The Beauty of Maps – BBC Series

This is the last chance you will get to view this series.

According to the new source (below) this will NOT be made available on DVD or BluRay .

“Seeing The Art In Cartography”
An amazing array of interesting cartographic maps spanning centuries of maps that changed the perception of the world we see today.

Psalter 1260 Map

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/beautyofmaps/historical_maps.shtml#/psalter/intro/

Desceilers World Map 1550

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/beautyofmaps/historical_maps.shtml#/desceliers/intro/

Digital World Internet Data Movement Map

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/beautyofmaps/digital_worlds.shtml#/digital-worlds/highlights/global-data-exchange/

Clips can be previewed (UK only? iplayer restricts uk only – advise foxyproxy & a uk proxy)
If you use get_iplayer with Tor (Tor, Polipo and Vidalia bundle) even better

*Can be seen on BBC Four in the coming weeks or on the BBC iPlayer

1/4. The story of the Hereford Mappa Mundi, the largest intact Medieval wall map in the world.
Next Monday 19th April, 20:30 BST on BBC Four
Medieval Maps – Mapping the Medieval Mind
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s2w83

Beauty of Maps main page
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/beautyofmaps/index.shtml

Also see ‘Animated History of European Mapmaking’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/animations/map_making/index_embed.shtml

Look out for “Windows on the World” [starts Sunday 18 April 2010 21:00 BST BBC4 & HD]
“In a series about the extraordinary stories behind maps, Professor Jerry Brotton uncovers how maps aren’t simply about getting from A to B but are revealing snapshots of defining moments in history and tools of political power and persuasion.”

A Google Earth memorial for Andria Ruben McCool

 

Last month, Google lost one of their own when Andria Ruben McCool passed away unexpectedly. Andria was around since the Keyhole days of Google Earth, and she was a a driving force behind the impressive “Crisis in Darfur” layer that Google introduced in 2007.

As a sharp-eyed GEB reader discovered recently, Google has built a simple in-Earth memorial to Andria in the form of a labeled body of water, as shown here:

 

mccool.jpg 

You’ll need to make sure to have “Water Bodies” checked inside of your layers section (Borders and Labels –> Labels) to see the text. Here is a KMZ file to fly you to the exact location.

It’s nice to see Google honor her life like this, even if it’s a very small token. As far as I know, this the first memorial of this kind in Google Earth.

The Google Picker API

 

Users have content across many Google properties: YouTube, Picasa Web Albums, Google Docs, and more. Now we have a common interface for your users to select Google content. The Google Picker API provides a familiar-looking dialog box that’s easy for you to integrate into your apps. Your users can quickly browse their own content without ever leaving your page or app.

Perhaps you’re developing a blogging platform and you want your users to be able to embed their Picasa Web Albums photos. You can even let your users pick from public content, as found from image and video search.

Once the Picker is invoked by your user, a modal dialog appears on the page. If the user is already signed in to their Google account, they’ll see their content in just a second or two. If not, the user will be asked to sign in.

Integrating with the Google Picker API is straightforward. First, you specify which Google services should show up as options in the Picker navigation. For example, if you’re a photo site, you may choose to show Picasa and Google Image Search, but hide Google Docs and other services. Then, you simply specify a callback function that will be called as soon as the user’s data is returned to your application.

var picker = new google.picker.PickerBuilder().
    addView(google.picker.ViewId.IMAGE_SEARCH).
    setCallback(pickerCallback).
    build();
picker.setVisible(true);

You can find more integration details and examples in the documentation. We hope you enjoy this new API!