Pennsylvania Historic Preservation: PennDOT’s New Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania GIS Map

Pennsylvania Historic Preservation: PennDOT’s New Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania GIS Map. “From stone arches and covered bridges to metal trusses and cable suspension bridges, Pennsylvania has a diverse collection of bridge types across its landscape. This includes over 400 historic bridges, bridges that are eligible for listing, or are listed, in the National Register of Historic Places. To showcase this collection, PennDOT created the Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania web map, an interactive GIS layer with locational and basic historical information about each bridge.”

University of Washington: WhaleVis turns more than a century of whaling data into an interactive map

University of Washington: WhaleVis turns more than a century of whaling data into an interactive map. “A dataset maintained by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) contains detailed information on commercial whale catches — more than 2.1 million records, predominantly from 1880 until the IWC banned whaling in 1986. Yet for researchers, distilling that data can prove its own challenge. A team at the University of Washington has created an online interactive map called WhaleVis, which lets whale researchers visualize the IWC’s data on global whale catches and whaling routes.”

Bellingcat: A New Tool Allows Researchers to Track Damage in Gaza

Bellingcat: A New Tool Allows Researchers to Track Damage in Gaza . “A new tool, originally developed to estimate damage in Ukraine, has now been adapted and applied to Gaza. The tool can estimate the number of damaged buildings and the pre-war population in a given area within the Gaza Strip. The tool has already been used by a number of media outlets, but it is freely available for anyone to use and we have outlined its key features below.”

News Australia: Google launches Indoor Live View at Sydney Airport

News Australia: Google launches Indoor Live View at Sydney Airport. “There is nothing more annoying than being in desperate need of a coffee at the airport only to learn you’ve gone in the wrong direction and have to trek all the way back. That, together with not knowing where the nearest bathroom or a specific retail store is located, will soon be a thing of the past after Sydney Airport partnered with Google to create an internal map called Indoor Live View.”

Northeastern University School of Law: Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive releases interactive map of Jim Crow era violence

Northeastern University School of Law: Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive releases interactive map of Jim Crow era violence. “Months in the making by CRRJ’s dedicated archivists, historians, designers and developers, this interactive map is a visualization of racialized violence in the southern United States between 1930 and 1954. The data presented have been collected and analyzed by the CRRJ and documented within the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive.”

Vernon Morning Star: Hiker rescued off B.C. cliffside after taking non-existent Google Maps trail

Vernon Morning Star: Hiker rescued off B.C. cliffside after taking non-existent Google Maps trail . “The group says Saturday was the third time they’ve been called in to the area near Mount Fromme for a hiker in danger. The group says it had been concerned people were following what was marked as a path on Google Maps between the mountain and the Kennedy Falls area. In fact, North Shore SAR says, there are no trails in the area, only steep, wooded terrain and cliff bands.”

UK Authority: TfL to take Google Steet View to Underground

UK Authority: TfL to take Google Steet View to Underground. “Transport for London (TfL) has launched a collaboration with Google to provide the Street View application to a number of Underground stations across the city. It said the project will involve the use of cameras that capture 360-degree images to develop virtual representations of around 30 of the busiest stations, including Green Park, King’s Cross St Pancras and Waterloo. They will identify key facilities such as toilets and help points.”

TechCrunch: People are turning to Snap Map for firsthand perspectives from Gaza

TechCrunch: People are turning to Snap Map for firsthand perspectives from Gaza. “Snap didn’t provide TechCrunch with hard data, but confirmed to TechCrunch that since October 7, the company has seen a ‘moderate’ increase in submissions to public Stories from Gaza. The company also said that more people from around the world are viewing content from the region. In the weeks since Israel’s blockade of the territory began, screen recordings of the map, which displays bright red hotspots throughout northern Gaza, have been shared online.”

NIDIS: Expanded Drought.gov Tool Visualizes Historical Drought Conditions by County, State

NIDIS: Expanded Drought.gov Tool Visualizes Historical Drought Conditions by County, State. “The U.S. Drought Portal’s Historical Data and Conditions Tool allows users to visualize historical drought data for their state or county through an interactive map and time series graph. Recently, NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) partnered with NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) to expand and improve this interactive tool—making it easier to visualize and share historical data for use in communications, research, or decision-making.”

Wales Online: Burglary victim tracked down £23k stolen car using Google Earth

Wales Online: Burglary victim tracked down £23k stolen car using Google Earth. “Jamie began messaging the thief on Snapchat who was demanding £2,000 to return the vehicle and ‘gained their trust by being friendly to them.’ Meanwhile tech savvy Jamie helped Jayy do a reverse image search of the building the car was parked next to and managed to triangulate the location after spotting the name of a housing estate on a wheelie bin. The pair then used Google Earth to identify the exact street where the vehicle was parked before calling police.”

University of Hawaii News: Landslide alerts, maps focus of new Pacific Disaster Center/NASA tool

University of Hawaii News: Landslide alerts, maps focus of new Pacific Disaster Center/NASA tool. “Landslides cause thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in damage worldwide every year. Through a partnership with NASA, a robust new tool to identify, track and respond to rainfall triggered landslides is now available to all users of the free Pacific Disaster Center’s (PDC) DisasterAWARE software. PDC is an applied research center managed by the University of Hawaiʻi.”

Houston Chronicle: Mysterious ‘Secret Squirrel Facility’ shows up on Google Maps in Texas

Houston Chronicle: Mysterious ‘Secret Squirrel Facility’ shows up on Google Maps in Texas. “As first reported by the San Antonio Express, a Reddit user recently spotted a building located just outside of New Braunfels, Texas that Google Maps identifies as ‘SECRET SQUIRREL FACILITY.'”

USC Dornsife: Mapping project reveals LA’s Indigenous past, aims to inform the city’s future

USC Dornsife: Mapping project reveals LA’s Indigenous past, aims to inform the city’s future. “Blending insight from representatives of local Indigenous communities, extensive archival research and contemporary technologies such as spatial analysis and modeling, the long-running project headed by the Spatial Sciences Institute (SSI) at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences has developed the first systematic map of L.A.’s natural ecology. ‘Mapping Los Angeles Landscape History’ offers a comprehensive view of the region’s natural environment and how Indigenous people interacted with the land and each other in a sustainable way before the arrival of European settlers.”

British Civil Wars Memorial Database

Spotted via Google Alerts: British Civil Wars Memorial Database. “This database provides information about monuments, including memorials, plaques and information boards, located across the British Isles which relate to events concerning and key figures associated with the British Civil Wars 1639-1660. It also covers monuments located anywhere in the world relating to soldiers who served in the British Isles between 1639-1660.”