Computers, Society, and Nature

Thanks, MM, Intro to GIS

Emergency management is a crucial task that often does not receive adequate attention from both government and society. In the recent years, many nations have suffered from disastrous aftermaths of natural disasters that could have been prevented had there been more preparation and funding. Although damage and destruction is inevitable, it is possible to minimize the effects by having a well-developed disaster management plan. Now more than ever, GIS has become a key tool in disaster management. The first step to producing an emergency management plan is gathering data from variety of sources. While branches of government agencies releasing certain data is necessary to build a foundation for a plan, it is also essential to integrate these different data. Merging and display of multiple data becomes possible with GIS. GIS can produce visual outputs, such as a map, from numerous data inputs various information derived from government agencies.

The Sichuan Earthquake, which devastated the Chinese population this May, is a prime example of how damage can be minimized by the usage of G.I.S. in disaster management. Rescue teams were able to rapidly locate and transport people and food aid and other supplies reached where needed. Data, provided by the National Geomatics Centre of China, were used for base maps for numerous purposes. The Centre also was able to access satellite imagery from other sources. Finally, ESRI China played a crucial role in aid and support by integrating government information with their technologies. Situations such as these truly enlighten the society as to the importance of sharing and storing data.

Learning from benefits of a well-planned relief strategy, increasing numbers of governments have began devote resources to disaster management. The most recent development in this field is The Great Southern California ShakeOut Drill, which was the largest earthquake preparedness exercise in U.S. history. An imaginary earthquake was situated along the San Andreas Fault, where a large earthquake would most likely occur in that area, with a significantly large magnitude of 7.8. GIS technology was used to build a base of information where the location of resources and aid could be determined immediately in case of a natural disaster. Furthermore, it helped to predict the extent of potential damage by simulating the real-life geography of the area and how the landscape would be affected by the earthquake.

From AK, Intro to GIS

Increasingly, it will become necessary to ascertain one’s precise position in space and time in a reliable manner. This will be possible with the GALILEO satellite radio navigation system, an initiative launched by the European Union and the European Space Agency. This worldwide system will complement the current GPS system.

Satellite radio navigation is an advanced technology. It is based on the emission from satellites of signals indicating time with extreme precision. This enables any individual to determine his or her position or the location of any moving or stationary object (e.g. a vehicle, a ship, or a herd of cattle, etc.) to within one metre thanks to a small cheap individual receiver.

GALILEO is based on a constellation of 30 satellites and ground stations providing information concerning the positioning of users in many sectors such as transport (vehicle location, route searching, speed control, guidance systems, etc.), social services (e.g. aid for the disabled or elderly), the justice system and customs services (location of suspects, border controls), public works (geographical information systems), search and rescue systems, or leisure (direction-finding at sea or in the mountains, etc.).

Galileo will be a cornerstone of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). This system will be under civilian control and will allow positions to be determined accurately for most places on Earth, even in high rise cities where buildings obscure signals from satellites low on the horizon.

Links:
http://www.aatl.net/publications/galileo.htm
http://www.esa.int/esaNA/GGGMX650NDC_galileo_0.html

From SH, Intro to GIS

State: District of Columbia
Neighborhood: Logan Circle-shaw
Date: November 22, 2008

News:
• “Malia and Sasha Obama Will Go To Sidwell Friends School” – Logan Circle NW
• “D.C. Churches Hope to Attract First Family” – 16th Street and M Street NW
• “Grinch Opened at Hippodrome” – 9th Street NW
• “Judging Restaurants- El Sol” –1930 9th Street NW

As GIS students, we know that location matters; things that are located closer to you carry more weight than things are far away from you. YourStreet has simply applied this fundamental principle to the arena of News by connecting people to stories that are most likely going to impact their lives the most– stories from their own backyards.

YourStreet recently launched their new layout:

The mechanics behind YourStreet is a very sophisticated algorithm that is able to extract key locational words from city names and neighborhoods right down streets addresses. And with a little help from the entities database put together by the U.S. Geological Survey, the algorithm is also able to recognize words that are associated with public places within a particular region such as Churches, Schools, and Stadiums. In fact, it is this precision that sets YourStreet apart from its major competitors. The system then proceeds to geo-code the article according to longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates and plots it on a map. The site covers stories from over 50,000 locations throughout the United States (unfortunately, the service is not yet available for Canada) and collects its news from tens of thousands newspapers, local blogs, and RRS feeds, all of which the algorithms scans daily. As James Nicholson, the founder of YourStreet, points out, this is another aspect that sets it apart from other hyper-local news sites, as they do not heavily depend on their users as news sources.

After reading all this new innovative stuff about YourStreet I decided to give it a try. My experience with Yourstreet began with a geographical search by City, ZipCode, or Neighborhood. Once that was done I was prompted a Google Map, along with its friendly user interface that enables pan and zoom functions, of my search area filled with a myriad of pinpoints displaying news items from all categories from robberies to school plays to politics. However, if you register and sign in as a member, YourStreet apparently shows the general region you are located automatically by a search of your IP address I am assuming. Pinpoints on the map were comprised of three groups: News, Member Profiles, and Stories and Discussions, each of which is a separate layer that the user can turn on or off. News items featured whether on the map or in a list form are merely teasers, which you can click to be linked back to the original source, just in case you wanted to read the full articles. A cool aspect of YourStreet is that any member can point to any location on the map and start a discussion: review restaurants, voice your opinions on local affairs, or even publicize your hosted events. Further, Members Profiles lets you know who and where your possible neighbors are. One major downfall I experienced was that I was often unable to access the full news articles I was wanted to read because I did not have subscriptions to the online source. I think this really detracts from the main purpose of YourStreet unless it is willing to become just a big advertising block for newspaper subscriptions. Nevertheless, I feel YourStreet have much room to grow and does offer a different kind of social networking worth checking out. It not only has the potential to motivate community solidarity but also provide an interactive and visual experience of local news.

A great post from SJ, Intro to GIS

Google Book Search is a service offered by the search engine company Google. Basically, you can search the contents of books. But you can also use it to geo-reference and map the content of books. It is an interesting concept based on the idea that everything on the web can be geo-referenced. What this service essentially does is it allows you to answer the question “Where are the places in my book?” The collection of books that are geo-referenced is expanding. Genres include travel, fiction, non-fiction and books from all ages.

This feature is fun because it allows the reader to “visit” the places they read about in their book. While this option is not yet offered for all book searches, it opens up a whole new world for book lovers alike. Google is still in the midst of scanning as many books as possible from university libraries and other sources all across the US, so it may take some time for the new partnership between Google Book Search and GoogleMaps to mature.

However, if this new partnership is successful, the road towards a geo-referenced search engine may not be so long. Google is already able to scrape the web for all sorts of specified information. Google has already categorized searches into “news”, “web”, “blogs”, “comprehensive”, “video” and “groups”. Under these categories, you can ask Google to alert you when your search appears in the top ten or twenty searches under that topic. This service is called Google Alerts. You can see that it is possible to search all these categories for “places”. Whether, you are tagging places in books or on web sites, it all stems from the basic idea that in every piece of information that is displayed in print or on the Internet, it is possible to geo-reference that information.

Thanks, KG, for the post

One of the major obstacles in using robots for search-and-rescue is the fact that most cannot navigate uneven, rocky terrain. Luckily, a Swiss robotics lab has developed the world’s smallest hopping robot, which can propel itself eight feet into the air, a record-breaking 27 times its own height. It uses “two spring-loaded feet powered by the same type of motor that vibrates your cellphone.” This technology is much quicker and more effective than walking or rolling robots; standing two inches tall and weighing only seven grams, it can still carry half its weight in cameras and sensors. The best thing about it? The inspiration came from nature.

Engineers Dario Floreano and Mirko Kovac, of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in Lausanne, modeled this hopping helper after grasshoppers, which can easily cover up to three feet on uneven ground in a single bound. Cameras and global positioning systems will enable swarms of these little robots to perform search-and-rescue operations, as well as possibly mapping environmental disaster areas, and even surveying other planets.

Before you venture out into the woods with complete insouciance, there are still improvements to be made. The mechanical grasshoppers still have some trouble sticking landings, and are unable to direct themselves. Floreano and Kovac may attach wings to the machine to help stabilize the hopping robot much in the way grasshoppers’ wings do. The attachment of solar panels, simple sensors and a microprocessor could allow the robots to control its hopping, recharge its battery, and possibly even communicate with other robots in the swarm. This technology still has a few hurdles to jump, but someday it may help to make the world a safer place.

Thanks, AA, Intro to GIS

As we saw in the elections in US and Canada, the use of GIS applications in elections can easily transmit information to the residents. This system was used in Washoe County, Nevada on November 7, 2006 for the general election in Nevada (Harkins et al., 2007). As the polls closed, the map was broadcast on television and updated when new results came in. The application incorporated the county of Washoe that displayed various map symbols including roads, urban areas and water zones. For every question on the ballot, an individual map of the county was displayed with the results. The county was symbolized with different colors, charts, and graphs that explained the results from the ballots. The same method was also used in the 2008 U.S. presidential election as voting results were displayed on maps of counties, states and the country of the U.S.A. (Geographic Information Services, 2008).

This application of GIS for elections is an ideal system that is being used more often throughout elections. This new system enables residents to be more aware of what is occurring at a small grain of detail around their neighborhood during election time. It is also an ideal method to give political analysts an overview of the election progress without much additional work. This method is also useful for television or the Internet because it can show residents who have have not yet voted the election activity of nearby precincts. Using GIS in elections is the most efficient way to broadcast the results because it is fast, clear and can be updated and broadcast immediately to the public.

Harkins, Kobe and Lawton, Matthew. Real-Time Tracking of the Washoe County. Technology Services Department. Nevada. 2007.

Geographic Information Services. Election 2008.

A nice post and a nice ending to the story, from JH, Intro GIS

Watch out able-bodied hikers, casual nature-walkers, and general outdoors enthusiasts, because that engine revving behind you may not belong to that dastardly logging company trying to spoil your leisure. What is it then? None other than those who are wheelchair-bound’s answer to the call of the wild. Fraunhofer, a German-based IT company, has joined with Otto Bock, another German company that specializes in advanced healthcare products, to create the “Superfourin”: a wheelchair with not only excellent off-road capabilities, but more pertinently, an onboard GPS unit that allows a predetermined control centre to both track the location of the patient or user, but also keep tabs on the user’s vitals such as their pulse. Although not a cheap replacement to the standard wheelchair, the two companies have brought with their innovation creation a host of opportunities as of yet untapped with respect to the healthcare industry and GPS technology.

An example of this comes fresh in my mind from something I witnessed about 4 years ago. I was working at a local hardware store and as usual I decided to make a quick run home for lunch. Crossing the same major intersection I would always have to cross (a case where a handheld GPS would have found no better route), I noticed a fairly feeble looking middle-aged man picking up a fair amount of speed as he crossed the intersection beside me on his motorized wheelchair. No sooner had I watched him whiz by when he suddenly hopped the oncoming curb, slammed his wheelchair into the base of the traffic lights and was consequently catapulted from his wheelchair onto the unforgiving pavement. Luckily for him, this was a busy intersection with many good Samaritans only too willing to help him out. However, it was when he started to have a seizure that everyone around the incident, including myself, had the sinking feeling that this had gone from bad to worse. Then, for but one reason, worse became dire: no one in the immediate area had a cell phone.

The moral of my little anecdote is that even if all of those who carry out their daily routines cannot afford or practically use a Superfourin, the concept of a GPS unit in the wheelchair promoted by these companies is invaluable. This man clearly had some sort of ailment that kicked in while he was crossing the street, and subsequently saw him launched onto the pavement into a seizure. Worse still, those who wanted to help were (by today’s standards) under-equipped communicative devices. With a GPS unit in a wheelchair, the passerby is taken out of the equation as the response is triggered by the unfortunate events themselves. With GPS technology only getting cheaper as it is further mass-produced and affordable to most everyday consumers, it seems like a logical next step to begin to apply its use in all matters where both the safety and the health of the potential users are at stake. The man in my account could have been much better served had a GPS unit been installed in the same manner as the Superfourin’s. Fortunately, I saw him in the hardware store two weeks later and he had fully recovered from the accident.

Thanks, KM, Intro to GIS

Isn’t it amazing how Geographic information systems are being used so widely around the world for various purposes? Not only has GIS technology contributed greatly to marine research, aiding in the conservation of marine mammals, but it also has become a tool with which marine researchers are depending on more and more to track and protect species from extinction, as well as influence policy decisions.

Marine biologist Michelle Kinzel has researched grey whales off the central coast of British Columbia. She studied the behaviour of grey whales, at first using manual methods. Gradually Kinzel began using GIS approaches for her grey whale research, skills she learned from a “sea turtle satellite telemetry project”. ArcView, plus an extension (Animal Movement) is used in her whale research. It uses several tools to study travel patterns (migration), as well as habitat features and functions. Feeding grounds for whales change over time; thus habitats and movements change depending on the type and abundance of prey available. Behavioural patterns (movement, habitat selection) are better understood from research done on specific prey types. GPS readings, along with photographs, are also taken every time Kinzel spots a whale. The GPS readings add extra information to the photo logs while contributing to data that is analyzed by the Animal Movement extension. The extension analyzes the data using a kernel density distribution, which is a more precise method of estimating the home range sizes and location of whales within their particular habitats (Smith 2003). These are but a few examples of how GIS technology can be used as a means of improving marine research.

Researchers have worked with ESRI to develop Arc Marine as an integrative data platform to track great whales (Brett et al. 2007).

GIS is also being used to help save North Atlantic right whales (endangered species). The leading cause of right whale mortality is impact with shipping vessels and boats. For this reason, GIS technology has aided greatly in research on North Atlantic right whales. Remote sensing techniques, such as satellites, are being used for research purposes, tracking the movement and habitat of right whales in order to better understand and potentially predict the location of the right whale populations. GIS technology is also used for tracking shipping patterns and understanding where/when commercial fishing activities, as well as other human activities, could be impacting the right whale population. The New England aquarium research center is doing more research in order to better understand the interactions between human presence and right whales, and enforce policies in order to help save the right whale population. They’ve stated that their GIS program “is helping conserve critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, track rehabilitated and released marine animals and train [their] next generation of ocean stewards” (Ris 2008). Therefore, the information and research provided by GIS technology greatly enhances the chances of saving the right whale population.

Another benefit of GIS technology is its use in the marine field. GIS allows researchers/scientists to classify and study complex data through space and time (Engleby 2001). For example, the integration of specific data results on maps help identify where right whales may be at certain times of the year, or how far rehabilitated turtles might travel through satellite tracking systems. The New England Aquarium uses GIS “to explore marine environments. Mapping allows [them] to interpret relationships not visible through the tables or graphs that are more commonly used in scientific studies. [They] look for innovative conservation solutions by analyzing the spatial distribution of right whales relative to shipping lanes and the travel patterns of dolphins and sea turtles” (Ris 2008). It could be said then that GIS technology is not only beneficial to the research and understanding of marine life, but also its preservation.

From ST, Intro to GIS

There has been a lot of talk about new gadgets available to the general public, such as navigational tools that can be used in cars, handheld GPS systems, and so on. Apple’s new iPhone is just one of the many new technologies that come with GPS applications. Because these new toys are so expensive, iPhones, iPods and other similar items are often the target of theft. An ethical dilemma is then raised: should Apple use their multiple resources to help locate the stolen goods?

Apple’s iPhone comes equipped with GPS, which, according to Peleg (2008), is “a “constellation” of 24 well-spaced satellites that orbit the Earth and make it possible for people with ground receivers to pinpoint their geographic location”. It is usually accurate with 10 to 100 meters. Not only can iPhones and iPods be tracked using GPS, they can also be located using Apple’s massive servers. According to Hartley (2008), the first steps after acquiring an Apple product would be to register the device through Apple iTunes, the company’s music service. To register, the client must enter the product’s serial number as well as their personal information, such as name and address (ibid.). Apple “stores this information on its server so that it can recognize an individual’s iPod” (ibid.). Whenever an iPod or iPhone is plugged in, it is “calling home to Apple” (ibid.). Apple can therefore lay out on a map the location of every Apple user in the world. They can also track the frequency of use, they can track consumption per country, per region, and so on. This tool provides locational information every time someone plugs in their iPod.

The use of GIS can be harnessed for mapping and analysis of geographic data. In this instance, the information gathered by Apple’s servers could potentially, if not already, store spatial features in a coordinate system, which would reference each particular Apple user on earth. If this is the case, a stolen iPod could be located the second it is plugged in to a computer, or tracked using GPS. There are various websites dedicated to locating stolen iPods, but the true solution would be more implication from Apple.

Apple has the capability of locating and pinpointing any given iPod based on the serial number. Apple’s chief executive officer also announced that “the company maintains an internal “kill switch” which can shut down and erase any application, both in the company’s online store and on every user’s iPhone, if the software is deemed to be harmful or malicious” (ibid.). If this is the case, some argue it would be possible to “kill” an iPod just as easily as it would be to erase an application.

It would, however, be too expensive to create some sort of theft monitoring system, because since the launch of the first iPod, there has been well over 100 million sold worldwide. Should this type of security be a priority for Apple? In my opinion, if they are storing data containing names and addresses linked to serial numbers, one of the benefits should be the peace of mind in knowing that if an iPod or iPhone is stolen, it can be located again. These gadgets are expensive, and sometimes contain very valuable information. They can store massive quantities of information, which does make them very valuable, even if not for monetary gain. Although it would be extremely hard to track the number of lost or stolen Apple products throughout the world, perhaps a division of Apple should be dedicated to developing this program in the future.

h/t CDF, Intro GIS

With the US presidential campaign still fresh in our memory and the Quebec provincial elections filling much of the media sphere, the Canadian Federal elections seem quite far away. Yet, just over a month ago, Canadians were asked to go to the polls and vote for their representatives. Because of the non-proportional electoral system that is in place in Canada, some electors decided to rethink their vote and follow the idea of the Project ABC (Anything But Conservative) and to go for strategic voting to reduce the Conservatives’ chances of being re-elected. Strategic voting can be described as the decision to vote for a second choice party in order to prevent an even less favorable party from winning. For strategic voting to be effective in a riding, this riding has to fulfill certain conditions: It must be a close two-way race; the other parties must have remote chances of winning; and the small number of votes for a third or fourth party must make a difference.

But once one has taken the decision to vote strategically, how can they know which party has the most chances to win in their ridings? It is at this stage that GIS comes into play, through the website Vote for Environment. By georeferencing postal codes on Google Map, this site helped voters to redirect their votes in the Canadian Federal elections. Therefore, one could type in his or her postal code, and a polygon would be traced on a Google map, showing the riding’s boundaries. As postal codes sometimes cross riding boundaries, the user could also click on the map to change riding, and the new riding’s attribute table would appear. The attribute table associated with each riding contains the different candidates as well as a graph showing the likely vote totals for each party, according to the latest polls. Finally, it indicated the website’s “pick”, according to the statistics. This pick represented the candidate for which one should vote for not to get the Conservative candidate to pass. As it is a non-partisan website, if the Conservatives did not have a chance to get the riding, it would just indicate to “vote with your heart”. Also, following the strategic voting conditions, the website did not suggest a candidate unless he or she “could have won in 2006 if at least one-third of the opposition party supporters had voted for the leading opposition party in that riding”.

Gerrymandering, a form of redistribution that deliberately rearranges the boundaries of districts to influence the outcome of elections, often comes to our mind when we think of the implication of GIS in the political sphere. Even though the strategic voting method suggested by Vote for Environment has not been able to completely achieve its objective of preventing another Conservative government in Canada, it has shown an interesting way of using accessible GIS information to enhance community mobilization.

From a serious student in Intro GIS

Google Maps is a digital earth that displays the inter-relationships of geographic information systems. These inter-relationships include; distances, directions, duration, adjacency, and property boundaries. Google uploads this geographic information systems (GIS) data and makes it available to the public.

The public finds the geospatial information they are looking for through visual inspection. They can search for information by address; type; name; what, where; moving and viewing (clicking on a point on the map and dragging it until you see your area of interest).

Google maps help us to find our way around the world. It provides us with the basic layers of navigation needed for people to find their way around areas (roads, highways, parks etc). The special characteristic of Google maps is that anyone can create their own maps. All you have to do is create your own Google account. When done properly and with good intent, personal maps can be useful. They allow citizens to give short cuts or personal directions to places, such as winter cottages for the thanksgiving supper. They allow people to update the maps after natural disasters so love ones can come and get them. For instance when the radio station KPBS maintained an up-to-date map of the fire situation in San Diego. This allowed residences of the area to check in and see if their properties were affected by the fire.

Google Maps also have their down sides. As with most public accessed sites, you get the characters who like to just play around with the software for no apparent reason and confuse people who are looking for important information. Take for instance the map of where the things in Cloverfield happen. This is a map displaying the major scenes in a movie. Although it is intended for a certain audience, anyone can look at it. Most likely it annoys people who are searching for actual places in that area and get this map as their result.

As wonderful as Google maps are in how accessible they make maps to be, they can also slow people down and distract them from their original intentions. Something that a good old fashioned Atlas could never do. But overall Google maps have been a very positive addition to the Internet and GIS.

h/t CM, Intro GIS

Last.fm is a free online service that offers its users the ability to both catalogue and track their current music listening habits as well as to expand their tastes by creating personalized recommendations and streaming radio stations based on aggregated data of user preferences. For example, the algorithms are able to match you with “neighbours” who have similar musical tastes and make suggestions based on artists you haven’t listened to but your neighbours have. The accuracy improves as you listen to more songs and log them in your profile. The success of last.fm (it has millions of users in almost every country in the world) has enabled it to track broad trends in music listening worldwide. Weekly charts are compiled that show the top songs and artists overall, as well as the fastest-gaining tracks and musicians.

Last.fm has made a recent foray into the world of iPhones, in which users gain access to their own personal radio stations while on the move anywhere in the world. This application has made it clear that there is much potential both to expand the applications of this technology. Tim Walker, writing in The Independent about the possibilities of moving data storage online into a “Cloud” says that, “If the iPhone and Google-phone allow their owners to listen not only to their own music libraries but to any music at all via the Cloud, they will quickly make that old-fashioned data-storing device, the iPod, redundant.” I offer this anecdote only to demonstrate the potential for massive amounts of data to be collected and shared about music listening habits with relative ease based on existing technology. What is most fascinating, and has not yet been discussed, is the potential for Last.fm to make charts like the Billboard Hot 100 irrelevant.

Billboard’s decision to include online music sales in the formulation of charts shows that they’re aware that the future of music can be found on the Internet. But if the vast majority of music is being either downloaded illegally or streamed legally from sites like Last.fm (or potentially from other networked users), then a lot of real life listening is going unrecorded and is thus not reflected in what is defined as “popular”. Last.fm could make popularity a lot more democratic than it is now, with radio play and album sales largely determining chart placements and a spot in the cultural canon. Not only could Last.fm lay bare the hidden epidemiological workings of how music trends take off, it could actually modify how those trends work. If users have access to millions of songs, they’ll probably start by listening to what’s already popular or on the rise. Thus something could become a hit due to the snowball effect of online users selecting it without any marketing campaign whatsoever.

What does this have to do with GIS? Last.fm currently asks users only to identify their country and time zone. If it asked for more detailed information, or merely used IP addresses to determine location, and encoded every track submitted to the database with this information, the potential for customized charts is limitless. Charts could be compiled detailing the top artists and songs at the level of neighbourhood, city, province or country. You could ask for the top artists among users living within a 50km radius of yourself. In advance of moving to a new town, anxious teenagers could find out which bands everyone at their new high school was listening to before they even arrived. Obviously, this information would be highly sought after amongst marketers of just about everything: musical taste has a well-documented relationship with the consumption of style and accessories. Spatial location is only one type of data that could be linked to music listening – any demographic trait would work equally well. Charts could be created based on age, gender, income etc.

Last.fm has already begun to make some spatial connections with user data through its “Events” pages. Users can indicate which concerts they plan on attending by selecting their nearest city, and Last.fm can notify you if a band in your “library” will be playing near you in the future. This could be expanded to include record stores and other music-related business ventures.

The level of public availability of this data will therefore be of huge importance. If Last.fm, owned by CBS Television, chooses to make everything public (while maintaining user privacy), this could be of great interest to everyone from sociologists studying social trends and cultural capital to musicians interested in genre and audience reception. If Last.fm releases the data selectively or at cost, it will serve the interests of record labels, radio conglomerates and concert promoters attempting to find profits on the internet to replace stagnating revenue streams in their traditional markets.

Links:

Last.fm now enables streaming of Billboard hits. This is the bare minimum of the potential offered by this technology, which could rewrite how Billboard hits are themselves calculated.

Although not spatial in nature, this map of Last.fm artists demonstrates the potential for drawing connections between artists and listeners based on user-generated tags and listening statistics.

A look at how people are willing to pay for the “right” music at the right time and in the right setting. Last.fm essentially offers this service for free already – listeners can select from user-generated tags and stream a radio station of music tagged “relaxing” or “playful”. Adding spatial data to last.fm could enable the option of radio stations linked to particular places or atmospheres, like music popular in the Caribbean or the Rockies.

An overview of the “Cloud” and how Last.fm could gain popularity under this system due to availability on wireless devices.

h/t JH, Intro GIS

While the Modern Language Association, or MLA, is best known for its tedious citation rules and linguistic pedantry, it also contains one of the most interesting, user-friendly geodemographic tools on the Internet: the MLA language map.

The language map is an interactive tool that allows you to view the United States, or individual states, divided by county or ZIP code. It then displays either the percentage or absolute population of primary speakers of any of thirty-three languages, from Spanish to Hungarian to Navajo. The map uses data from the 2000 US Census, which joins individuals’ native language data with the populations and locations of their towns and cities. Its intuitive, intelligent, easy-to-use design makes it fun to generate thousands of variations.

The map uses vector data, in the form of ZIP codes or counties, and stores the relevant data (total population, political boundary nodes, and populations of individual language-natives) in an attribute table. The requested data is compiled newly into a map upon request, making this a true GIS. The site also allows you to simultaneously make, view, and compare two maps of your choice.

Language use in the United States (and anywhere!) is crucial demographic and sociological information. Although English is indisputably the States’ lingua franca, knowing the second languages of minorities in certain areas, and how widely used these languages are, can benefit corporate marketers, government service providers, and individuals. It can also speak volumes about the linguistic, and thus cultural, history of a region, highlight centres of cross linguistic exposure, and generally enrich one’s understanding of a region.

For example, the following is a map produced by this GIS in which I have requested the percentage of people who speak languages other than English at home to be shown by county. Darker regions represent higher percentages of such speakers.

(MLA Language Map, with data from 2000 US Census)

This data clearly highlights the areas of the United States in which languages other than English predominate. Such information could be very useful, for example, in the budgeting of funds towards local multilingual initiatives. Northern Maine, western Texas, and southern Florida are clearly in greater need of multilingual support than are the entire states of Alabama, Kentucky, and Missouri.
Other uses might use language distribution to infer the availability of certain cultural products. For example, an Orthodox Jew on a road trip through New York State might wonder where kosher food is available. The following map looks at concentrations of Yiddish speakers by ZIP code.

(MLA Language Map, with data from 2000 US Census)

In this case, darker ZIP codes represent higher concentrations of Yiddish speakers. In the state of New York, most counties are coloured white (zero Yiddish speakers) or grey (between one and ninety-nine speakers). However, one ZIP code in Orange County shows up as purple (between 20,000 and 39,999 speakers). Zooming in shows the ZIP code of this town and further investigation shows that it contains the Village of Kiryas Joel, an entirely Orthodox village where Yiddish is the primary language and, indeed, many stores sell exclusively kosher food.

These are just two of the many permutations for which the language map is useful. Spend a couple hours playing with the tool and you’ll find many more.