Had to do it: Giants' Parade Map released

The San Franciso Giants parade will be held Wednesday on Market Street. This is the first title for the franchise’s since they moved to San Francisco in 1958. The Giants lost the World Series in seven games in ‘62. They lost the World Series of ‘89 that was better known for the earthquake. They lost the World Series in 2002 though they had a five-run lead with eight outs to go. But who cares about all that old stuff now!



What the world needs: a global map of cheese

gotta love a map about cheese.And lots of other things as well. Check out this great global map visualization of world cartograms showing many resources. This one shows global production of cheese. Mmm. They say: with rising incomes, consumption of cheese has increased worldwide. The United States is the leading cheese maker, producing about 25% of the world's cheese and over 400 varieties. Greece and France are the largest consumers of cheese, each consuming over 50 pounds of cheese per person each year. Japan, Philippines and China are the newest markets demanding more cheese. Cheese around the world.

Yikes! GPS surveillance reported on NPR

One more for the privacy files. From NPR.org. When Yasir Afifi took his car in for an oil change, his mechanic found an unusual wire hanging from below. It was part of a black rectangular device attached to his car by a magnet. After posting photos of it on an online forum, where posters identified it as a GPS tracking device, Afifi, a Santa Clara, Calif., college student and computer salesman, got a visit from FBI agents demanding their equipment back.

The FBI confirms the device belongs to the agency and that agents visited Afifi to get it back. But Special Agent Joseph Schadler won't say why it was there. Full article. 



New conference: Mapping Global Change with Spatial Stats

1st Conference on Spatial Statistics 2011: Mapping Global Change.

23-25 March 2011, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.

Spatial statistics is a rapidly developing field which involves the quantitative analysis of spatial data and the statistical modelling of spatial variability and uncertainty. Applications of spatial statistics are for a broad range of environmental disciplines such as agriculture, geology, soil science, hydrology, ecology, oceanography, forestry, meteorology and climatology, but also for socio-economic disciplines such as human geography, spatial econometrics, epidemiology and spatial planning.

The aim of the meeting is to present interdisciplinary research where applicability in other disciplines is a central core concept.

Early Bird Registration: January 15 2011.

Mapping science and the city - from Nature

Suggested by Tim. Nature has a nice viz on where science happens, in terms of cities, and how publication output interacts with publication impact. Their analysis - provided to Nature by Elsevier - of Scopus data shows how absolute counts of publications per city and relative citation impact have changed from 2000 to 2008. The interactive graphics supplement the news feature 'Building the best cities for science' part of Nature's special package on Science and the city. Berkeley does quite well, by the way. Go Bears!

They also have the same information as a google earth viz. Very cool.

TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X set to create global DEM by 2014 at 12 m spatial resolution

German based TanDEM-X and TerraSAR-X satellites, launched in 2007 and 2010 respectively, begin their tandem orbit flight to create a new global DEM product of the Earth's surface to be available in 2014.

The TanDEM mission seeks to produce a global DEM at 12 meter sp

atial resolution with a relative vertical accuracy of less than two meters. With this kind of specification "'the TanDEM dataset will replace SRTM'". The US Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) of 2000 is one of the best-known, near-global, space-borne DEM prior to TanDEM. Its best product has a 30 meter spatial resolution, and a vertical accuracy that varies from 16m to 10m.

Airborne laser instruments such as Lidar can achieve finer spatial resolution and vertical accuracy but their products are regional - they are not seamless maps of the whole Earth as TanDEM will be able to achieve. For more read the full story here.

Google's Driverless Car Project

Google's driverless car project just put a whole new spin on applications of lidar technology. The car apparently has a Lidar unit on its roof that creates a 3D map used for navigation.

Here is a story with you tube videos of the car in motion, and here a story on NPR about the project.

Brazil eyes microchips for forest management

Ricardo Moraes  /  Reuters

Tracking system has potential to be big step forward in protecting Amazon 

Brazil is testing a microchip tracking system in an effort to reduce deforestation that destroys thousands of square miles of the Amazon each year.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39624415/ns/us_news-environment/

Back when maps were big and physical: giant 1924 relief map of CA found in SF

The giant "Paradise in Panorama" relief map of California, made in 1924, was displayed at the Ferry Building. Credit: Barney Peterson / The Chronicle 1963San Francisco's oldest and best-known white elephant - the huge three-dimensional relief map of California that once graced the Ferry Building - has turned up at an undisclosed location on the city's waterfront.

The map was one of the wonders of the West when it was unveiled in 1924. See article from SFGate.

It was as long as two football fields and showed California in all its splendor, from Oregon to Mexico, with snow-capped mountains, national parks, redwood forests, a glorious coastline, orchards and miniature cities basking in the sun. It was made of plaster, wire, paint, and bits of rock and sand. In the summer of 1924, Scientific American magazine said it was the largest map in the world.

Geospatial Revolution Project launched

Penn State Public Broadcasting has released the first episode of the Geospatial Revolution Project,"an integrated public service media and outreach initiative about the world of digital mapping and how it is changing the way we think, behave, and interact." 

These videos are a great resource for sharing the wonder of all things geospatial in an exciting and easy to understand format. Three additional episodes are set to be published throughout the year. 

View the site to watch the videos and learn more, and keep an eye out for Berkeley's own Kass Green who contributed to the project.