Best of the blogs 31/01/12

By on 1 January, 1970
Vector One points us to a history of cadastral mapping in Queensland, as published by the Queensland Government. Well worth a look.
http://www.vector1media.com/vectorone/?p=9148
The Telegraph in the UK is reporting that a special summit has been called by the British government to address the issues that outdated maps on consumer’s GPS units are causing. The lag time between council’s closing, creating or otherwise modifying roads is measured in months, so during that time, many GPS users have ended up in some hairy situations. They hope to also address the fact that many GOS users don’t or won’t update the maps on their devices.
It’s crazy to think that just 10 short years ago, most people hadn’t even heard of GPS.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8995446/Minister-calls-satnav-summit.html
Speaking of Sat Nav devices, CarsGuide has a post that says GPS units are making us worse at navigating. A theory that’s been floating around for some time now, but an interesting read nonetheless.
http://www.carsguide.com.au/news-and-reviews/car-news/satnavs_getting_us_lost/
A little old now, but I missed it over the holidays. Looks like Google Map had mapped the inside of the recent Consumer Electronic (Trade)Show in Las Vegas, allowing Android smartphone users to navigate the labyrinthine halls.
Looks like the race to map the inside of the world has now begun. OSM, Bing, it’s your move.
http://www.slashgear.com/google-maps-brings-indoor-mapping-to-ces-08207362/
Did you read about the big solar storm that happened last week? The Sydney Morning Herald has a piece talking about its potential to interfere with GPS http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/sun-storm-could-affect-gps-signals-20120124-1qfsg.html. Not surprising, as GPS is a comparatively weak radio signal. But what about the more robust signals in the world, such as WiFi? My wireless network was performing pretty poorly during the time leading up to the storm, so I wondered, ‘is this due to a solar storm?’ This isn’t the first time I’ve had WiFi woes during a media-advised solar storm.
However, this graph pretty much says no.
http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2012/01/24/solar-radiation-storm-reaches-earth/
Further investigation is required…
AnyGeo informs readers that Samoa has changed its position relative to the international date line. Yep, in December of 2011, Samoa decided to jump the fence, largely due to it making business relationships with Australia easier. This means that Tonga and Samoa now share the same time, but are one day apart.
http://blog.gisuser.com/2012/01/24/south-pacific-country-samoa-changes-international-dateline/
Like LiDAR point clouds? LiDAR News has a short video f a LiDAR scan of the NY Stock Exchange, and the subsequent 3D models of the structural components modelled from the scan. Amazing to see the detail that LiDAR scans can achieve.
http://blog.lidarnews.com/laser-scanning-at-the-ny-stock-exchange

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