Entries by Nina KF

Water Concerns

Big news on May 28th when Google released a Plug-in which makes it possible to view Google Earth, including 3-D buildings and KML files in a browser window, without downloading the full version.  Very much excitement about this, and there will certainly be some great applications very quickly.  Exploring this topic, an interesting application for US boaters […]

Water Concerns

  A visit to the Water: H2O=Life show at the Museum of Natural History was thought provoking and alarming. This could be the issue of the 21st century, drowning all others. (Sorry, no laughing matter.) Water is not in short supply in the Netherlands, but management is and always has been a central concern. This Dutch website […]

Maps in Lund

  Lund, Sweden was founded sometime between 990 and 1020, and is filled with treasures for visitors today.  According to the Wikipedia, it is applying to be a “European Capital of Culture” in 2014, when a Swedish city again has a turn to hold this honor.  Lund University has over 40,000 students (though many live […]

Traveling Salesman Revisited

New SweetMaps application:  the Traveling Salesman’s European Vacation.   I take no credit for the original idea or clever coding of a traveling salesman program for Google Maps developed by Geir Kokkvoll Engdahl.  (See my original  post last month.  However, while writing a research paper for a UNGIS course at the Vrij University, the idea of a sweet little application dawned on me.  […]

AMFORA

AMFORA is the Dutch acronym for Alternative Multifunctional Underground Space Amsterdam.  At a meeting of the Enlightened Underground international conference on Jan 29, the engineering firm, Strukton, revealed a plan for building a new Amsterdam, under the canals.   Together with the architectural firm, Zwarts & Jansma, they released a concept book (not available any more – june 2018) illustrating this underground future.  The plan would reduce traffic […]

The Travelling Salesman Problem

Geir Kokkvoll Engdahl, a Norwegian guy born in ‘83, posted a Google Maps API  implementation of the classic Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) called “Optimap” on his blog last July, and has since added the ability to enter multiple destinations with lat/long codes, and also the javascript source code (no longer valid link) so we can examine and play with it.   The application, […]

Skiing Anyone?

You can’t take your eyes off them for a second.  Terrain view in Google maps adds a new dimension.  It is not as powerful as its counterpart in Google Earth, where elevations can also be measured and displayed.  Not yet.  But more is clearly on the way.  Last week they also launched collaboration “MyMaps“, which is bound to […]

DESERTEC, REC, eSolar, etc.

An article in Nature Magazine this month discusses realistic options for harvesting energy from the desert in Africa.   On the same day as the Nature article, Google announced RE<C, an initiative to look for renewable energy (“Google Green”?).  They are working with companies to explore new technology… one such company is eSolar Inc. Update:  in 2012, Siemens pulled out […]

Seen at the Tate

Two contemporary artists using maps in their work exhibited recently at the Tate Modern in London:  Judi Wertheim’s Brinco project was featured in “The Irresistable Force” at the Tate in London.  When originally staged in San Diego in 2005, the Argentinian artist ”gave some pairs away, to immigrants trying to cross from Mexico to the United States. She designed […]