Laura Penny has a good article in the Saturday Globe about GPS going mainstream and "neogeography"
Chief executive officer [of Platial] Di-Ann Eisnor says, "The interesting thing about neogeography is that it fulfills a very simple human need. We have an innate desire to explore, to connect, to adventure, but there is a big hurdle for most people - it's overwhelming."
GPS devices, and user-friendly websites such as Platial and Google Maps, have removed that hurdle. GPS units collect raw data and Platial and Google Maps make it easy to plug in those co-ordinates to create do-it-yourself cartography.
Ms. Eisnor notes that Google Maps users have created seven million maps. She thinks that neogeography is catching on because GPS units make it "easy to navigate the world according to your own interests based on seeing who and what are nearby ... anywhere," she says. "That is amazing because it demystifies much of what we don't know about the world and can lead to more free movement, better adventures and more connections with like-minded people."
Robert Maher, a senior researcher at the Applied Geomatics Research Group of the Nova Scotia Community College, has also noticed a growing general interest in geography. "Suddenly, we have an army of closet geographers wandering the landscape collecting info. There's a recognition that the public can own their own geography," he says.
unfortunately the article is subscribers-only online
Globe and Mail - Location, location, location ... literally - February 2, 2008
Personally, as I've said in "Google Earth: You say you want a Revolution?" and "in the age of geoinformation", I find Google Earth, with its smooth 3D view of the world, much more transformative than just plain Google Maps.
There is one minor error, she says "Trackers such as the Trackstick register, store and transmit the location and movements of whatever they are attached to". While this is true for trackers in general, the Trackstick doesn't do live transmission of location, it's a regular GPS logger with post-logging download to a PC. (In case you're wondering why I haven't looked at the Trackstick, I don't generally look at devices priced over $100.) I will have a follow-up posting pondering terminology for GPSes.
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