the world (China, Mediterranean, and Middle East). Overall an interesting read about the earliest cartographers.

With the latest Harry Potter movie opening yesterday, fellow GIS obsessed blog Very Spatial has an article on whether it is possible to truly create a "marauder's map". For those of you who are not versed in the ways of Hogwarts, the marauder's map is a map which shows the current location of every living thing in the Hogwart's castle. In our modern/real world the potential to know the location of people as they moved about their daily lives could be both scary and potentially cool and lucrative. While the article doesn't discuss ethical and or civil liberties issues …

We hope you all enjoyed GIS Day 2005, and look forward to more enjoying it in 2006. Hopefully for 2006, our list will be bigger (and a bit earlier in getting out).

Today is GIS Day! When you look around at the information around you, take stock in what has been put together through GIS systems, and imagine how much more there could be if we processed more with them. Articles like It's about so much more than just maps in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel show that the world is starting to take notice. Even noting that it's an editorial written by a Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (William E. Huxhold), it's still interesting to notice that it was selected to be printed.

Apparently the folks at Google just don't sleep as evidenced by the release of Google Maps for mobile phones today. While Yahoo Maps and others were busy playing catch up, the folks in Googleville, CA were taking their amazingly popular web-mapping application and making it work for mobile phones. As of now it only works for phones that support Java applications and unless you have an unlimited data plan it may run up your phone bill. However after toying around with it for a little while, it has some cool functionality. Read more about the specs and a brief review …

Cnet News has an interesting article about how Tele atlas creates their road databases. Interestingly, they state in the article that its not their fault if you get the wrong directions, rather its a data refresh problem not an data error. Anyway, for anyone who has ever wondered how they create their database this is a short but interesting read.

Akamai, one of the largest traffic pushers on the net (they push traffic locally for web sites that want to get the word out but don't want to have to put servers in every hosting center just to be fast), has a very cool page which displays the Net Usage Index, an indicator of how many people are using the internet for news information based on the sites that they serve for new organizations. The relevance is that the information is displayed geographically (since Akamai is a geographically distributed organization, both in the physical and network senses). Plus, to be …

Five years from now we may look back on 2005 and realize that this was a watershed year in the growth and development of GIS and spatial analysis software in general. From Google maps and all of its press to Hurricanes a plenty in the Gulf region, the world has gained new recognition for the information that maps can provide. However, to make sure that this truly is the year of the map, the GIS industry needs to strike while the iron is hot and to diversify the product line to bring in more people. More after the jump. At …

An article on MobileVillage describes a program in North Carolina, partially funded by a grant from the CDC to provide Rapid Needs Assessment in times of health crisis in the state. The program will use handheld computers, networking, and GIS to pinpoint problem areas, establish routing of emergency services, and maintain up-to-date information. Although it is unclear how this kind of coordination would happen if this kind of emergency was coupled with massive power and infrastructure loss (such as what we saw in September with Katrina), it is definitely of interest in situations of major health crisis, or in the …

Continuing my recent fascination with the National Geodetic Survey, here's a pointer to their FAQ list, which covers all sorts of great questions about GPS, NGS, Datums, and positions. Even more interesting are the links to ask your scientific questions of real scientists.

While GIS professionals already know this, new research by the Department of Labor indicates that in the future those who know how to perform analysis using GIS will be in demand. Read more from the article in Nature after the jump. This isn't the most groundbreaking news, or the newest news, but those people who have GIS and GIS analysis skills will be in demand in the future as the world evolves. The Association of American Geographers has a link to a PDF article in the highly regarded journal Nature, discussing a Department of Labor study that identified geotechnology as …

The BBC News has an article (China angry at Google map change) about a row between China and Google over changes in Google Maps (now Google Local) because of a recent change in the way Taiwan is labeled. China was angered because (under pressure from users in Taiwan) Google removed the phrase "a province of the People's Republic of China" from around Google's map of Taiwan. China has now countered claiming that there is outrage on Chinese chat rooms and talk about boycotting Google China's services.

Welcome to a brave new world. Would you sacrifice a little privacy in order to have a better idea about traffic jams and commute times from home to work. If you live in Missouri you may get to answer that question, or have it answered for you very soon. More after the jump. Yahoo News has an article from the AP that details a plan by the Missouri Department of Transportation to use a system to anonymously monitor thousands of cell phones, using their movements to map real-time traffic conditions statewide on all 5,500 miles of major roads. As …

Since the introduction of Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, A9 and other web mapping products earlier this year there has been a great deal of discussion about the effect these software packages will have on the GIS industry. Will these products kill GIS, improve GIS, or have no impact at all on GIS software. Find out more after the jump. Since the introduction of the latest and greatest web mapping applications earlier this year the GIS industry has been nervously trying to figure out what impact this will have on the bottom line. Speculation on the impact ranges from no impact …

The US Geological Survey has a pair of sites online showing galleries of various maps about the hurricanes Rita and Katrina. These pages are part of an ongoing effort by the USGS to provide a community-based site that points users at mapping and other geospatial sites.

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 …

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 …