With the Atlantic hurricane season about to kick into gear, plenty are wondering how this year’s crop of storms with disarmingly mundane names will compare to last year’s nightmarish season. This map goes even further, showing the past 170 hurricane seasons. It’s beautiful and humbling, all at once.
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Remember that time Apple launched a new iteration of iOS with a godawful mapping app? Shortly after that, it also recommended that users in major metropolitan areas lean on third-party apps for mass transit navigation, given that iOS Maps had no such functionality. As it turns out, Embark was one of those app makers, and it has very much enjoyed the influx of attention that has arrived thanks to Apple’s gaffe. Now, however, the small team will likely not be toiling on future Android apps, as Jessica Lessin is reporting that Embark has been acquired by Apple itself. It’s unclear how much money changed hands, but one could surmise that Apple will be using Embark’s technology to bolster its own mass transit routing — an area where Google currently rules the roost. Will proper integration happen prior to iOS 7’s release this autumn? It’s doubtful, but we’ve sure seen crazier things happen.
Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Software, Mobile, Apple
Source: Jessica Lessin
Google has gone to a lot of interesting places with Street View in recent months, but none might as odd and perhaps not-as-exciting than a zoo, a place we’ve all been to at least once when we were kids, but Google wants to bring the experience to your computer screen just in case you feel […]
Nokia Here collection vehicles aren’t the only way the Finish giant is gathering data about our highways and city streets. The company’s researchers are also using anonymous smartphone, PND and even CAN bus data to further our understanding of traffic flow and driver behavior in different conditions. Beyond improving maps and navigation, the goal is to make our roads better and cars smarter. We recently spoke with Nokia’s Jane Macfarlane, Head of Research for Here, who shared how her team is bringing map data to life with the collaboration of opt-in smartphone users and fleet vehicle operators. Take a look at our gallery below and watch the video after the break. %Gallery-slideshow73225%
Filed under: GPS, Transportation, Mobile, Nokia
What do the Lumia 920, Surface Pro, Velodyne LIDAR, NovAtel GPS and Jetta TDI wagon all have in common? They’re all essential parts of the next generation Nokia Here collection vehicle. When Here was announced last fall, we checked out v1.0 of the car which featured an elaborate but clunky set of sensors and cameras. That’s also when Nokia announced it was acquiring Earthmine, a Berkeley-based 3D-mapping company. Nine months later, we’re seeing the results of this collaboration with v2.0 of the collection vehicle. It’s a simpler and more advanced setup which provides much improved image quality. Nokia recently invited us to take ride in a next generation Here car — check out the gallery below then hit the break for our video and breakdown of the technology. %Gallery-slideshow73223%
Filed under: GPS, Transportation, Mobile, Microsoft, Nokia
If you were to re-draw the map of the world according to each countries population, you would get a warped world that looked like this. Some giant countries like Canada and Australia become tiny strips and dots while other giant countries like China and India predictably inflate and take over the map. You can also see how crowded some countries are, Japan is bigger than Mexico! But at least all these countries made it on the map, Iceland and Belize didn’t even have enough people to show up.
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Granted, the name “Street View” doesn’t really apply like it used to, but who’s going to argue with a feature like this? Google announced today that it’s added imagery from zoos all over the world to the Maps feature, meaning that you can check out lions, tigers and red pandas in their unnatural habits and avoid the long lines at the monkey house. Google’s got links to the zoo shots in the source link below, including locations in Singapore, Germany, Spain, the UK and China — sadly there are no dog lions, however, so far as we can tell.
Source: Google Latlong
Gravity’s often assumed to be constant across the entire planet, but because the Earth varies in shape and density, that’s not really the case. Now, this super-accurate gravity map reveals that the fluctuations are even more extreme than scientists previously thought.
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Want to see what your home would look like if it were demolished by a tropical storm? Or if your city turned into a ruined post-apocalyptic outpost? You can do this and more virtual destruction using a few Google Maps tricks. Here are five good ones, courtesy of Keir Clarke from Google Maps Mania.
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Nokia may have come late to the game with Streetview-style 3D photography in its HERE Maps service, but the company is aiming to overtake Google with its second generation of mapping cars. Built using newly developed camera, LIDAR, and processing technology from 3D specialist Earthmine, which Nokia acquired last November, the updated system promises higher-resolution […]
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