Map Watch News

MapQuest has long been the leader for online mapping technologies and now they are entering the in-car GPS business. In October, MapQuest will begin selling the MapQuest Personal Navigation Device, a GPS with street maps and turn-by-turn voice directions.

Image by MapQuestRead more about the MapQuest GPS at the RockyMountainNews.

The city of Seattle started a program to track sex-offenders via GPS. They encountered numerous problems. These included numerous violation notices, many of which were caused by service disconnects related to terrain and building interference. The program resulted in officer investigation costs which greatly exceeded expectations.
Read more at the Seattle Times about Problems with GPS Sex Offender Tracking.

Did you ever wonder where people with your same last name live in the United States - or where people with your family name have lived over time. Now you can research this at the SurName Distribution Website. The map below shows the distribution of people who have "Johnson" as their family name. The color of each state indicates how frequently you will find someone with this surname in that state. For example, in red states, 1 in 100 people (or more) have the surname. Yellow means approximately 1 in 300 have the surname, green means 1 in 1000, and blue means 1 in 10,000 (or less). The website allows you to make maps of any surname for 1850, 1880, 1920 and 1990.

Image by Hamrick SoftwareMake your Family Name Map at the Surname Distribution Website.

SlopeTracker has a GPS system to track your skiing. They say that it provides a "personalized map of your ski day". The GPS skiing device attaches to you via an armband and records a track of your movement on the slopes. It provides the following data.... distance skiing, elevations, skiing speed, time skiing and much more. Learn more about Skiing with GPS at the SlopeTracker website.

Navicom GPS has developed the C-TRAC GPS Personal Locator, a keychain-size device that with many functions. Measuring only 70 x 40 x 20 mm with a built in lithium ion rechargeable battery, it can be used as emergency cellular phone, silently call 911 or any emergency number to report location and play a personalized message, it can send SMS messages to a control center, and its location can be monitored in real time on the internet. It can also report when it is outside of a predefined area.

Navicom suggests multiple uses for monitoring kids and teens, uses for executive security, monitoring Alzheimer's patients, emergency use by hikers and joggers, vacation travel, monitoring vehicles and workforces, theft prevention and tracking stolen assets, vehicle tracking, briefcase and laptop tracking, cargo tracking, monitoring equipment and marine use.

Learn more at Navicom's Personal GPS Locator website

MSNBC has a very interesting website that displays animated hurricane / tropical storm track maps for Ophelia, Katrina, Irene, Emily, Dennis, Arlene, Adrian, Jeanne, Ivan, Francis and Charley. These maps trace the path of the storm with different colors being laid down for storm level - yellow for tropical depression, orange for tropical storm and red for hurricane.

Screenshot of MSNBCVisit MSNBC to see their Tropical Storm Track Maps

Here's a great new device for cyclists. Garmin has developed a cyclometer with GPS functionality. It keeps track of your location, speed, distance travelled, altitude and much more and stores that data for future download to your PC. Big advantages that I see are no wires to the bike wheel, no calibration and the storing of data in digital form.

Image by GarminLots of other features that you can check out at Garmin's GPS Cyclometer Page.

Here is an interesting site: "A Guide to Unusual Maps on the Web". There you can find information about types of maps you never thought about such as: UFO Maps, Caricature Map of Ireland, Fool's Planet Map, NEU-YORK, and many more.
Read more at Guide to Unusual Maps on the Web.

South Korea is complaining to Washington about images in Google Maps. They feel that Google is showing sensitive facilities in their country. The images that depict South Korea are no more detailed than those which show the United States Pentagon and Whitehouse.
Read more at The Mail & Guardian.