tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11315842008-08-02T00:02:08.798+02:00Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comBlogger517125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-29840740063756971322008-08-01T23:23:00.007+02:002008-08-02T00:02:05.515+02:00

The artist Slavisa Savic discovered an unusual and an unexpected coincidence between the town plan of Serbian Belgrade and the map of the world as shown on the website Belgrade is the World. The world's continents seem to match the cities populated areas. Just as the Atlantic Ocean separates the Old and New World, the river Sava separates the Old en New Belgrade. Just like Greenland is situated

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-36987514373888137562008-07-29T17:43:00.000+02:002008-07-29T17:44:27.163+02:00

Today, ilse media and TomTom together launched the new website Startpagina/Verkeer. Until now, HD Traffic has only been available to owners of TomTom satnav devices, such as the ONE XL HD Traffic and the new GO x30 range. Using the new website, also online visitors can now keep tabs on the traffic situation on the Dutch roads from behind their Web browsers even before they hit the road.

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-31045778498978249692008-07-14T22:15:00.005+02:002008-07-14T22:51:09.162+02:00

On the occassion of the French national holiday Quatorze Juillet (literally 14th of July), the Dutch news this morning featured an item on the annual convention of around 40 French mayors of communities that have a funny or musical town name. The towns are all members of the Association des communes de France aux noms burlesques et chantants. In case you don't know Dutch and French, some of the

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-27320230331497863552008-07-13T20:55:00.006+02:002008-07-13T21:13:41.054+02:00

A photo of nothing but lines in the sand won the 2nd prize singles in the category General News of the World Press Photo contest 2008. The lines were drawn by Asdallah Asdel Khaled in January 2007, in a refugee camp in Chad and represent a small map of the assault on the village of Furawiya, Darfur that took place in 2003. Asdel Khaled explains through this map how the Janjaweed circled the

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-44128916328708864042008-07-12T16:13:00.008+02:002008-07-13T22:57:34.168+02:00

I have just bought the book Lovely Language: Words Divide Images Unite that shows the universal visual language of the social scientist and philosopher Otto Neurath and graphic designer Gerd Arntz. The book accompanies the exhibition I visited late last year. It does not only contain essays on Isotype, Neurath and Arntz, but also on contemporary usage of pictograms. The book fortunately contains

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-18870342441023388082008-02-03T12:00:00.000+01:002008-02-04T21:20:44.394+01:00

How do map makers prepare for the period of Lent? The cartographers of the Bosatlas van Nederland published a special, updated map of Carnival names, the jocular names that towns assume during the Carnival celebrations. Despite the Bosatlas topping the book charts in October last year, many Dutch municipalities and Carnival clubs complained that their towns did not appear on the map. For

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-28433353542732759392008-02-01T17:22:00.000+01:002008-02-02T00:51:09.224+01:00

Adrian Holovaty's announcement yesterday on the end of Chicagocrime.org is just as an important milestone in the history of web mapping as the end of the Xerox PARC Map Viewer back in 2002. Whereas the Xerox PARC Map Viewer marked the early days of web mapping, mapping hacks such as Chicagocrime.org and Paul Rademacher's HousingMaps unleashed web mapping from the online mapping portals. Without

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-43705505103048164482008-01-28T21:06:00.000+01:002008-01-28T21:11:42.875+01:00

The new services and products launched by Urban Mapping, Zillow, and the Dutch CBS in the first weeks of January may herald a new trend that affects online mapping: Neighbourhood 2.0. It does not only mark a shift from the global to the local, but also a further step in the democratisation of cartography: opening up neighbourhood data to both the (GIS) specialist and the (map reading) end-user.

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-15043935559969876972007-12-24T21:44:00.000+01:002008-01-27T11:30:44.595+01:00

... is the subtitle of the exhibition Lovely Language at the Centraal Museum here in Utrecht as part of Utrecht Manifest 2007. The exhibition focuses on the International System of Typographic Picture Education (ISOTYPE): a visual language of pictograms created by the Austrian sociologist Otto Neurath and the German-Dutch graphic artist Gerd Arntz. Many of the pictograms they developed for the

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-33829543447542128202007-12-16T10:32:00.000+01:002007-12-17T13:52:48.589+01:00

Within a month of Navteq acquiring Mapsolute, this week yet another European online mapping company was snapped up as Microsoft bought Multimap for $50 million. This acquisition does not just come out of the blue. As part of a non-exclusive worldwide agreement with Microsoft, Multimap has been reselling MapPoint alongside its own online mapping services already since June 2004. Furthermore,

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-49321598849132212482007-12-10T21:30:00.000+01:002007-12-10T23:00:52.479+01:00

Since I was raised with Dutch school atlases, I had never quite noticed it before: apparently there is a cartographic convention to colour the dominions of the British Empire (or rather the British Commonwealth of Nations nowadays) on the map pink. This led Maya Sonenberg to have the female character in the short story Cartographies say: Imagine we visited Canada together, one map-maker says to

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-27250249016586467082007-11-11T19:42:00.000+01:002007-11-11T23:20:12.985+01:00

This week, Navteq acquired Mapsolute, the German company supplying the technology behind the Map24 online mapping website, just weeks after Navteq itself was acquired by Nokia! Of course, the offer of $40 million for Mapsolute seems only petty cash compared to the $8.1 billion for Navteq or even the $3.3 billion (Garmin) and $4.2 billion (TomTom) offers for TeleAtlas. Furthermore, the combination

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-73765367933272068412007-10-28T10:36:00.000+01:002007-10-28T13:51:14.430+01:00

The new Bosatlas van Nederland is the most expensive (? 99.95) book ever to top the Bestseller 60, the weekly list of best-selling books in the Netherlands. The very first copy was presented to the Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende just over a week ago on the 11th of October. Since the first edition of the Bosatlas van Nederland is almost sold out already, the second edition will be available from

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-73259409804191857692007-10-17T11:05:00.000+02:002007-10-17T11:52:37.225+02:00

After an earlier press release in July the Dutch Tourist Club ANWB has launched its new online route planner with a travel time predictor. The new feature takes into account the usual traffic jams on the busiest motorways in the Netherlands. Furthermore, the route planner gives you information on current traffic jams, road works, and speed cameras along your journey. Users not only provide

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-48307400681575577972007-10-03T22:26:00.000+02:002007-10-04T09:21:30.469+02:00

As of today, Google Maps not only provides travel directions by car, but also suggests to take public transit in certain areas in the US. Users can easily compare the duration and costs of the journey by car and by public transport since the application formerly known as Google Transit has now become part of Google Maps. This news coincides with the statement of TomTom that its current focus is

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-70214541879752985712007-09-30T10:06:00.000+02:002007-09-30T12:29:30.611+02:00

The Dutch consumer affairs television programme Kassa dedicated a large part of last night's episode to outdated maps on newly bought navigation devices. The products have been out of the factory and on the shop floor for such a long time, that the maps have been updated by the map suppliers in the meantime. Thus, only days after purchase, consumers performed an update check on the vendor website

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-87304176939581055682007-09-12T22:22:00.000+02:002007-09-13T00:19:00.617+02:00

Only a few months after map supplier AND started to recognise the value of UGC, making available not only the Netherlands to the OpenStreetMap community, but also the major road networks of China and India, the company affirmed its recognition of UGC with the launch of Map 2.0. Map readers become map makers, because the online editable map allows end users to directly provide map feedback, that

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-71484626613922328912007-09-09T20:05:00.000+02:002007-09-09T20:16:43.637+02:00

Car manufactures BMW and Mercedes Benz have recently teamed up with online local search engines Yahoo Local Maps and Google Maps. Users can look up a POI (e.g. a restaurant, store or petrol station) online and send its address to their in-car navigation system to use it as a destination when planning a route. Although this is an exciting step, it did not come just out of nowhere. First of all,

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-16221595337929955052007-07-04T19:58:00.000+02:002007-09-04T13:24:19.245+02:00

In a few weeks time, the Royal Dutch Touring Club (ANWB) will launch a new online route planner. Since the new routeplanner takes into account historical traffic flow data of the major roads network, travel times will be more realistic. The travel time predictor, developed in cooperation with TNO Built Environment and Geosciences and Charta Software, is based on a flexible structure that may

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-1713630588056925262007-07-03T20:11:00.000+02:002007-07-03T20:11:41.210+02:00

Walking into the Nijhoff & Lee bookstore the other day, I just had to buy the map sheet Verkenningen ? een datazelfportret by Klaas van der Veen. Klaas is a graphic designer and typographer and explores the relation between bare numbers and communication using usable, clear maps, diagrams and tables. Being passionate about maps and data and running, Klaas has been tracking his runs across the

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-9911258233048188712007-06-06T11:10:00.000+02:002007-06-17T15:04:35.581+02:00

Looking for directions to Dr. David Price's dental practice along Pine State Street, Lillington NC? Chances are you won't get there using either a mapping website or a navigation device, although the road has been there for at least four years. According to Navteq, it takes time for new information to get to the public ? perhaps a year or more!. Would that period cover just the map update from

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-29319064096891746942007-06-03T19:21:00.001+02:002007-06-04T09:16:41.064+02:00

During the weekend of July 14 and 15, the first international OpenStreetMap conference State of the Map 2007 will bring together the open mapping community of cartographers, GPS enthusiasts, map hackers, neo-geographers and geowankers in Manchester, UK. Ed Parsons, the Geospatial Technologist of Google, will be delivering the keynote presentation. Other presenters that may sound familiar to you

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-70099011432636355572007-06-02T08:35:00.000+02:002007-06-07T09:36:51.919+02:00

Disembarking at Weesperplein metro station in Amsterdam yesterday morning due to a earlier faulty train, many of the people around me had to look for directions in order to continue their journey into work. It was hilarious to watch one commuter staring at a large billboard when only after a few seconds he actually realised he was looking at a fictional map that was part of an advertisement for a

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-22605203649046802992007-05-25T15:10:00.000+02:002007-05-25T15:16:17.920+02:00

The launch of the new mapping on the Yahoo Local website was not only marked by changing the map engine from deCarta to a home-grown system, but also by a redesign of the maps. For this, Yahoo teamed up with the people of Cartifact. For me, Cartifact has successfully bridged the gap between cartography and web mapping. Web cartography has always been confined to interactive mapping applications

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131584.post-61478675048650171942007-05-19T17:29:00.000+02:002007-05-19T18:38:15.267+02:00

When I read the subject line of the email earlier this week, it was a blow to the face: Adobe abandons FreeHand. Was it nostalgia? Was it defiance? Was it a sense of loss? Really, when I started at uni, I thought WordPerfect 5.1 and FreeHand 3.11 were the only programmes I ever needed to learn. WordPerfect ? I just loved the Reveal Codes feature ? would be the tool for word processing and

Edward Mac Gillavryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16643360659947492995noreply@blogger.com