IS map

NYT, The Islamic State: From Insurgency to Rogue State and Back interactive map

Google Map Maker arrives in Egypt

Bikya Masr, Google Map Maker arrives in Egypt, 14 Jun 2012: "With the launch of Map Maker in Egypt, “anyone who cares about maps can lend their local expertise to create more detailed views of the places they know, such as their town, school, and more. Users can locate, draw, label and provide attributes for Egyptian map features for their area”"

ORBIS maps

Behold ORBIS, a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, io9.com "Have you ever wondered how much it would cost to travel from Londinium to Jerusalem in February during the heyday of the Roman Empire?"

'Iran outraged as Star of David revealed on airport'

alarabiya.net, Iran outraged as Star of David revealed on airport, 29 Nov 2010 "A satellite image of Tehran airport taken by Google Earth service outraged Iranian government officials as the Star of David appeared on the roof of the headquarters of the national carrier Iran Air." thanks to Google Earth

Online map to track sexual harassment

Babylon & Beyond | Los Angeles Times, EGYPT: Activists plan online map to track sexual harassment, 10 Nov 2010 "A group of activists has decided to fight the leering and groping with a new private venture that, beginning in the near future, will use open-source mapping technology to identify harassment hot spots in Cairo and allow women to instantly report incidents of sexual abuse through text messaging and on social media sites."

HarassMap Egypt

Jack Shenker, Guardian, Women in Egypt get hi-tech aid to beat sexual harassment, 19 Sep 2010 "HarassMap, a private venture that is set to launch later this year, allows women to instantly report incidents of sexual harassment by sending a text message to a centralised computer. Victims will immediately receive a reply offering support and practical advice, and the reports will be used to build up a detailed and publicly available map of harassment hotspots."

apps and maps: Gowalla - KSA

Khaled A., Khaled Rambles, Add points of interest to the Saudi map using Gowalla, 28 Nov 09 "So I highly recommend using Gowalla to add points of interests in the Saudi map. It’s available as an iPhone app and you can read more about it at TechCrunch. A group of iPhone users in Saudi Arabia are already using Gowalla and we are slowly populating it with actual data!"

Anya Maps

startuparabia.com, Ayna Adds Satellite Imagery To Mobile Version Of Ayna Maps, 19 Jun 09, "Users of the service can now enter any address in the Middle East on Ayna maps, and click on the “Satellite” link to locate and zoom into the wanted area till having the closest image."

See Anya

Also Ayna Mobile Maps (beta)

Internet and Democracy Releases Report on Arabic Blogosphere

Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Internet and Democracy Releases Report on Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture and Dissent, 16 Jun 09 "After much work over the past year, the Internet and Democracy Project team is proud to officially announce today the release of our study on the Arabic blogosphere, a follow-up to last year’s I&D study on the shape of the Iranian blogosphere. Our research identified a base network of approximately 35,000 blogs, and aimed to generate a baseline for understanding the state of online discourse in the region. As in our previous work, we’ve worked with John Kelly to visualize the data on over 6,000 of the most connected blogs and had researchers read over 4,000 blogs to understand who the bloggers are and the issues they care about."

This looks like an extremely useful report - I haven't read it yet, but will do in due course.

You can find the details here: Bruce Etling, John Kelly, Rob Faris, John Palfrey, Internet and Democracy, Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere, 16 Jun 09

Here's the pdf

The map (an important part of this study) is here

Geograph

I was reading Victor Keegan's article 'A short stroll around my hyperlocal' in the Guardian yesterday. It's an interesting article, despite the broken hyperlinks, and it got me thinking about Geograph.

You might recall that I was using Street Map recently to chart various mosques in the UK - a project that is still ongoing. Of course, another way of looking at mosques is via Geograph. I've looked at this before, but never in this context. A quick search came up with 199 images. Obviously I haven't looked at them all, but there are some fine photos on the site. It would make for a useful teaching resource, if used appropriately (don't get me started about online resources).

Here's my search results. If your local mosque is not there, why not add it. I hope that Geograph gets properly archived!

Geograph search: mosque, 15 May 09, virtuallyislamic.com

I also posted this in Virtually Islamic

Ushahidi

allafrica.com/America.gov, Michelle Austein Brooks, Africa: Online Maps Enable Citizens to Report, Track Events, 8 May 09 "Online mapping tools like MapQuest and Google Maps are known for helping people get from Point A to B. With the help of some technical experts, these maps can also be used to track and monitor critical events in real time."

This is an interesting article, drawing on the activities of Ushahidi. " ... Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, where we are building a platform that crowdsources crisis information. Allowing anyone to submit crisis information through text messaging using a mobile phone, email or web form."

Check out the Ushahidi blog too. Plenty of intriguing developments there. Swahili seems to be the language for naming OS products.

Mapping

startuparabia.com, Ayna Launches Free Mobile Mapping Service For The Arab World, 17 Mar 09 "After launching their online mapping service last year, Ayna has gone on and launched the first locally produced Arabic and English mobile mapping service as promised."

Al-Haram Al-Sharif

saudiaramcoworld.com, Saudi Aramco Magazine, Volume 60, Number 1, Michael and Barry Gross & Oleg Grabar, Virtual Walking Tours, Al-Haram Al-Sharif recommended, a virtual tour with pictures and maps, but no checkpoints(!). I haven't done a full assessment of this yet.

Also see saudiaramcoworld.com, The Virtual Immigrant

Jonathan M. Bloom and Sheila Blair, saudiaramcoworld.com, A Global Guide to Islamic Art includes a web resource section

Global Incident Map

AFP, Online global terrorism map heads for the MOMA, 14 Feb 08, "An online map pinpointing possible terrorist acts in real time is on its way to a renowned New York City museum as a display of the wedding of technology and human behavior."

Here's the map: Global Incident Map