Tightgrid | Geoff Edwards

GPS


How to find your way in Japan

Streets in Japan are notoriously difficult to navigate. Japanese Penguin offers some advice on finding your way when the streets have no names. The bottom line?
[I]f you plan to drive in Japan, get GPS. If you have to walk or bike somewhere, make sure you have solid directions and know exactly where you’re going and [...]

Where the streets have no name (online mapping services must rely on landmarks).

Indian business blog Trak.in reviews three mapping services’ coverage of the subcontinent. They look at Yahoo, RouteGuru and MapMyIndia. Creating roadmaps of India is challenging “given the unorganized and inconsistent naming standards of the Indian roads” or the lack of road names in the first place.
When asked to provide directions from point A to point [...]

Treatments of graffiti reveal competing visions of the city

Graffiti Tracker applies NSA-style analysis to photographs of graffiti. BBC recently profiled the company.
BBC recently profiled the company:
Graffiti Tracker, the brainchild of graduate student and crime analyst Timothy Kephart, uses global positioning systems (GPS), digital photography and computer databases to track and catch graffiti artists.
The system - dubbed Graffiti Analysis/Intelligence Tracking System (GAITS) - takes [...]

Online maps suppressed

From NPR:
With Google Earth and GPS, people have grown accustomed to online maps of whatever they’re searching for. But the boom in digital mapping has run into an obstacle. Some government officials are refusing to release electronic maps of what they call “critical infrastructure,” such as water mains and fire hydrants.

GSP-enabled buses in NYC

GPS-enabled buses send signals to bus stop signs, letting New York Ciy passengers know exactly how long they’ll have to wait.