How-To Geek: Google-Owned Waze Will Help You Find EV Chargers. “If you’re using Waze and you need to stop for a quick top-up, the app will now help you find charging stations within, or close to, your route.”
Phys .org: Over one billion galaxies blaze bright in colossal map of the sky. “By creating comprehensive maps of even the dimmest and most-distant galaxies, astronomers are better able to study the structure of the universe and unravel the mysterious properties of dark matter and dark energy. The largest such map to date has just grown even larger, with the tenth data release from the DOE’s Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Imaging Survey.”
InsideHook: Google Maps Incorrectly Directed Drivers to a Residential Driveway. “The next time I’m passing through [Warren, New Jersey], however, I’m going to be a little more aware of where my navigation of choice — in this case, Google Maps — is taking me. Why? Well, because a few Warren residents recently learned that Google Maps believes that their driveways are through streets, and is directing drivers accordingly.”
Asahi Shimbun: Japan has more than 14,000 islands, digital mapping reveals. “Thanks to digital mapping technology, Japanese geographers have identified more than 7,000 islands previously unrecognized in the country’s waters. The first such survey in 35 years revealed that the nation is made up of 14,125 islands rather than 6,852, as previously thought, according to a source familiar with the matter.”
Partnership for a Healthier America: What Food Equity Looks Like in Your Neighborhood. “Partnership for a Healthier America has launched its Food Equity Opportunity Map in partnership with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, highlighting where improving access to good food would make the greatest impact and allowing everyone to see what Food Equity looks like in their community for the first time.”
Ars Technica: Starlink, Verizon, and T-Mobile made shaky claims on FCC coverage map. “Multiple Internet service providers have submitted false availability data to the federal government for a map that will be used to determine which parts of the US get access to a $42.45 billion broadband fund. We wrote about Comcast’s false coverage claims last week, and this article will detail false or at least questionable coverage claims from SpaceX’s Starlink division and the wireless home Internet divisions at Verizon and T-Mobile.”
BusinessWire: TuneIn Celebrates World Radio Day; Launches TuneIn Explorer, an Immersive Map Experience that Makes the Discovery and Exploration of Live Radio Stations from Around the Globe Easy and Fun (PRESS RELEASE). “From popular national and global radio stations to hometown favorites, listeners can navigate available radio programming by scrolling and panning in or out of the interactive world map to find a specific region — then select a station to start listening immediately. Filters allow listeners to customize their experience and focus on their favorite categories and genres, including news, talk, sports and music, or see stations broadcasting in top languages.”
Gizmodo: Here’s All the Cool Stuff You Can Do With Google Earth . “Google Earth feels like a mixture between a mapping application and an educational tool, letting you pull off some really neat things with a render of the globe. What can you do with Google’s 3D world exploration tool, I hear you ask? Well, let’s explain.”
New-to-me: A worldwide map of memorial benches. Over 26,000 of them. From the About Page: “There are blue plaques to commemorate the famous and influential figures of the past. For everyone else, there are memorial benches. A quiet reminder of the people gone but not forgotten. A spot to rest your weary legs and give silent thanks to ‘Alice – who loved this park’.” This site also mentions a similar site for memorial plaques.
Engadget: Google Maps’ Immersive View is rolling out in five cities. “At I/O 2022, Google revealed an Immersive View feature for Maps that uses computer vision and AI to combine Street View and aerial photography into a 3D format. The idea is to create a detailed perspective of buildings and other aspects of the environment. The feature is rolling out in five cities today.”
National Archives Blog: RG 242: Target Dossiers Pertaining to the British Isles, 1938-1945 Now Fully Digitized!. “The records in this series are a subset of RG 242: National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized, 1675-1958. The dossiers, which are aerial photographs and maps of German identified bombing targets, are arranged by country and, thereunder, by location.”
Purdue University: Purdue launches new AI-based global forest mapping project. “[Jingjing] Liang is developing an artificial intelligence model that will combine information collected about billions of trees measured on-site with satellite and other geospatial data to map local forest growth rates throughout the global forest range.”
MakeUseOf: 5 Fun Map Sites for Cool and Interesting Cartography. “There are portals that preserve old maps and show you how the world has changed, while others let you compare pretty much any two places on the planet. And you’ll be glad to know that there are communities to find like-minded map lovers to share your interests.”
Wall Street Journal: Forget Google Maps: Why Paper Map Sales Are Booming. “Digital maps, while powerful, aren’t perfect navigational tools: Phone batteries die, cell signals fail. And though a smartphone can easily direct you to the quickest route, taking it often means you’ll miss the best scenery. A paper map, more like those made by early humans, can provide a bigger picture…. Perhaps that’s why paper maps are regaining popularity.”
Chicago Sun-Times: Preserving the legacy of Chicago’s Black social culture. “In my high school senior memory book, several pluggers from early 1990s teen parties crowd a plastic sleeve. They are documents of warehouse parties from a time when the West Loop wasn’t the West Loop, and when the South Loop didn’t exist as a moniker. I save everything, which is great because the Chicago Black Social Culture Map (CBSCM) is collecting local artifacts like the ones I have stored in my parents’ basement.”
The ResearchBuzz Firehose is regular RB content presented as individual posts.
For digest-type posts a couple of times a day, please visit ResearchBuzz.
Want to know how to best use the Firehose for content discovery?
Check out this handy article.