What I’m Interested in This Week: June 2-8

It’s been a long time since I last wrote on this web site. Something I’ve been thinking about for a while is stopping in each week to write a bit about things I have been working on in a quick-fire format. This exercise isn’t just a social update on what has been happening, but it will also be a short form journal that will help me take a look at the things that I really find interesting over time. In a way, I’m gathering data on myself.

On to this week’s update!

Open and Collaborative Mapping

Over the past month, I happened to take notice that the Google Maps base map layer is missing a large lake (~1300 acres) in my area. This lake has existed for several years so I was surprised to see it still missing from the base map. The satellite map layer is, thankfully, updated. For fun, I also checked Bing Maps and no surprise there, the lake was missing as well. It may seem trivial, but if a 1300 acre lake is missing from the Google base map layer, what else could be missing?

OpenStreetMap, which I hope to post about soon, actually does have the lake on their base map. If you’re not familiar with the project, it is somewhat like the “Wikipedia” of maps. It is largely updated by a community of volunteers who have produced a very complete and current map of many locations around the world. In the case of the missing lake, they have certainly beaten Google and Microsoft to the punch. I’m certainly interested in helping map my local community.

PineTime

I have been super impressed with the sub-$30 (before taxes/shipping) open source smart watch from Pine64. In my opinion, it hits well above it’s weight in quality and features. I use it mostly for it’s Bluetooth connectivity and step counter, but it also has a number of other apps and features. Obviously, at that price point, it is not a replacement for an Apple Watch. But if you simply need notifications, step counter, heart rate monitor, and more, it’s a great device. It’s a really cool project where the watch itself is open source. You can even order one as a developer kit (for the same price!) with the internals opened up for experimentation and modification. The operating system, InfiniTime, is also open source and receives regular enhancements and updates. I hope to write a review on it soon.