The Map Room

A few more mapping-related blogs to tell you about, with still more to come.

• Most mapping blogs approach it from the GIS pro’s perspective; First Printing’s perspective is also professional — but it’s from a company dealing in antique maps and prints.
• Geography 2.0: Virtual Globes looks at 3D mapping software like Google Earth and World Wind; it’s by UCSB doctoral student Alan Glennon (via Ogle Earth).
• GPS Review is self-explanatory.
• Jeff Hicks’s personal blog talks about GIS and mapping from time to time.
• Mapz: A GIS Librarian, by a GIS librarian (naturally) at the University of Texas at Arlington (which I’ve blogged many times before), looks like a great read, with lots of first-person writing about his profession.
• Spatially Enabled is by ESRI employee Brian Goldin.
• Allan Doyle seems to be known in the GIS community, so the launch of his blog, think, got a fair bit of attention in the field this month (via All Points Blog).

I had a bit of energy today, so I started making some minor changes to the site design, mostly with the aim of reducing clutter, adding some white space and just simplifying the design. At the moment it’s in medias res; I’ve still got a few more things to play with. Occasional weirdnesses and cockuppery may occur during this process.

John Musser provides some examples of mashups using the Yahoo! Maps API from Yahoo!’s application gallery. Via All Points Blog.

See previous entries: Yahoo! Maps API; Yahoo! Maps Hacks.

Ambitious: Cartography is reviewing seven online map services this week, and as of today is already up to four (Google, Map24, Maporama, Mapquest). Still to come (as of this writing): MSN, Rand McNally and Yahoo! I’ve linked to the introductory post, which contains links to each of the reviews and is updated as new reviews are posted.

See previous entry: Comparing Online Mapping Services.

Planet Geospatial, by Spatially Adjusted’s James Fee, aggregates GIS, mapping and related blogs (including this one) into a single page. It’s a fine idea, and I’m happy to be along for the ride. (Believe it or not, I thought about doing something similar at one point, but worried that the blogs’ authors might object. Glad to see that it’s being positively received.)

James links to a lot of blogs, naturally, and I’ve got some more to go through and report here; unfortunately, it’ll probably have to wait until I’m feeling better. (Those of you who’ve nosed around my other sites a bit know that I suffer from ankylosing spondylitis. It’s flaring up at the moment, and I’m even more behind than usual as a result. Should subside within the next week or two, though.)

More trouble in Russia over the possession of large-scale (i.e., 1:25,000) maps, this time involving oil company BP. Apparently foreigners — including foreign corporations doing business in Russia — aren’t allowed to have them. Via Cartography.

See previous entry: Maps as State Secrets.

William Finnegan’s long article in the Oct. 17 issue of The New Yorker, which I mentioned in an earlier entry, wasn’t online, but it was very good — an excellent summary of what was known to date with some additional reporting. Tony Campbell, in a post to MapHist this morning, was struck by the report that several of the maps in Smiley’s possession at the time of his arrest turned out to be facsimiles. Who knows what he was doing with them, but, Tony says, “Whatever the answers, it suggests that those curators who are checking for the presence of commercially valuable American maps in early volumes may, in addition, have to be checking that they are not facsimiles.”

Tony also pointed to some new stories about this case: an article in yesterday’s New Hampshire Union Leader that reports on some of his friends and supporters, which is a departure from coverage elsewhere.

As well, and also via Tony, a press release from the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association denies (“contemptuously dismisse[s]”) map dealer Graham Arader’s allegations that a substantial portion of the maps in the marketplace are stolen. As denials go, it’s weak and self-important: they cite the guidelines that their members must adhere to, which is irrelevant to the question of how much of the marketplace is contaminated by stolen goods. Their members may not be a part of it, but that does not mean that it doesn’t exist. Less bluster and more data, please.

I like old road maps, and I’m apparently not alone. Ian Byrne’s Petrol Maps is one of several web sites dedicated to collecting and documenting old road maps; this one looks at maps of Europe issued by oil companies. Via Things Magazine. But I’m surprised, though, that this site, like others I’ve linked to before — see previous entries: Early Highway Maps, More Road Maps, Art of the Road — doesn’t actually show the maps, just the covers. I wonder why that is. (Having said that, there’s a lot of material about the history of these maps that is just invaluable.)

The legally binding 1978 map of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has gone missing, the New York Times reports (free registration required). The map, wall-sized and 1:250,000 scale, was last seen in 2002 and apparently disappeared some time in early 2003.

Mr. Vandegraft said he had folded the map in half, cushioned within its foam-board backing, and put it behind the filing cabinet in the locked room for safekeeping. […] In its place in the original nook, he said, he found a new, folded piece of foam board similar to the old one — but with no map attached.

Astonishingly, there are no copies, digital or paper, of this important map.

In its place, the USGS has drafted a new map. But the new map isn’t quite like the old map, and in the politically charged context of the question of drilling for oil in ANWR, that’s important.

The missing map did not seem to include in the coastal plain tens of thousands of acres of Native Alaskans’ lands. On the new map, those lands were included, arguably making it easier to open them to energy development.

The cartographer who last saw the map believes it was inadvertently thrown out. Scott, though, is suspicious: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been a political hot potato for years, and he argues that the Bush administration has suppressed politically inconvenient maps of ANWR before. I’m not willing to go so far as to say that the map was stolen for political reasons — there’s no evidence for it, and, in my experience, government incompetence is far more common than malfeasance. (Why the hell wasn’t there a copy, for example?) But it does seem … convenient that the map that defines ANWR’s boundaries has disappeared.

Via GeoCarta.

You know how I like election maps, so you probably won’t be surprised that I’ve been spending some time perusing Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, which has maps of election results going as far back as there have been elections. For those of you used to a certain colour scheme (blue for Democrats, red for Republicans), note that the colours have been inverted on these maps (only Canadians will be unconfused). Via Plep.

To raise funds, OpenStreetMap is selling a limited-edition poster. The approximately 84×119-cm poster, which displays all the GPS data the project has collected for the London area, sells for £10 plus postage and shipping tube. Via Boing Boing.

See previous entry: OpenStreetMap.

Today’s Journal News runs a profile of map dealer Ralph Salomon, who, after five years of running his web-site- and trade-show-based business out of his home, is opening a by-appointment gallery in North Salem, New York on Saturday.

Today’s New York Times has an article about mapping hacks and mashups (free registration required); it touches on the Google Maps API, naturally, but also mentions Yahoo!, Microsoft and the new Ning.com. Thanks to Joel Riggs for the link.

Directions reprints an article from Position magazine about usability in web mapping that argues for attention to target audience and usability testing. Worth a look if you’re interested in the design of web mapping services.

Here we go again.

Google Earth Blog has a collection of downloadable automated storm tracking tools (KMZ file).

Google Maps Mania points to a couple of Google Maps based storm trackers.

Spatially Adjusted links to ESRI’s existing hurricane viewer and the Geospatial One Stop Hurricane page.

Many of the sites that tracked Katrina and Rita should, I think, be applicable as well; see previous hurricane coverage.

A 700-volume, 60,000-map collection of atlases dating back to the 15th century is being auctioned by its late owner, the BBC reports, and is expected to fetch a total of £5 million. The collection was saved from a fire last year, and is being sold to cover the cost of renovations.

The CommonCensus Map Project uses people’s votes to determine U.S. cities’ spheres of influence. A neat concept. More than 13,000 votes have been received so far; they’ve plotted a map based on the first 8,000. They’re also working on sports maps that chart team affiliations. See Wired’s coverage. Via Ceejbot.

An exhibition at the Imperial War Museum on the life of T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) includes a recently discovered “peace map” that outlined Lawrence’s postwar proposals for the Middle East. The map had been misfiled in the National Archives. More coverage from the Times and the BBC. The exhibition, which opened Friday, runs until April 17. Via Cartography; thanks also to peacay.

FCW.com: “The U.S. Geological Survey, which issues most official maps, is considering outsourcing or eliminating most of its major mapping technology operations because commercial remote-sensing products and other advanced technologies have replaced field surveyors.”

Here’s another Virtual Earth port/hack to an unexpected but welcome place: Virtual Earth for Windows Mobile — i.e. Pocket PCs and Windows-based smartphones. Via the Virtual Earth team blog and Spatially Adjusted.

See previous entry: A Microsoft Roundup.

This article, which appeared in Friday’s Vancouver Sun, offers a paean to old highways maps and bemoans — but does not provide concrete examples of — their modern-day equivalents: “[T]oday’s pale spectres provide us with little more than stock photographs, easy-to-follow directions, estimated time between cities and an egalitarian listing of roadside attractions.” Via Cartography.

Official provincial highway maps (see previous entry) seem to be harder to find, less frequently updated, and less artistic than they used to be: I remember when Alberta started charging for theirs, and when Manitoba changed their system over to something far less elegant (probably when they changed over to something GIS-based).

CBC News has a story about geocaching and Parks Canada, the federal government agency that runs our national parks: after banning physical geocaches earlier this year for fear of disturbing wildlife, Parks Canada is working with geocachers to develop a policy for geocaches in parks for next year. In the meantime, here’s the interim policy.

See previous entry: Geocaching; The Degree Confluence Project.

It’s not necessarily common knowledge that Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft don’t produce the data for their maps; they buy it from other companies. But because they’re the front end, sometimes people make the assumption that it’s Google operatives running around with GPS receivers; rather, it’s companies like NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas (see previous entry).

Which means that web mapping services are dependent on other companies for their data — and sometimes that data comes with strings attached. Which brings me to this don’t-miss post on O’Reilly Radar by Nathan Torkington that points out that the maps from the Google Maps API are slightly different from those from Google Maps/Local proper, because the NAVTEQ data isn’t being used for the API. Writes Nat: “[I]t’s a safe bet that Google has had a battle with NAVTEQ to offer their free API.” Nat speculates that NAVTEQ objects to Google offering the data for free rather than as a commercial product.

In other words, the data providers are making some noise about how their data is being used by the web mapping services. Commenting on the above post on All Points Blog, Adena Schutzberg writes:

The data providers do hold all the cards just now. And, each time the technology providers find a new way to try to “take advantage” of that data, the data folks must respond. Recall when clever people used desktop MapPoint for routing/tracking and Microsoft came back in the 2003 license and put a cap on the number of vehicles that could be tracked in real time? In fact, it was NAVTEQ, then Navigation Technologies, that forced the change.

There’s a lot more going on than what we see through our web interfaces.

A little while ago William Bright started a web site where you could download subway maps to your iPod, taking advantage of the photo-storage capabilities of iPods with colour screens (see previous entry). Then some metro transit authorities caught wind of this and started sending nasty letters, causing Bill to either draft his own subway maps from scratch or seek licences to reproduce the official maps, depending on the city (see previous entry). Now Bill’s had to change the name of his site to iSubwayMaps.com, because he’s received another cease-and-desist letter — from Apple Computer. Apple’s been cracking down on third parties who do iPod-related business with “iPod” in their name — web sites, accessories, what have you. That’s trademark law for you. Via TUAW.

Cute little Canadian province Prince Edward Island has released an online wind atlas, the CBC reports. The atlas, in PDF and ALOV-based interactive versions, maps potential wind energy — i.e., potential locations for wind turbines.

See previous entry: Wind Energy Atlases.

The always excellent Kathryn Cramer points to satellite imagery of the earthquake-stricken areas of Pakistan: one-metre-resolution photos from Space Imaging, an image from NASA’s Earth Observatory showing the quake epicentres and fault line, and a page of images from the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters.”

See previous entry: Mapping the Pakistani Earthquake.

The Daily Princetonian covers the Forbes Smiley case in like manner to the University of Chicago Maroon (see previous entry), by using the case to focus on concerns about rare-book and special-collection security in libraries.

Meanwhile, through MapHist I learn that the case is the subject of an article in the New Yorker, which is not online, so I’ll have to pick up a copy when I’m in town tomorrow; and that the case was referred to in a Prairie Home Companion skit last Saturday (the page for last Saturday’s broadcast is here; I haven’t gone through it yet, though).

Google has removed “Province of China” from its reference to Taiwan in Google Maps (see previous entry). From the San Jose Mercury News article: “[C]ompany officials said the controversial label simply repeated information from outside data sources used to build its mapping service.” Via Cartography.

For the sake of completeness, here is a short article from the Chicago Maroon, the University of Chicago’s student newspaper, about this Forbes Smiley business (abundantly documented in the Map Thefts category archives); of interest is the description of the security measures taken at the University of Chicago’s special collections department.

If J. Little were just putting something on the web, I’d advise him/her to use Google Maps, but s/he’s looking for something s/he can publish: “If I wanted to make a map of the area surrounding Lake Michigan and add all the soccer fields as points of interest and then publish that map, what software could I use without (1) it costing me $500 and (2) the corporate attorneys banging on my bedroom window before dawn the following morning?”

Presumably something is needed here that is a bit more accessible — and affordable — than Adobe Illustrator with the cartographic plugins. I’m not sure anything falls into that category — especially once publishing gets involved. I could be wrong, though; any suggestions? (If nothing is available, say so.)

Mike S. writes, “I have looked many places to find semi-detailed SVG maps of cities or countries. Does anyone know where they are sold or available? I am looking for Japan in particular, but others would be great to browse.”

Speaking of Kathryn Cramer, she’s also put together a useful Google Maps mashup of earthquake data that allows us to see, quite precisely, where the quakes and aftershocks have hit in northern Pakistan. She notes:

One interesting result I obtain from my Community Walk earthquake site is that a small area, under 600 sq. kilometers, is getting creamed by the “aftershocks,” most over 5.0 on the Richter scale, one about 6.3. There were nineteen earthquakes in this small area over the course of a day and a half, some with epicenters walking distance apart (at least as the crow flies). They average 5.45.

Meanwhile, I haven’t seen a map from the news services that doesn’t show Pakistan as the size of thumbtack, but then I haven’t been looking very much. Has someone put out a map of this disaster that’s worth looking at?

Update, 10/11 at 9:15 AM: From the UN’s ReliefWeb Map Centre, a situation map of the region (direct link to PDF file). Via Cartography.

Kathryn Cramer reports that new Rita overlays for Google Earth based on updated NOAA imagery are now available.

Meanwhile, Wired carries an AP story about mapping the storm surge from Katrina: surveyors are trying to create an atlas of the storm surge, essentially, to prepare better for the next one.

In the past week or so, I’ve learned the following mapping news from Microsoft through map developer Chandu Thota’s blog:

• Overshadowed by the PDC stuff on Virtual Earth at the time, I guess, but version 4.0 of the MapPoint web service was released last month, and Chandu outlines the details of interest to developers using the SDK.
• Possibly the first time I’ve seen a Virtual Earth hack that made me say, “Why can’t Google do this?” A mashup of Virtual Earth and MSN Messenger. (Latest Windows version only, sadly; it exploits the Messenger API.)
• Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 was launched Friday; Chandu outlines the new features.

Controversial map dealer Graham Arader stirs the pot again in the New York Times (free registration required): “‘I’ve been telling everybody that Forbes is a crook for 20 years, and everybody says to me, “You just think the only good maps are the ones you have,”’ Mr. Arader said in a recent interview.”

CNet’s Elinor Mills ran an experiment: test the accuracy of the four major web map services — Google Maps, MapQuest, MSN and Yahoo! Maps — by following their directions between two points, one after the other, and timing how long it took. In the end, despite the fact that they all start with the same digital map data, they all gave different routes (MSN’s required that she drive over a street divider), and though each route took roughly the same amount of time (between 40 and 50 minutes, round trip), they were all nearly double the estimate given by the directions. As a control, she checked it against a cab ride, which was comparable. Interesting to see the services’ results compared.

Tomorrow’s edition of the London Times (or today’s, depending on where in the world you are at the moment), has an article on the Forbes Smiley case that adds some new information from the FBI. Despite Smiley’s plea of not guilty last August,

FBI sources said that Mr Smiley had admitted the theft of more than a hundred maps, and the bureau is trying to find their purchasers and previous owners.

Since June, an FBI art-crime squad in Philadelphia has sent warnings to the British Library and other institutions where Mr Smiley, a specialist in Americana, conducted his studies on what seems to have been a worldwide map-stealing escapade. “The FBI has been in contact with certain other rare book libraries and learnt that those institutions are finding rare maps missing from volumes that Smiley had viewed,” the FBI said.

The article also quotes two map dealers’ their suspicions of Smiley, which necessitates the question: if Graham Arader was “telling collectors for years that [Smiley] was a crook,” was nothing more than that done?

SlashGISRS is a Slashdot-style community focusing on GIS and remote sensing. Looks very promising. (And it’s run by a Canadian non-profit organization: there are no limits to my country’s geographic conspiracy.)

Google Maps Mania reports that Google Maps has dropped the “beta” moniker and is now branded as Google Local. There have been some layout changes to allow room for Local search results. Adding cartography to local search was, I think, Google’s whole point, even if the Google Maps API can be applied to so many other things. Speaking of which, it seems that changes to the API have broken some hacks.

For a web service that’s been left out of the limelight by its upstart rivals for most of this year, MapQuest is suddenly generating some news interest: first by announcing a collaboration with GPS maker TomTom to produce a car-based routefinder using MapQuest’s maps; and then by announcing an upgraded “Find Me” service for Sprint-based Blackberry units (via All Points Blog).

A new article on Directions, MapQuest Reinvented, helps explain what’s going on. Essentially, MapQuest’s moving in a different direction than Google and Microsoft: rather than aggressively innovating in terms of web interface and hackable API, they’re expanding their products in more utilitarian, but in their view, more useful ways — i.e., on mobile devices and even on paper (see previous entry: MapQuest Goes Paper).

Expanding beyond the computer screen is a shrewd response, I think, and challenges our expectations of what constitutes usability. (Maps are more useful when they’re portable.) As for the comparitive creakiness of the web maps, a lot of that has to do with the fact that MapQuest has to look after its existing user base — something that an up-and-comer like Google doesn’t have. Most of that user base, according to the Directions article, prints out its maps; some of them are using old browsers that can’t handle the newfangled Javascript that powers Google Maps:

The utilitarian side of MapQuest comes across when [MapQuest CTO Austin] Klahn addresses why the MapQuest website seems so far “behind” that of the other map portal players. Part of the reason is that MapQuest, unlike the “new” players must continue to support the machines, operating systems and browsers of its core users. That means supporting a user base with Mac OS 9, Internet Explorer 5 and the like. Klahn provided few details but made it clear that enhancements were on the way.

A seminar about errors in early maps takes place this Saturday in Annapolis, Maryland; topics for discussion include extra islands in John Smith’s maps of Chesapeake Bay (see previous entry) and maps showing California as an island.

Taiwan has asked Google to stop labelling it as a “province of China” in Google Maps. BBC coverage (via Cartography). Google Maps Mania has an excellent post that includes links to other news sources. Google Earth Blog and Ogle Earth correct the mistaken reporting that it was Google Earth, not Google Maps, that was at the heart of the controversy.

The Taiwanese government recognizes itself as the Republic of China, not as a province of the PRC: independent, but not necessarily separate. I wouldn’t be at all surprised of “province of China” was added on the request of the Chinese government, which tech companies have been loath to provoke of late.

See previous entry: Google Earth and Disputed Borders and Names.

The Hurricane Katrina diaspora map (details here) “was based on more than 40,000 postings on Internet ‘safe lists’ by Katrina survivors. ePodunk analyzed messages containing both the person’s hometown and the location after fleeing the storm.” Via Rebecca’s Pocket.

More mapping, cartography and geospatial blogs to go up on the sidebar:

• Darren Cope’s Blog — Darren’s a recent geography grad from the University of Waterloo. (Oddly enough, Mike from Google Maps Mania is from Waterloo, and I did my MA there, though in history. Small world.)
• Earth Mapping Blog, the company blog for GlobeXplorer, by Rob Shanks (via Spatially Adjusted).
• Via the comments, Martin Kyle’s Geopinion — another Canadian.
• Geo-Web is Ron Lake’s blog about GML (via Import Cartography).
• Great Map looks like a linkblog. (Update, 5:15 PM: Explained better: “This site is more about ‘Non-Geo’ Graphical Information Systems, with a particular focus on Mapping Knowledge Domains. I’m interested in creating visualizations of ‘ideas’ that do not necessarily have a geo basis to them.”)
• Hobu.biz is Howard Butler’s geospatial blog; it features podcast interviews with several people in the field. I’ve linked to this site before, but not sui generis.
• If you read French, there’s Le petit blog cartographique, also via the comments.

Between the two blogs mentioned here, Google Maps Mania, myself, Cartography — and, for that matter, Tyler Mitchell — there is a disproportionate number of Canadians out there blogging on cartographic and geographic subjects, don’t you think? (The usual saying about Canada — too much geography and too little history — may apply here.)

More blogs soon.

A couple of authors have asked me whether I’d be interested in reviewing their books and where to send them. To aid future inquiries, I’ve now added information about book reviews to the About page: what I’m willing to look at, where to send it, and the usual caveats about whether, how fast, and how positively I’ll review.

I’ve got a couple of reviews in the queue. I’m fantastically behind on them (and plenty else besides), but hope to have them posted soon.

The Yale Daily News covers Forbes Smiley’s pre-trial conference, which took place yesterday.

The International Herald Tribune reprinted yesterday’s New York Times story (see previous entry), in case an alternate URL is needed. The Toronto Star also reprinted the story.

Smiley, a well-known map dealer, has been charged with stealing seven rare maps from Yale’s Beinecke Library. Smiley pleaded not guilty in August; see the Map Thefts category archive for earlier coverage.

The Globe and Mail has picked up the story (free registration may be required) about the Canadian government’s decision to get out of the business of printing paper topo maps, and map seller Brad Green’s campaign to overturn that decision. From the article:

[John Dawson, acting director of Natural Resources Canada’s Centre for Topographic Information,] said topographic distribution has been sliding over the past few years as people have moved to digital files or sought out more up-to-date maps. In the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2003, Canada distributed about 330,000 topographic maps. Over the next year, that dropped to 261,000 and in the most recent year, only 2,008 maps left the warehouse, he said. Some people worry that without a warehouse of ready-made maps, emergency services would not be able to react quickly to natural disasters such as ice storms, floods and earthquakes. But Mr. Dawson said Ottawa could quickly plot and print maps in times of disaster.

See previous entry: Canadian Government Abandoning Paper Topo Maps?

Forbes Smiley is scheduled to appear in court today; coincidentally, the New York Times covers the case in today’s edition (free registration required). The article, which sums up what is known to date, notes a couple of things I didn’t know about the FBI’s warnings and investigations: libraries that checked and found maps missing after a visit from Smiley have not be able to tie their disappearance to Smiley (he has not been charged in several incidents); and individuals have been contacted about their purchases. From the article:

As the FBI has made its rounds, not all those individuals asked to surrender objects for inspection have been very good sports, say dealers who have been caught in the middle. Among other considerations, collectors may have to forfeit the maps — or the tax deductions, if it turns out they have donated the documents to libraries or institutions.

Forbes Smiley pleaded not guilty in August. See the Map Thefts category archive for previous coverage of this case.

Update, 11:20 PM: From tomorrow’s New York Times, in the arts briefs, a brief (naturally) update on today’s court appearance (a pretrial conference):

His lawyer, Richard A. Reeve, told a reporter that neither he nor his client would have any statement. The conference, lasting less than 30 minutes, was continued till Nov. 15, Mr. Reeve said. The state has charged Mr. Smiley, a prominent map dealer who lives in the Chilmark section of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., with three counts of larceny stemming from a June 8 visit to the Beinecke. Surveillance cameras captured him removing a map from a Beinecke book, and a Yale detective found valuable maps that appear to be from Yale’s collection in Mr. Smiley’s briefcase and jacket, according to an incident report. In August, Mr. Smiley pleaded not guilty to the state charges. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is also investigating the case amid signs that maps are missing at other libraries that Mr. Smiley has visited over the years. “I believe that case is ongoing, and, as such, we are precluded from commenting on it,” said Lisa Bull, a spokeswoman for the New Haven office of the FBI.

Note the ongoing investigation. This may get bigger.

Today’s San Francisco Chronicle has a story about digital map data companies and their field researchers. I’ve mentioned stories about collecting data for map companies before (see previous entries: Online Maps’ Foot Soldiers; Backcountry Mapping). What’s different is the technology used by the field researchers; in the couple of years I’ve been following this, it seems to have gotten a lot more sophisticated. Via Cartography.

Subway maps aren’t just for iPods any more; Engadget points to subway maps for the Playstation Portable: a map of the New York subway (in defiance of licencing policies) and maps of other cities’ subway systems.

I don’t recall this much buzz for PDA subway maps. See previous entries: Maps on Your PDA; iPod Subway Maps; C&D for iPod Subway Maps.