Brought to my attention this week is a post detailing the Atlas of the Suburbs of Sydney. To quote: “a series of late-nineteenth-century commercial maps that provides a portrait of the city during a period of rapid growth and suburbanisation. The maps are also evidence of one of the recurring themes of the mapping of Australia — the inability of government surveys and mapping to keep pace with demand for land acquisition. As Sydney expanded and new municipalities were created, the need for simple, informative area and street maps grew and the Atlas maps were produced by commercial map makers to meet this need.”
Bing Maps has announced that is has published its largest release of imagery to date – a massive 165 terabytes of imagery. The total amount of imagery hosted on Bing to date was only 129 terabytes, so the update is rather significant. In addition to imagery in Australia, the release also includes imagery of North America, South America, Africa, Europe and Asia. The total area covered in this data release is nearly 38 million square kilometres.
Noteworthy news for any big Google Maps users out there: The big G has slashed its API prices by 88%! The Google Developers Blog has the skinny.
The Aerometrex blog has a rather impressive 3D fly-through of Mt Buller in Victoria. The fly-through was created from a 30cm orthophoto mosaic draped over a 35cm digital surface model of the crater.
The winners of the recent inaugural hack::Brisbane competition have been announced, and the Brisbane times have a piece detailing their apps. One app will help residents find the nearest CityCycle bike rental point, and the other will help people with disabilities navigate the city.
The All Points Blog has a post outlining the US National Geospatial Agency’s (NGA) recent fund-cutting from the GeoEye project, including a follow-up post from GeoEye stating that it remains upbeat, and will fund operations without NGA money if necessary.
Google Maps Mania has a post outlining the Endangered Languages Project, which outlines some of the languages at risk of falling into disuse. “There are currently around 7,000 languages surviving in the world but it is estimated that at least half of them will disappear entirely before the end of this century. The Endangered Languages Project uses Google Maps to show the locations where languages are at risk throughout the world.”
