mapping

'Citizen cartographers' help Google update maps of N. Korea

Maps of North Korea's landscape have for decades been largely empty, but thanks to "a community of citizen cartographers," Google Maps has managed to fill in some of the blanks.

Tapping input submitted to its Google Map Maker tool, the Web giant has added more detailed, up-to-date information to its maps of the reclusive nation, including streets, names, and other points of interest.

Jayanth Mysore, Google's senior product manager of Map Maker, discussed in a company blog post the effort behind assembling the new data:

To build this map, a community of citizen cartographers came together … Read more

Google Map of handgun owners posted online isn't exactly accurate

Is there anything more difficult than an emotional reaction on an emotive topic?

So many marriages have dissipated in such circumstances. Facts become cudgels and recollections have all the accuracy of a plasticine Lugar.

When the Journal News, a local New York newspaper, thought it might be a good idea to post a Google map depicting all the local handgun owners and their addresses, voices and arms were raised.

One imagines that the editors of the Journal News had both good intentions -- it was very soon after the Newtown massacre -- and some inkling that this posting might raise … Read more

Apple: Some Maps fixes out already, more this year

Apple offered some minor details on how it's beefing up its troubled Maps app, which became a running joke last year for misplacing landmarks, skewing landscapes and misleading travelers.

"We've made a number of improvements to Maps," Apple CEO Tim Cook told Wall Street analysts during the company's first quarter earnings call this afternoon. Some of those include improved satellite and flyover imagery as well as local information for businesses, he said.

Cook said that people are using Maps "significantly" more than they were before iOS 6, which added Apple's controversial mapping … Read more

Facebook overtakes Google Maps as top U.S. mobile app

Apple's war with Google over maps helped Facebook slide into the No. 1 spot for mobile apps in the U.S., according to numbers released by ComScore today.

The social network's app, which had 85,574,000 unique visitors in December, overtook the Google Maps app after September, which, as ComScore notes, coincides with Apple removing Google Maps from iOS 6. But Google may make a comeback now that its new, and popular, Maps app for iOS 6 is available.

ComScore VP of Industry Analysis Andrew Lipsman writes in a blog post that Apple's Google Maps lockout … Read more

Avoid Oklahoma! Social-media map warns of flu hotspots

There are many ways of discovering just how bad the flu is in your area. You and all your friends and co-workers could get sick. You could hear about it on the local news. Or you could check Esri's social-media flu map tracking tweets, YouTube videos, and Flickr photos having to do with Flu Invasion 2013.

The nice part of the Esri map is you can check it from the sterile safety of your own home where you've locked yourself up in a hermetically sealed environment with weeks worth of Spam and Top Ramen to tide you over until flu season subsides.… Read more

The 404 1,190: Where we're knee-deep in Kudos (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- OK Cupid launches Crazy Blind Date.

- Delta's new iPad app shows off the world below your plane.

- MoviePass is the Netflix of movie theaters.

- Developer canned for outsourcing his job to China so he could surf Reddit.… Read more

Google: No, we did not kill a donkey in Botswana

Google faces regular challenges as it maps the globe, from privacy lawsuits in Germany to the technical difficulties of mapping underwater. To that list of woes we may now add another: People think it killed a donkey in Botswana.

Recently, it seems, the company began fielding complaints from members of the public and the news media about Street View imagery that appeared to show a donkey in the Kweneng region of Botswana lying prostrate in the wake of a Street View vehicle. CNET's Chris Matyszczyk wrote last night asking for proof the animal survived.

"Because of the way … Read more

Google removes Maps redirect for Windows Phone

As it said it would, Google has removed a redirect that prevented Windows Phone users from accessing Google Maps via the mobile version of Internet Explorer and that instead sent them to Google.com.

The redirect generated headlines last week, with various news outlets suggesting that it was not about poor functionality on the part of mobile IE (as Google maintained) but was more about competitive behavior on the part of Google that ironically was beginning to resemble past behavior by Microsoft.

Google, of course, just dodged an antitrust bullet from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and it continues to face an investigation by the European Union.… Read more

Stay on the right route with Google Maps for iOS

Apple's attempt at creating its own mapping app didn't start out on the right foot and could certainly use a bit more tweaking, but, thankfully, Google has stepped in to provide frustrated users with an iPhone version of its popular mapping service.

Google Maps for iOS first asks you to sign in to save your favorite places and to access past searches. You can opt to skip that step, however. The main screen is stripped down so that you can get a full view of the map. A search bar resides at the top, and you can tap … Read more

Microsoft may be stepping up the delivery pace

What's a new year without a new Microsoft road map?

The latest comes from Microsoft itself. It's from a Software Assurance renewal document, a download link to which a tipster of mine sent me. It looks like it's a real Microsoft-authored document, from what I can tell, and seems to date back to mid-2012.

On first glance, there's nothing very surprising in the document or timelines included in it. All the usual suspects are there: Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, SQL Server 2012, Office 15 (Office 2013), Visual Studio 11 (Visual Studio 2012), etc. A number … Read more