Map Watch News

NASA's Earth Observatory is regularly posting satellite images of the California Fires. The sample image below shows the Pine, Foothill and Crown Fires near Los Angeles during the third week of July, 2004. The bluish areas in this image have been burned and the red areas are forested mountains.
More detailed images and information at NASA Earth Observatory

National Geographic plans to release a new version of the popular National Geographic Road Atlas this September. It will have detailed coverage of all fifty US states plus Canada and Mexico. Spiral binding and plastic cover will make it easy to use and durable.
National Geographic Road Atlas

If a 911 call is placed from a standard wire-line phone the 911 dispatcher is instantly able to access the address where the phone line is installed. With the number of mobile phones multiplying an increasing number of 911 calls are coming in from non-addressed locations and the caller is frequently unfamiliar with local roads and landmarks. Jackson County, Oregon now has a system to locate many of their remote callers.
Read more at the Mail Tribune Website

If you are an experienced user of topographic maps you will get a chuckle out of this article. The author gives a personal account of how not paying close attention to contour lines can result in navigation problems.

The real story, however, is his description of the Red River Gorge Geological Area which has more than 100 sandstone arches - the greatest concentration of arches and natural bridges east of the Rocky Mountains. Sounds like it's worth a trip - but brush up on your map reading before you make the trip.
Read more at Charleston.Net

This year ten riders in the Tour de France were equipped with GPS receivers and tracked by the EGNOS network. The entire field of the race could be equipped with GPS within the next few years. This would provide data on each rider's speed and location, which could be incorporated into topographic software that would allow television to display visualizations of one or groups of riders - or even the position of all riders simultaneously.
Read more at the European Space Agency Website

Wireless phone companies in the United States must now provide more detailed coverage and rate maps, plus they must give new customers a 14 day period to try out their new service to see if the geographic coverage is suitable. In the past the phone companies published maps that would show full state or regional coverage when, in fact, there were large mappable holes in many areas. Then they would charge large fees to customers who terminated their contracts because of inadequate service availability.
Read more at USA Today and at the Santa Fe New Mexican

It seems that even the "officials" in Boston don't have a handle on their local boundaries. What's being argued here seems to be unofficial "neighborhood" boundaries. Let's hope that they don't have this same problem with the boundaries of school districts or tax districts.
Read more at The Boston Globe