Result

Confusion reigns in the aftermath of any big natural disaster, but particularly in what was already a failed state - Haiti. With the little existing political and social infrastructure now destroyed, the situation is bleak.

The irrepressible Mikel seems to be coordinating the OSM response amongst other missions. It might seem pretty small but you can get involved in creating better mapping to help in the search, rescue and eventual cleanup operations. The information is crucial to aid agencies arriving on the ground.

See the Earthquake Response on the OSM Wiki, the CrisisMapper Google Group, and while you're at it donate to the Red Cross. There are already some very useful maps up on GeoCommons, thanks to Andrew Turner amongst others.

This morning I added a few street names and the Town Hall in Port-au-Prince to OSM, from historical maps on Map Warper, thanks to Tim Waters.

Here's what it looks like now.

That's from some GeoEye images recently released on Google Earth. A vivid example of how up-to-date geodata is essential for crisis management.

We have yet to confirm whether the images can be used for updating OpenStreetMap. Here's hoping that sense prevails.

<script src="http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://code.google.com/apis/kml/embed/embedkmlgadget.xml&amp;up_kml_url=http%3A%2F%2Fmw1.google.com%2Fmw-earth-vectordb%2Fhaiti%2FHaiti-Earthquake-nl.kml&amp;up_view_mode=earth&amp;up_earth_2d_fallback=0&amp;up_earth_fly_from_space=1&amp;up_earth_show_nav_controls=1&amp;up_earth_show_buildings=1&amp;up_earth_show_terrain=1&amp;up_earth_show_roads=1&amp;up_earth_show_borders=1&amp;up_earth_sphere=earth&amp;up_maps_zoom_out=0&amp;up_maps_default_type=map&amp;synd=open&amp;w=600&amp;h=600&amp;title=Embedded+KML+Viewer&amp;border=%23ffffff%7C0px%2C1px+solid+%23595959%7C0px%2C1px+solid+%23797979%7C0px%2C2px+solid+%23898989&amp;output=js" ></script>

Gorgeous visualisation of trade in the era of globalisation. (Click through for HD).

From the BBC's 'The History of Now: The Story of the Noughties'.

Amazing new service from MapOSMatic, create high quality rendered pdfs of OpenStreetMap. Complete with grid and street index.

You can see my handiwork in the north east of Hackney.

Sometimes, mother nature does all your cartography for you.

Photo: NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response

In the age of digital, this is rather special.

A snip at $375.

via the London Transport Museum

I'm proud of the UK tech community, but we need to sell ourselves better. Indeed, I took particular offence during yesterday's Nexus One launch:

"Is this an iPhone killer?"

Lazy, ill-informed journalism. (And that's before he's even written the article).

So lets make it really simple with a nice chart. Why Google doesn't want Nexus One to be an iPhone killer:

[chart stolen from http://abovethecrowd.com/2010/01/05/android-or-iphone-wrong-question/ ]

Google's mobile strategy has always been a mass market, platform play. If you're going to make lazy comparisons, compare them to Microsoft not Apple.

So today is the day that the Nexus One arrives, which everyone agrees is a *big deal*.

Not exactly fresh news, but you might not know that Andrew Eland, the Google UK Mobile Team Lead, is speaking at this month's #geomob coming on January 26th.

Want to know more about Android, Google, geo and mobile? Signup here:
http://gmdlondon.ning.com/events/geomob-january

Because you just can't squeeze enough visualisation and maps into the working day, I decided to launch a special Ito Labs Flickr stream - http://www.flickr.com/photos/itolabs/

Its a home for some of the wonderful work we do that doesn't always see the light of day. We have a little baby right now, who I would like to introduce:

Tron Renderer

Although, I have a feeling you will be seeing more of this one as she matures.