via Donna Genzmer:

all right, this is what the labs like to see—power to the people, public participation style, open source applications! gCensus was built by a Ph.D. student in computer science at Stanford University who was fed up with the slowly rendered, crappy display of the Census Bureau's online mapping interface. his question [our question]—why can't people have access to dynamic, high-resolution maps without paying the ginormous bucks for professional GIS software? his answer—gCensus

it's "an effort to make geographic data freely and easily accessible to the public, without the need for expensive GIS software packages. With Google's excellent free mapping program Google Earth, you can use this site to visualize a wide variety of data best displayed on a map. Currently, only the US Census 2000's Summary File 1 (displaying population characteristics such as race and age) is available for mapping."

right now, though, gCensus is more proof-of-concept than ready-to-release application. it needs to integrate more datasets and it would probably benefit from other eyes looking at the code. so, here's the flipside to radical democracy—with free software comes great responsibilities. "the student" is looking for development help and hardware and hosting donations. contact him at gcensus [at] gmail [dot] com and let's make this happen!

The City of Milwaukee was mentioned in the latest issue of ArcNews [a quarterly publication of ESRI] for its use of GIS and GPS technologies as part of a remedial excavation project at a brownfields property located in Milwaukee.

→ read the article

from AnyGeo, via Donna:

There's a very easy way to search for all KMLs [Google Earth] available on the web. Using Google Search, simply type in the following string to search for a KML for Vancouver:

filetype:kml brooklyn

or

filetype:kmz milwaukee

note the vast number of results… you can refine your search or add even more detail if you'd like better results. Similarly, if you'd like to locate an AutoCAD DWF format file try this search string:

filetype:dwf brooklyn

from Directions Magazine, via Donna:

Jotle is a new Google mashup that combines Google Maps with Flickr and YouTube. According to a posting at the Directions Magazine's Web Map Gallery by Mikhail Novikov:

Google Maps + Wikimapia + Placeopedia + Flickr + YouTube = Jotle! Jotle is an new Flickr photo and YouTube video explorer that takes Google Maps and mashes it up with Wikimapia and Placeopedia placemarks. Jotle lets you zoom into various parts of the world and see map points for Wikimapia and Placeopedia. Jotle then uses the tags for these locations to pull in photos from Flickr and videos from YouTube. Though it's definitely not the first Flickr + YouTube Google Maps mashup it is the first that uses this clever location-plotting as a way to suggest photos and videos for the areas of the map you're looking at. It's also a great compliment to the immense value both Wikimapia and Placeopedia offer in the area of travel and tourism. Now in addition to researching areas you are about to visit using Wikimapia and Placeopedia you can also use Jotle to get a visual feel for the immediate area.

hmm… well, i'm not sure if it's our slow internet connection or the mozilla browser, but don't believe the hype. while the concept of jotle is sound, the perfomance leaves much to be desired. the app was very unresponsive and we had a hard time figuring out what did what [or if anything did anything]

…

[after spending a bit more time playing around, we feel we may have been a bit too hard on jotle. it is in beta, after all, and our connection is terribly slow. still, there's something about the UI that we feel is seriously lacking.]

The Open Geospatial Consortium^® [OGC] recently became a member of the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C], a standards organization that develops interoperable technologies [specifications, guidelines, software, and tools] to lead the Web to its full potential.

The OGC is participating in a W3C incubator activity focusing on semantic geospatial issues. W3C Incubator Activities facilitate rapid development, on a time scale of a year or less, of new Web-related concepts. The semantic geospatial activity or Geospatial XG is sponsored by W3C members OGC, SRI International, University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute [USC ISI], Stanford University and Oracle and is chaired by Traverse Technology's Joshua Lieberman.

As an initial goal the Geospatial XG is working to develop a W3C "Note" based on GeoRSS version 1. This will result in a W3C Web page describing GeoRSS in the context of both W3C standards such as XML, HTML, and OWL; and OGC's relevant work, such as the OGC Abstract Specifications and Geography Markup Language [GML].

The OGC and the W3C seek to collaboratively add geospatial functionality to the emerging Semantic Web in a manner that is consistent with existing and future OGC standards. OGC standards are the product of a successful 12-year open, international, and consensus-driven effort to overcome obstacles to geospatial interoperability.

Interested parties are invited to participate in the Geospatial XG public mailing list. OGC's members are also invited to provide input on W3C issues via the OGC W3C Liaison, Raj Singh.

The OGC is an international industry consortium of more than 335 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. OpenGIS^® Specifications support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications.

thanks Donna:

Google Map Creator is a freeware application designed to make thematic mapping using Google Maps simpler. The software is part of the GeoVUE Project at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis [CASA].

If you have a shape file [and the associated bits], this free piece of software by Richard Milton of CASA will let you create a Google Map of the data and provide you with a web page which you can then publish.

→ more info
→ get it

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Q: [1] Does anyone have what they deem to be accurate zip code boundaries? [2] If so, where did you get them or how did you build them? I have not yet found a reliable source of zip code boundary data… including the Post Office.

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ExtremeTech is currently offering a full chapter from their new book on Google Maps/Earth. This chapter provides a detailed explanation on building a community site through Google Maps.

thanks Donna

Three posts bundled as one about various things Google Maps API, including: an API plugin for Dreamweaver [no JavaScript required], one-minute mashups by Google, and the datum and projection used by Google.

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