Tracking the Russian Invasion of Ukraine with Satellite Imagery

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Bloomberg’s MapLab newsletter looks at how freely available satellite imagery has enabled widespread monitoring of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

When the invasion of Ukraine started, these images started popping up on social media and in the news so often that it seems like most of us have access to advanced satellite imagery intelligence in real time. […] But the role of commercial providers in acquiring and sharing so many images with such regularity is unprecedented. Their rise has made military-grade intelligence available to pretty much everyone who wishes to look into it.

What’s notable is that because the satellites are commercial, the images aren’t classified.

Eduard, a New Mac-only Relief Shading App

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Eduard app logoLaunching at NACIS, which is next week, but available on the Mac App Store now, Eduard is a Mac-only application that generates relief maps by “[using] machine learning to match the aesthetics and details of relief shadings created by Swiss cartographers.” (The name is a pretty obvious reference to Eduard Imhof.) The app allows you to adjust direction of illumination, aerial perspective and detail, and works with digital elevation models and a number of file formats. The launch price is US$69.99 (C$99.99) until the 23rd, after which I presume the price will go up.

New Apple Watch Features Include Dual-Frequency GPS, Virtual Breadcrumbs

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Apple Watch UltraApple is touting the Apple Watch Ultra’s dual-frequency GPS support, viz., it uses the GPS L5 band in addition to L1 to improve accuracy. The new L5 signal is higher power and is supposed to provide more robust service, but with only 17 satellites broadcasting on it it’s not yet fully operational. Still, a Reddit user was able to document the improved accuracy by conducting an unexpected stress test: mowing the lawn. With the Ultra the mowing rows can be made out, whereas the tracks made with a series 4 watch were all over the place. [9to5Mac]

While the Ultra is the only Apple Watch that can use the L5 band, watchOS 9 adds a redesigned Compass app and a Backtrack feature that lets users retrace their steps using on-the-fly waypoints and GPS traces. MacRumors has a tutorial. This is something I’m looking forward to trying out: my series 8 watch arrived last week.

Yale’s Work on Map Forgeries

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

As the keepers of the Vinland Map, the folks at Yale’s Beinecke Library might be expected to have a few thoughts about map forgeries, seeing as the Vinland Map is arguably the best known example. In an article posted to the Beinecke Library website last July, Raymond Clemens discusses the work of Yale’s Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage to determine the Vinland Map’s inauthenticity, and detecting map forgeries in general. Yale seems to be making a point of studying map forgeries, to the point of adding known forgeries to their collections.

India Pushing Phone Makers to Adopt NavIC

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Reuters reports that the Indian government is pushing mobile phone makers to include support for NavIC, the Indian-government owned satellite navigation system. (At the moment NavIC provides regional coverage from a seven-satellite constellation, but the plan is for 24-satellite global coverage.) Phone makers are resisting the request, citing the additional chips and cost required to support the system. And there’s the matter of redundancy: the current iPhone, for example, already supports BeiDou, Galileo, GLONASS and QZSS in addition to GPS. [9to5Mac]

The Mediterranean’s Summer Heat Wave

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Europe’s summer heat wave wasn’t just felt on land; the Mediterranean Sea saw surface temperatures as much as 5°C above the average. The ESA’s animated map, above, shows the difference between sea surface temperatures from March to August 2022 and the 1985-2005 average for those months. The redder, the hotter than average. [ESA]

From Analemma to Zodiac: Bellerby’s Glossary of Globe Terminology

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Globemaker Bellerby & Co. has posted a glossary of globe terminology that covers more general geographical terms and concepts (equator, hemisphere) as well as things that are mainly found on globes, covering the various mount types, to common features like time dials and analemmas, to calottes (which are the little circles that cover the poles, where the gore points meet; oddly enough “gore” doesn’t get its own listing).

A New Map for The Wheel of Time

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Left: Thomas Canty’s map from The World of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time (1997); Right, Ellisa Mitchell’s map from Origins of the Wheel of Time (2022).

While researching his forthcoming book, Origins of the Wheel of Time (Tor, Nov 2022), Michael Livingston discovered that a map published in a 1997 guide to the Wheel of Time universe—which unlike the maps in the Robert Jordan novels showed the entire world—was, in the opinion of Jordan himself, wrong: according to notes Livingston discovered in the author’s archives, one continent was misnamed and another was too small (see above left). With the permission of the estate, Livingston worked with map artist Ellisa Mitchell—who drew the original map for The Eye of the World—to create a new map of the Wheel of Time world that reflected the author’s intent (see above right). Details, and closeup looks at the maps, at Livingston’s Tor.com article.

Climate Change Could Affect Maritime Boundaries

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Sea level rise and coral reef destruction could have an impact on international boundaries, according to a study by University of Sydney researchers published in Environmental Research Letters. Coral reefs form the basis for a number of claims on maritime zones, which could suddenly be in doubt if reef destruction or changes to a reef’s low-water line erase that basis. Press release.

Southeast Asia Historical Maps

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Mercator, Insulæ Indiæ orientalis præcipuæ, 1606
Mercator, Insulæ Indiæ orientalis præcipuæ, 1606.

The Digital Historical Maps of Singapore and Southeast Asia project, hosted by (the soon-to-be-defunct) Yale-NUS College in Singapore, curates a collection of pre-1900 maps of southeast Asia. The maps are drawn from the Bodleian, Beinecke and Leiden libraries, as well as Singapore’s National Library Board. [Maps Mania]