Time for another 5 Things on Friday and a look at 5 cool things that will get your attention…
An interesting outdoor exhibition in the UK running through May – enter Britain from the Air. Supported by text captions devised and written by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) and additional pictures which reveal the stories behind the image, Britain from the Air represents an unmissable opportunity to learn about Britain as you’ve never seen it before. A giant, large-scale walk on map of Britain offers visitors the unique opportunity to truly view Britain from above. Visitors can walk the length and breadth of the country in just a few seconds, literally walking over their home town and pinpointing the precise location of each of the 100 images from the exhibition.
So, what is the facebook phone? Well, to start, it’s not actually a phone! Well, there actually is one but not from facebook, rather, a new HTC device that has some fancy little gagdets and tools that are created specifically for the facebook user – no real rocket science in my mind. "Home" as it’s being called, brings facebook functionality and features front and center to the user – of note, I think Nokia and the Windows Phone OS has been doing this for some time now, providing handy little widgets and app updates on the homescreen. Forbes recently ripped on Home as being quite under-whelming and I have to agree. Facebook Home "app" will also be available to Android users the week of April 12, 2013, however, it will only be supported by a handful of devices (5 or 6 to be precise) leaving iPhone users out in the cold and to my surprise, Galaxy S II users (perhaps the largest selling Android device to date) will also have no access to fb Home. This is Facebook’s first big mobile push and you have to expect that there will be more coming soon but don’t expect to be blown away by Home!
Hurricane Season Begins and a Look Back on 2012
10 – That’s the number of hurricanes during the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, with only two of them as major hurricanes (Category 3-strength or higher). However, one of the major hurricanes was Hurricane Sandy. It struck southeastern Cuba at Category 3 strength, then made landfall in New Jersey as a post-tropical cyclone. It was the second costliest cyclone on record (not adjusted for inflation) at $50 billion, ranking only behind Hurricane Katrina from 2005. The only other hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. in 2012 was Hurricane Isaac, which hit Louisiana. Stay safe this year people!
Maps really are for story tellers and here’ a cool resource that can help you to tell your story! As a complement to Wikipedia, is an open educational resource launched recently in Beta to enable a global user community to organize its knowledge about the world both spatially and temporally. Perhaps more important, MapStory is an infrastructure for enabling “MapStorytelling” as a means of communicating important issues to a global audience. The goal is to enable any student, teacher or practitioner on Earth to tap into the power of this new mode of conveying stories about global change.
Community Hakathons in Colorado
In April an awesome community hackathon event is taking place in Longmont CO and being hosted at Skyline High School (Longmont Hackathon) – I love the idea of doing this at a school – the perfect community venue! The City is involved in the planning, they have an official Twitter account @hackLongmont and also a facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Longmonthackathon
Not to be outdone, there’s also an interesting event in Colorado this May – enter Hack4Colorado. For 3 days (May 31 – June 2) developers, hackers, designers, and others will gather to hack and mashup data. Check out details at http://www.hack4colorado.com
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