CBC News reports on Strava’s lawsuit against Garmin, which alleges patent infringement and breach of contract. Strava claims that Garmin is violating Strava’s patents relating to heatmaps and segments, and also says Garmin’s new developer guidelines require the Garmin logo to be present in every single post and image: “We already provide attribution for every data partner, but Garmin wants to use Strava and every other partner as an advertising platform.” Athletes who rely on both Garmin and Strava are just a bit concerned. (It may be worth mentioning that Strava added restrictions on third-party apps to its own API last year: see DC Rainmaker and The Verge.) Garmin isn’t commenting (pending litigation, etc., etc.).
Category: Sport & Recreation
Some Asian Updates to Online Maps
Google has announced that Street View imagery is now available for Nepal.
Meanwhile, Apple observers are reporting that cycling directions are rolling out for Hong Kong and Taiwan in Apple Maps (AppleInsider, MacRumors).
Update, 22 Aug: And Singapore gets the Detailed City Maps treatment in Apple Maps.
Ordnance Survey Asked to Change Route of Historic Path Through Dartmoor
Nick Pannell wants the Ordnance Survey to change the route of the Abbot’s Way path through Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England. Pannell says his own research shows that medieval monks took a more northerly route between Buckfast and Tavistock, and that the path shown on OS maps since 1886 is wrong. The OS doesn’t dispute Pannell’s research, but says that the current route existed 130 years before the initial survey, and there are no currently existing paths along Pannell’s preferred route. This seems to be a case of the prescriptive vs. the descriptive: Pannell shows where the path used to be or ought to have been, the OS shows the current reality on the ground. Nor can OS change the map unless, per the article, Historic England changes the official route: it’s not OS’s call to make.
AllTrails and AI-Generated Hiking Trails
Last month the hiking app AllTrails announced AI-generated (“leveraged”) custom routes as part of a new premium membership plan, and some people are worried about it. According to the National Observer, AllTrails and other hiking apps have gotten hikers into trouble because they rely on crowdsourced trail information, which isn’t necessarily official or safe. Given generative AI’s track record for producing spectacularly erroneous results, there would appear to be some cause for concern. Except that “AI” has become a marketing buzzword that covers a lot of computer stuff, from less problematic machine learning (which is what I’d expect in this case) along with more problematic generative AI/large-language models, and AllTrails isn’t indicating which flavour they’re referring to (because: buzzword). And as the National Observer points out, “These problems already existed before the AI was added.” To be sure, generative AI is a blight on human civilization, but let’s be clear about our targets in this case.
Adventures in Unpreparedness
Two recent cautionary tales about the risks of going forth without proper navigational tools. First, I’m a bit confused about this BBC News report, which cites what3words as coming through when a boat broke down in the Channel Islands area:
[The rescue service] said although the vessel had no working on board GPS and an inoperative VHS radio, crews were able to establish a position using the location app “what3words”. […]
The coastguard said an operator was able to translate the vessel’s what3words location from a mobile phone into latitude and longitude.
Now hold on: if you’re able to use what3words on a mobile phone to get a fix on your location, it’s because your phone has a built-in GPS, so it’s not like they didn’t have access to GPS. More likely is that they couldn’t figure out how to get lat/long coordinates to rescue services in any other way. (It’s a long press on your location in either Apple Maps and Google Maps, but to be fair, that might not be obvious or easy to figure out for the first time in the middle of a crisis.)
Meanwhile, an unprepared hiker without a map who got lost in New Hampshire will likely be billed for the cost of his rescue.
2024 Olympics Maps
A roundup of maps of venues and facilities for the 2024 Paris Olympics from competitive swimming website Swim Swam; the maps are small and mostly sourced from social media. The map on the Paris 2024 website is interactive, comprehensive and confusing: a case of doing everything but nothing well.
Topo and Trail Maps Coming to Apple Maps in iOS 18/macOS Sequoia
Topographical maps and hiking maps are coming to Apple Maps on the Mac, iPhone and iPad as of macOS Sequoia and iOS/iPadOS 18, due out this fall. The hiking maps will be at least for U.S. national parks, and will also be available in offline mode because hiking in areas without cell service is the point. Other features coming to Maps include custom walking routes and saved places. [Spatially Adjusted]
Yellowstone Maps Through the Years
As part of a series exploring the history of National Park Service visitor guides, photographer QT Luong takes a closer look at the vistor guide maps—specifically, the maps for Yellowstone National Park, which he tracks through multiple iterations. “Given the importance of the park, Yellowstone maps have been subject to more revisions than any other park maps, which makes it possible to tell a more complete story. This also means that the history of maps from other parks is far from strictly paralleling the evolution of the Yellowstone maps. However, by examining my extensive collection of park maps, I can confirm that it follows the same general outline.”
Pierre Novat, French Painter of Ski Resort Panoramas
Pierre Novat (1928-2007) was another painter of panoramic mountain and ski resort maps working with the same techniques as Henrich Berann and James Niehues. Novat actually predates Niehues, and even Niehues’s mentor Bill Brown: his career ran from the early 1960s until his retirement in 1999. He mainly focused on French ski resorts; for the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville he pained a panorama of all the Savoie venues. In March 1992, France 3 aired this profile of Novat that explored his process; the above video relates to a 2014 exposition of his work. (All links in French; see this 2014 blog post from the Ski Adventures blog for something in English.)
Google Maps to Upgrade Its Coverage of U.S. National Parks
Google Maps will be improving its coverage of U.S. national parks: an update later this month to both the Android and iOS versions will add park attractions, trail maps (and directions to the trailhead) and offline park maps. [Jalopnik/TechCrunch]
The End of the Ski Trail Map
Ski trail maps may not last much past Jim Niehues’s retirement. Ski resorts are increasingly resorting to apps rather than paper ski trail maps to help their guests navigate, the New York Times reports.
Ski areas are increasingly cutting back on the number of pocket-size paper trail maps they print and distribute. The reasons range from cost savings and environmental concerns to promoting resort-specific apps that offer a slew of interactive features in addition to digital maps. Last winter many ski areas didn’t put out the usual stacks of maps as a Covid measure, but the trend goes well beyond pandemic protocol.
Once again we see a variation on the long debate between paper and digital maps, with many familiar arguments: saving paper, convenience, the sheer robustness of paper vs. failure-prone technology (not nothing when you’re relying on a phone to work on top of a cold mountain), and so on. Also, in this specific case, that guests might prefer a paper map as a souvenir (not for nothing did Niehues make a career out of them).
Engst’s Experience with Mapping Services
Adam Engst of TidBITS: “I’ve been working with mapping services a lot of late and wanted to share some of my experiences in the hope that they’ll help you boost your mapping game beyond simple navigation.” Mostly focuses on fitness-related mapping, but also on how to correct errors on online maps.
Disney Insider Looks at National Geographic Maps
If you subscribe to Disney+, check out the 10th episode of Disney Insider, which dropped yesterday: its first segment looks at how National Geographic Maps produces its trail maps. The talking is done by National Geographic’s director of cartographic production, David Lambert. I can’t help but be reminded of those old newsreels that talked about map production; this is kind of that, only with really good production values.
Our NatGeo Maps office here in Colorado was featured on Disney+’s Disney Insider show episode 10 that dropped today! Watch 0:47-7:15 to see our boss talking about what we do! 🏞🥾 My 7-second, focused-cartographer 🤓🗺 cameo starts at 2:30! pic.twitter.com/p49B6Z1NfY
— Aly D. Ollivierre, MSc, GISP (@AlyD_VT) December 8, 2021
Niehues Moves On from Ski Resort Maps
Legendary ski resort map artist James Niehues has announced on his blog and on Twitter that he will be “stepping away from creating ski resort trail maps” after more than three decades. He plans to work on other projects, including the American Landscape Project, and will, for the first time, be selling original paintings and sketches of his ski resort trail maps later this month.
Google Maps Called Out for Showing ‘Potentially Fatal’ Mountain Routes
The Guardian: “Scottish mountaineering charities have criticised Google for suggesting routes up Ben Nevis and other mountains they say are ‘potentially fatal’ and direct people over a cliff.” Google Maps’s issue with Ben Nevis is that it routes to a parking lot nearest the summit, then more or less straight-lines it from there; as a dotted line it’s meant to indicate a route very imprecisely, but it also corresponds to a higher-difficulty ascent route that could land even experienced hikers in trouble. Not meant to be taken by people who don’t know what they’re doing—the people who might have no clue that it’s a bad idea to use Google Maps for mountain hiking, for example.
To be clear, I think this one’s on Google. A lot of people trust online maps implicitly because they have poor navigation skills and have a hard time overruling what the directions tell them: this is why people keep driving into rivers and onto tracks. It’s a design failure not to account for this in every circumstance.