3pointD.com

During my brief stay at the University of California at Berkeley, one of my favorite classes was an introduction to the history of science. (Favorite in theory; I’m not sure how many sessions I actually showed up for.) Since then, I’ve always enjoyed reading science and technology histories, stuff like What the Dormouse Said, for instance (which made it even cooler to get to talk with Doug Engelbart). Now there’s a new history of GIS (geographical information science) out from the publishing arm of the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., a private-sector GIS research firm. The book is called Charting the Unknown: How Computer Mapping at Harvard Became GIS, and tells of a convergence of cartographers, artists and computer scientists at Harvard in the 1960s that eventually led to GIS as the science we know today. Sounds like good reading. And it comes in a nice multimedia package, as well. More information from ESRI. [Via press release, quoted below.] (more…)

Why put a pin in the map when you can just put a pin in the place itself. From the AP:

You know how some people mark a spot on a map with a push pin? That’s the idea behind a proposed sculpture in Davenport, Iowa. Officials want to mark the spot where two bike trails coverage with a 25-foot-tall push pin. But not everyone wants a giant push pin along the Mississippi River. Kelli Grubbs, a member of the city’s Levee Improvement Commission, calls it hideous. Mayor Ed Windborn wants the commission to give it serious consideration. He calls it a fun design.

Go, Ed! [Via All Points Blog.]

The All Points Blog flags this InformationWeek article about the wireless crisis alert system that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is building. As All Points points out, one of the technologies under consideration is especially interesting because it doesn’t need to track users’ locations to tell whether they should receive a message. Instead, an application on the device simply filters out messages that don’t apply. (more…)

Glitchy linked a story yesterday that seems to have slipped past most of the metaversal bloggers (including me — although not Steven Davis at PlayNoEvil, who it was a pleasure to meet at E3): Chinese users can now make purchases in the sprite-filled isometric virtual world of Habbo Hotel that are delivered to them both as virtual items and as real ones. “Through the service, users can purchase items such as flowers, clothes and movie tickets online in the virtual community and the physical items will be delivered to their homes the next day,” according to the Pacific Epoch news site. (more…)