For those of you who have ever been in London (England not KY) and ridden the Tube you realize it is the best subway system in the world. The tube is great not only because it runs on time, is fairly clean, and friendly, but because the tube is well organized and has great pocket ride maps. Well for those of you who are fans of those maps you can now go to "A History of the London Tube Maps" and view the evolution of these maps. In addition to nice scans of old tube maps there are short descriptions …

Is there anything you cannot find on Flickr? There is a new group on Flickr that has lots of scans of old maps from all over the U.S. I looked through several the maps and they are indeed quite interesting. In particular there is an image from "mdoeff" that compares San Francisco in 1849 and present day. Keep the maps coming.

In an amusing convergence of art and geospatial technology, the project Pioneers in the Valley of the Heart's Delight from Artists Using Science and Technology as pioneers of the computing hitchhiking across the US as life-sized cutouts using GPS tracking to show their locations on a Google Map mash-up.

When they said they were entering the already saturated luxury SUV market many thought Porsche was crazy. Thus, when you read this post and think that Porsche is crazy for entering the already saturated GPS navigation market remember they have succeeded before. For the record, the unit features a 520 Mhz Xscale processor, 4.3 inch screen with 480 x 272 pixel display, built in traffic update support, built in Bluetooth car kit and routing and map software from Navigon. Details are still a bit sketchy, but the price is expected to be in the $950- $1000 range. Finally, as …

Apparently everyone has already seen this clever little map depicting the country wide level of happiness, but I just saw it this weekend. Methodological issues aside (can you really empirically measure happiness cross-culturally) the map has some interesting findings. Specifically, the complaining, over-worked US actually shows up ranking pretty high on happiness (Prozac is a wonderful drug) while the perpetually happy seeming country of India (honestly I've been there they all act happy) actually ranks fairly low. Produced by Adrian White at the University of Leicester, the map seems to favor wealthy countries of the west in terms of happiness …

According to an article on Directions, the Carter Center and ESRI are working together to determine the impact that various forms of media have on voting patterns. The stated purpose of the project is to "reduce corruption and promote equitable access to political information during elections by using the maps to empower policy makers and the public to facilitate constructive reforms of political finance laws and practices regarding media access." Again quoting from the article, "The maps depict which kinds of media reach which voters, and who owns those media outlets. In addition they display voter characteristics in a given …

According to an article on Automotive Business Review Online, TOM TOM is being hit by component shortages which will impact the availability of its GO models (910 and 510). While it didn't reveal what component was in short supply, TOM TOM claims everything is working out and things will be shipping "in line with our planning". This could hurt the bottom line or at least the stock price as earnings are due to be released soon.

Avenza, maker of Cartographic add-on software for Adobe Illustrator and Freehand released a new version of MAPublisher yesterday. According to the site, "MAPublisher 7.0 combines the best features of GIS with the powerful design environments of Adobe Illustrator CS and CS2 to enable native GIS data files to be used as a base for cartographic production. " The software allows the importation of the most widely used GIS data (ESRI, MapInfo, Microstation, AutoCAD, etc..) and the preservation and editing of all GIS data attributes and parameters while working in Illustrator. Available in both Mac and Windows flavors, the software looks …

As a small child visiting Disney World with my parents I was fascinated by the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride. Ever since I have been fascinated by the books and movies of Jules Verne (including newer versions of Verne's characters such as in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). Anyway, as a fan of the master of early sci-fi writing I was excited to find this page that has images of the maps included in the original editions of Verne's novels. While some of the page is in French the maps are nonetheless pretty interesting to look at.

As reported in Newswise, students and faculty working together at Cornell University have broken the pseudo-random number codes used to obscure data in the experimental version of the Galileo satellite that is currently orbiting the earth. As part of the current testing, the satellite that is orbiting the earth is using a system of pseudo-random numbers to obscure the data being sent down from the satellite. After requesting the codes and being denied access, the researchers at Cornell decided that a little computing power would do the trick, and set out to break the code. Slated to begin operation in …

According to this article from the Green Bay Press Gazette, an employee of the Farm Service Agency of the Department of Agriculture used a GPS, GIS software, and the help of a local farmer in Wisconsin, to propose marriage to his (now) fiance. The plan worked. Editor: Sadly, this article is no longer available online or in archive.org

Motionbased announced availability of the Macintosh Agent for the web site today. It is a beta and it works with the Forerunner 205/305, the Edge 205/305, and the Forerunner 301. Motionbased is a owned by Garmin, so perhaps they announced this today to show they still cared.

Garmin has announced in a press release that they will not be releasing their Macintosh-compatible GPS software until the end of the year (that would be Training Center) and that time they would announce the plans for when they would have complete Macintosh support, which they had indicated they would have by the end of the year. A good time for a plug for ClueTrust, our parent, creator of LoadMyTracks for downloading and uploading data with Garmin, Magellan, Lowrance, and Timex receivers when using a Macintosh.

If you have ever traveled to London you'll know that it is not exactly a quiet place to go. On more than one occasion I have tried to have a conversation while walking down the sidewalk only to give up because of the noise. Well apparently I am not the only one with this problem. The UK government collects data on noise levels throughout the city of London and using this data Simon Elvins has produced a map of silence within London. As near as I can tell, the areas colored white on the map are noisy areas and the …

According to a small article on All Points Blog, Garmin is a great investment for all those who invested before January 1 2006. In the 6 months of this year alone the stock price has gone from $65 to $102 and on May 3rd it offered a 2 to 1 stock split and now offers dividends. I don't have the information on other Spatially related businesses, but I would speculate that they too are doing very well as evidenced by all of the major internet companies jumping on the mapping bandwagon over the last year or so.

A cool use of Adobe Flash technology showed up on BoatingSF.com (not surprisingly, a site about boating in San Francisco). The Current Ship Positions page (mislabeled, since it's actually time-lapse and not "current" as it indicates) provides a nice overhead view, complete with roll-over ship information. Thanks to Very Spatial for the pointer. So, now you're wondering how its done? I know I was. A nice technical details page provides the beginning information about the AIS (Automatic Identification System), which provides ships with pre-collision-detection and identification information. The receivers output NMEA-standard sentences (just like those you get in …

Apple rumor site AppleInsider has an article speculating about some of the possible new features in Leopard, or Mac OS X 10.5, including a possible built in mapping feature similar to Google Maps. According to the article the feature will "presumably allow Leopard users to scour the globe through satellite imagery and whisk up driving directions on the drop of a dime." I am not really sure what this feature would provide that Google Maps or some other easily accessible service doesn't already provide, but who am I to doubt the genius of Steve Jobs. Then again, this is …

I'll be the first to admit that I am not an expert in the area of business plans or taking innovative ideas and turning them into profitable companies. However, I felt a surge of vindication today when reading my latest version of Fast Company and I came across the article Map Quest. Specifically, the article raises the question of how internet map services will change as they strive to become profitable. More after the jump. While I have been just as impressed as the next guy with the cool looking maps and mashup functionality of Google Earth and its competitors …

As an academic and researcher I am used to reading about all manner of social phenomena. However, one that has intrigued me more than most others is the idea of social capital. In a nutshell, social capital is the level of trust, connectedness, and mutual reciprocity within a community. Theoretically, social capital is important to a host of social issues such as child rearing and economic development in a community. Anyway, the website "The Oil Drum: New York City" has an interesting map of social capital scores by state as well as an interesting article on social capital cribbed from …

Google, as part of a recent set of announcements about their geospatial products, has announced that Google Maps can now speak KML for overlaying data and that they will be providing commercial support for the APIs as part of their product portfolio. First, and foremost, you can now use KML files to overlay your Google Maps. Check out the developer documentation for details, but basically you can put a KML file out on your server and it will be rendered as part of the Google Maps page that you provide. Next, the API has been extended to provide geocoding, whittling …