Map the Fallen launched

The little yellow dots look a bit like those maps they have in power stations, showing where the lights are on and off across America.
But look a little closer and you can see that each one is a little human figure. Zoom further and the details of each is revealed - these are each of the US servicemen to have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the start of the war on terror.
The project, known as Map the Fallen, shows where, when and how each military officer from the U.S. and coalition forces died since the start of the war in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.
Created by a Google Earth engineer in his free time, the map draws a line across the world linking each service member’s home town to the place they died serving their country.
Zooming in on a target home town reveals yellow figures, which represent the soldiers, positioned on the Google Earth view among recognisable points of interest. Scrolling over the figures triggers a pop-up box with the soldier's name and age.
There are also links to obituaries and memorial sites for the war heroes, with messages from families and friends.
Google engineer Sean Askay sourced data from the first death - on October 10 2001 - up until March this year.

It's a bit of a grizzly reminder of the human cost of the war, but at least gives us the chance to leave messages of respect to those who have fallen.

You can view the site at www.mapthefallen.org/

Traffic caught on camera

Being stuck in traffic is no fun. Wouldn't it be nice to see where the trouble spots were before you got there?
Well, lucky Florida residents, now you can. TrafficLand has just announced an agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to integrate traffic video from five major markets across the state into its national network of nearly 7,000 traffic cameras.
TrafficLand is to install its IP video equipment at FDOT Operation Centers in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Tampa, and Orlando. Live video from the FDOT cameras will be available to the public on TrafficLand’s free website at www.trafficland.com
The TrafficLand public website uses interactive maps showing traffic camera locations, which users click to view live video streams. Users can save customized camera displays, schedule emails with live images from selected cameras, access cameras by Web-enabled mobile devices and even set up traffic camera Widgets on personalized home pages or blogs.
Take a look. And if the jams are on your way home from work, at least you'll get to see where you'll be spending the next few hours.

Sentinel maps Florida fires

The News Illustrated section of the Sun-Sentinel site is often quite fascinating. This week's blog entry is no different, and should come as a delight to map lovers. Unfortunately the subject matter is not exactly good news, but it is interesting none the less.
The map shows how many fires have occurred in Florida since January 1. The red flame icons indicate how many have burned since Saturday, May 9 to indicate why there had been interstate closures in recent days. There are also larger maps of the Naples and Palm Beach County areas, so you can see clearly how many fires we've had lately. If you're interested in seeing the latest conditions, check out the U.S. Forestry Division's site to see how many more fires are burning in the Sunshine State.
Click here to read the full story.

Space, the final frontier for Google

It's hard to keep up with Google these days. No sooner do they bring out one innovation using the latest technology to map out the planet, than they set their eyes to the sky.Only this time they want us to look up as well.
From now on, amateur astronomers will be able to tell the difference between Mercury and Mars by simply pointing their camera-phones at the night sky and clicking a button.
The Google software, called Star Droid, uses GPS technology found in most new handsets to identify the position of the user and then compares this with existing maps of space. It automatically attaches name tags to the stars and planets that can be seen through the phone’s viewfinder.
The application, which could be launched as early as this week, is also likely to identify the object’s distance from Earth and its position within a constellation.
Astronomers hope Google’s technology, which will be free to download from the internet, will help to inspire and educate a new generation of stargazers.
The company’s critics, however, will no doubt see Google’s move into space as further evidence of its omnipresence. Some have already half-jokingly referred to its latest product as Google Universe.

All of a sudden, Mexico doesn't seem that far away

Another day, another Google map of the spread of swine flu. This one comes courtesy of http://www.guardian.co.uk/ blogger Bobbie Johnson. It shows the intensity of the affected areas and is actually really rather interesting.

Bobbie writes:

Over the past couple of years, those very clever people at Google.org have been trying to build early-warning systems for diseases - by tracking trends in the data that Google sees in order to build up a picture of whether people are succumbing to certain symptoms.
The US data on Flu Trends has been going since last autumn - but now, given the concern over swine flu, they're also mapping information in Mexico with a new, experimental system.
Engineers admit that it's not perfect, but they do think there's something to be learned from the information:
We cannot be fully confident that the data is correct because we don't have enough historical surveillance data for Mexico against which to compare and calibrate our estimates. Although we cannot validate our estimates as we did for Flu Trends for U.S., we have seen that Google users in Mexico also search for flu-related topics when they experience flu-related symptoms. We are cautiously optimistic that the graphs reflect actual flu activity. The system detected an increase in Mexico City before major news coverage.



Take a look at the map below.