Submitted by Kathleen on Apr 21, 2009, 01:09 AM
As a self-described "former historian" with a M.A. in History, Mano began with an overview of the history of maps, pointing out that humans have been making maps for a very long time. He cited John Snow's 1854 map of the cholera outbreak in London (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/snowmap1_1854_lge.htm) as an early example of the use of geospatially-located data, making the point that "people have already been doing what we think of as revolutionary for a long time." Another example, a 1907 Rand McNally guidebook with pictures and maps giving turn-by-turn directions for travel, works in much the same way as the "Directions" feature of Google maps.

Turning to the functions and applicability of Google Earth, Mano mentioned that while many people see it as a good way to spy on their neighbors, it's better to view it as a platform for displaying geographic data, which is its intended purpose. Some of the new features of Google Earth 2.0 include bathymetric data (ocean views), touring capabilities that allow the user to script his or her own presentation using Keyhole Markup Language (KML), views of Mars, and the inclusion of historical imagery (allowing the user to overlay historical maps or images onto the map).

Mano then showed some demonstrations of how these technologies help us to see how people visualize the world, noting that these features are particularly useful for ecological activism. Some KML touring demos are available here: http://www.google.com/gadgets/directory?synd=earth&cat=featured.

Other applications include explorations of urban spaces such as Singapore or Peachtree, Georgia. Peachtree's Interactive Web Map allows the user to view layers highlighting the locations of crimes during a certain period (such as golf cart theft), locations of fire hydrants, and other data.

3D Singapore Explorer

http://www.earthsg.com/3dsingapore/

Peachtree City GIS Interactive Web Map

http://maps.peachtree-city.org/google/index.html

During the Q&A session following his talk, Mano was asked about the licensing problems that might arise in collaborative "mash-ups" between different organizations or data-generating entities. In his response, he noted that determining the source of information is a major issue and fortunately there is a lot of publicly available data (some of it more or less accurate!); Google's basic idea as far as licensing issues is that if you make the map readily available to everyone, then you can use the programs.