ABC News (Australia) reports on how Apple Maps erroneously listed a Queensland restaurant as permanently closed, costing it thousands of dollars in lost business. What’s noteworthy is the difficulty the restaurant owner had in correcting the error. Apple accepts error reports via its browser and apps, and the owner is an Android and Windows user, but it seems to be more than that: a 9to5Mac commenter found it easier to correct map errors via their personal Apple ID than as a small business owner, whereas Google Maps makes it easier for businesses. The ABC News report goes on to note that this is not an isolated incident. [9to5Mac/
Tag: Australia
The Wollongong Map
Alexander Pescud spent more than 500 hours drawing the Wollongong Map, a black-and-white panoramic map of the Australian city of Wollongong. I’ve been told that the map will have its official launch on 22 June at the Gong’s Bad News Gallery. Prints are available for sale, naturally.
Australian Federal Election Results
Leading up to last Saturday’s federal election in Australia, ABC News Australia had a page explaining the usual problem with geographic electoral maps when sparsely populated rural districts are enormous and lots of voters are concentrated in the cities. Calling the page “The Australian electoral map has been lying to you” might have been torquing things a bit, though. Then again, via Maps Mania, live election results maps from The Australian and The Guardian both use straight geographic maps, so maybe not.
Apple Maps Asia-Pacific Update
Apple’s new maps have come to Australia [9to5Mac, MacRumors].
Meanwhile, the South China Morning Post reports that “iPhone and Apple Watch users in China can no longer see their geographic coordinates and elevation on the Compass app, according to Chinese media reports and user comments. However, information including bearings and general location are still available.”
And according to a report in The Information (paywall) that was summarized by John Gruber, back in 2014 or 2015 the Chinese State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping required Apple Maps to make the disputed Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands appear large even when zoomed out, and made the Apple Watch’s Chinese release contingent on that request—to which Apple acquiesced.
Maps of the Pacific
Maps of the Pacific is an exhibition of the State Library of New South Wales’s holdings of maps, charts atlases and globes relating to the Pacific Ocean. “This exhibition traces the European mapping of the Pacific across the centuries—an endeavour that elevated the science and art of European mapmaking. Redrawing the map of the world ultimately facilitated an era of brutal colonisation and dispossession for many Pacific First Nations communities.” Open now at the library’s exhibition galleries in Sydney, the exhibition runs until 24 April 2022. Free admission.
In related news, the library’s Mapping the Pacific conference (previously) has been postponed to March 2022.
Upcoming Conference: Mapping the Pacific
Taking place on 25 and 26 August 2021 in Sydney, Australia, Mapping the Pacific will be a hybrid (in-person and streamed) conference that will explore “the traditional wayfinding knowledge of the Pacific community, European exploration and the mapping of the Pacific from the early modern era through to the 19th century.” Registration is not yet open.
Update 17 Nov 2021: Conference postponed to March 2022.
Google Removing Uluru Street View Images
Google has agreed to Parks Australia’s request that user photos taken from the summit of Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) be removed from Street View; climbing Uluru, which is owned by and sacred to the Pitjantjatjara people, has been prohibited since 2019. ABC Australia, CNN. As of this writing a couple of images are still visible. Aerial coverage is unaffected. [Boing Boing]
Australia’s Bushfires and Misleading Maps
Whenever there’s a major news event, there will be an outbreak of fake, misattributed or misleading images that purport to be about that event. That goes for maps as well.
Take the serious situation with Australia’s bushfires at the moment. Social media is jammed with maps showing practically the whole damn continent on fire, or superimposed on another continent to let people there know just how big Australia is (and also on fire). It’s a profoundly serious situation, and as NASA’s Joshua Stevens points out, it’s possible to present an accurate map that shows its seriousness without resorting to hyperbole.
The trouble is, social media thrives on hyperbole, because it thrives on “engagement”—which means outrage and anger and, as Joshua Emmons notes, as we get inured to a certain level of outrage, even more outrage is needed just to get noticed.
Which brings me to this thing, which is showing up all over the social web:
Continue reading “Australia’s Bushfires and Misleading Maps”
Australia to Eliminate Paper Topographic Maps
The Australian government agency responsible for printing topographic maps will stop printing them as of December, ABC Australia reports. Geoscience Australia cites a lack of demand for paper maps, but as you can imagine there’s some pushback against the decision.
(The Canadian government tried something similar back in 2006, but the decision was overturned after a public outcry.)
Copyright and Cartography
Copyright and Cartography is a research project exploring the historical relationship between cartography and copyright law.
Throughout history, maps have been made and used in different ways and for different purposes. They can be seen as cultural artefacts, artworks, sacred objects and tools for wayfinding. Often their purposes are legal—they can be used to administer property regimes, resolve proprietary disputes or make territorial claims. But what about the laws that regulate the maps themselves, that decide who can own them or who can distribute them? This website explores these questions, juxtaposing images of maps with the legal documents intimately involved in their creation and circulation.
The project focuses on mapmakers in London, Edinburgh, Melbourne and Sydney, and seems to be in the early stages, with only a dozen cases, relating to infringement and other copyright disputes, listed.
This project is limited to cases in the U.K. and Australia. Back in 2000, J. B. Post compiled a list of cases of copyright litigation in the U.S. from 1789 to 1998: the page is no longer online but can be accessed via the Wayback Machine.
Sydney on the Map
Back in May the Sydney Morning Herald took a look at an exhibition of maps of Sydney. Cartographica: Sydney on the Map presents reproductions rather than originals, and runs until 1 Sept 2019 at Sydney’s Customs House. Free admission.
Restoring a 150-Foot Map of Australia in the English Countryside
During World War I, Australian troops staying at nearby Hurdcott Camp carved a gigantic map of Australia into a Wiltshire hillside. Chalk gravel was used to fill shallow trenches to create an outline map some 150 feet wide with 18-foot-tall letters. Since then, despite a restoration in the 1950s and its designation as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, the map has faded, but for the past four years the Map of Australia Trust has been working on restoring the map. It was finished in time for Armistice Day. More from BBC News (video) and Historic England. [Jonathan Potter]
Clickhole: Rising Sea Levels to Turn Australia into a Rhombus
Clickhole, The Onion’s satirical clickbait website, had a hilarious piece last October declaring that rising sea levels will turn Australia into a rhombus: good news for cartographers, for whom Australia will be easier to draw.
According to a new study by the National Ocean Service, melting icecaps and glaciers will raise sea levels enough to cause drastic coastal erosion to virtually every landmass on the planet, including Australia, which will transform from its current shapeless continental configuration into a crisp, tightly angled quadrilateral. While this will unquestionably result in an incalculable amount of economic and ecological devastation, it will likely be a welcome change for cartographers, who instead of spending hours trying to perfect the jagged and asymmetrical outline of the Australian coast like they do now, will in the coming decades be able to handily dash off a geographically accurate rendering of the continent in just a few seconds flat.
In your face, Wyoming. [Cartophilia]
High-Resolution Sea Floor Maps of the Great Barrier Reef
The Australian government has released high-resolution sea floor map data of the Great Barrier Reef; the data improves the view of the relief by a factor of eight, from 250-metre resolution to 30-metre resolution. The result of a collaboration between James Cook University, Geoscience Australia and the Australian Hydrographic Service, the data “can be used for policy, planning and scientific work. For example, this data is an important input for oceanographic modelling, which we can use to enhance our knowledge of climate change impacts, marine biodiversity, and species distribution.” Press release, data files.
Mapping the Results of Australia’s Same-Sex Marriage Referendum
When it comes to maps of the results of Australia’s same-sex marriage referendum (or, to be more precise, postal survey), it’s a mixed bag. At the official end, the Australian Bureau of Statistics provides infographics, but no maps. The Sydney Morning Herald provides a map of the results by district (see screenshot above), but it’s boolean (yes/no) rather than a choropleth or heat map. For that, you’ll want to look at The Australian’s interactive map (they also have a map showing yes/no by constituency, centred on Sydney, whose western districts voted against the most).
Finally, this map by “lunatic map maker” Matthew Isbell is making the rounds; I want to make sure he’s correctly attributed.
Australia's citizens have voted YES on marriage equality. Map of the results is below. ?? ?️? #MarriageEquality #AustraliaSaysYes #AustraliaSaidYES pic.twitter.com/BDu1DaWGVg
— ?Matthew Isbell? (@mcimaps) November 15, 2017