Facebook announced that they are making their AI tool available for OSM mappers through their RapiD editor. According to the press, Facebook wants to improve the map data in OSM on which the company relies. Facebook’s AI mapping activities are not undisputed and were a constant source of complaints in the past.
Joseph Eisenberg took a step towards improving the proposal process. He created a wiki page on which he documented, explained and categorised the 13 different approval states a proposal can have.
The tag waterway=tidal channel, which was suggested by Joseph Eisenberg, after a discussion that took place in September 2018, to map natural tidal waterways has been approved and the documentation has been copied from the proposal page to the OSM Wiki.
Erwin asks (automatic translation) on talk-at if there are already mappers who have experience with the tool mapwith.ai from Facebook. Another user pointed (automatic translation) to OSM forum posts from the Thai community, which is not very enthusiastic about this AI-supported tool.
Russian OSM user Valeriy Trubin has published a post “A few thoughts about OSM attribution”, where he describes what he does when he notices that someone is using OSM data without attribution. He suggests not passing by indifferently but contacting developers and explaining everything. His request has already been accepted by the Nizhny Novgorod Сity Administration, travel portal Azur, etc. (automatic translation)
Ilya Zverev in his blog SHTOSM tells us why interactive maps don’t need “plus” and “minus” buttons. (automatic translation)
OpenStreetMap Foundation
The minutes of the OSMF board meeting held on 17 July 2019 have been released.
Registration has opened for the HOT Summit 2019, which will take place ahead of the State of the Map conference in Heidelberg, Germany on 19 and 20 September.
The website GIM International published a review of the recent International Cartographic Conference 2019 in Tokyo, Japan, which had the motto “Mapping Everything for Everyone”. Steve Coast, founder of OSM, now vice president of TomTom, spoke about “The Past, Present, and Future of OpenStreetMap”.
Humanitarian OSM
HOT announced the winners of its #map2020 challenge, a project to accelerate map data collection in sparsely mapped regions by providing street-level imagery.
Government agencies of the Philippines are collaborating with the Pacific Disaster Center at the University of Hawaii to cope with threats from typhoons, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, landslides, and emergent risks from climate change.
Maps
A happy cyclist thanks the OSM community on Reddit for providing the data needed to make their family cycling holiday easier.
AllTrails, an online trail guide, has acquired GPSies and merged the services.
Rádio Renascença, one of the most popular radio stations in Portugal, launched a page (translation) with maps of the various stages of the Volta a Portugal by bicycle, based on the OSM and with due attribution. 👌🏻
switch2OSM
The iOS and Android messenger Threema, which has gained popularity for its privacy and encryption features, has reached version 4. The new version includes a new GUI, shows locations on the company’s own OSM-based map and allows users to archive chats.
Releases
Martijn van Exel wrote a blog post about the new version of MapRoulette. Version 3.3.3 introduces virtual projects to organise challenges that belong together, improves the integration of Mapillary and adds the ability to tag a task with a MapRoulette-specific tag.
Quincy Morgan announced the release of a new version of the OSM editor iD. Version v2.15.4 does not reuse the previous changeset comment by default anymore, indicates the direction of weirs and includes many other bugfixes, validation improvements, new localisations and additional presets.
Did you know …
According to an article by the BBC, the world’s steepest road is in Wales, UK. The incline value was added to OSM 9 years ago.
…that the Russian company Urbica created an app “Walkstreets”. It allows you to find the most comfortable and pleasant pedestrian routes throughout Moscow rather than the shortest ones. It’s available for Android and iOS.
…that the Russian company NextGIS created a map of “Do not territories” showing the places in Russia where it’s prohibited to organise mass demonstrations.
The US space agency NASA has developed a special receiver that would allow positioning on the moon with the help of the existing GPS satellites. We might need to start the proposal process for mapping craters.
The developers of 2GIS (a well-known Russian navigator) shared (translation) how they collect road signs for their service (spoiler: automatically).
Upcoming Events
Where
What
When
Country
Dumaguete
Pista ng Mapa 2019
2019-08-01-2019-08-03
Kitakata
喜多方マッピングパーティー&OSM 15th 誕生会
2019-08-03
Kyoto
OpenStreetMap誕生日 前祝い会!
2019-08-04
London
Missing Maps Mapathon
2019-08-06
Stuttgart
Stuttgarter Stammtisch
2019-08-07
San José
Code for San José Summer Mixer [1]
2019-08-08
Cottbus
134. Brandenburg-Berlin Stammtisch
2019-08-09
Salt Lake City
15th Birthday Salt Lake City Mapping Party
2019-08-10
Taipei
OSM x Wikidata #7
2019-08-12
Bordeaux
Réunion mensuelle
2019-08-12
Salt Lake City
OSM Utah 15th Birthday Drinks
2019-08-13
Zurich
OSM Stammtisch Zurich
2019-08-13
Hamburg
Hamburger Mappertreffen
2019-08-13
Munich
Münchner Stammtisch
2019-08-14
Wuppertal
OSM-Treffen Wuppertaler Stammtisch im Hutmacher 18 Uhr
2019-08-14
Osaka
みんなで東淀川区の魅力を発信しよう!
2019-08-18
Cologne Bonn Airport
Bonner Stammtisch
2019-08-20
Lüneburg
Lüneburger Mappertreffen
2019-08-20
Lübeck
Lübecker Mappertreffen
2019-08-22
Kameoka
京都!街歩き!マッピングパーティ:第11回 出雲大神宮
2019-08-24
Minneapolis
State of the Map U.S. 2019 [3]
2019-09-06-2019-09-08
Edinburgh
FOSS4GUK 2019
2019-09-18-2019-09-21
Heidelberg
Erasmus+ EuYoutH OSM Meeting
2019-09-18-2019-09-23
Heidelberg
HOT Summit 2019
2019-09-19-2019-09-20
Heidelberg
State of the Map 2019 [4]
2019-09-21-2019-09-23
Dhaka
State of the Map Asia 2019
2019-11-01-2019-11-02
Wellington
FOSS4G SotM Oceania 2019
2019-11-12-2019-11-15
Grand-Bassam
State of the Map Africa 2019
2019-11-22-2019-11-24
Note: If you like to see your event here, please put it into the calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM. Please check your event in our public calendar preview and correct it, where appropriate.