Jeff Warren of the MIT Media Lab has launched a project which has mapped miles of the Louisiana coastline using digital cameras attached to kites towed by boats. Not only does this technology produce maps quickly and inexpensively where they're needed, they are now the most high-resolution maps of the spill in existence. All of the funding has come from small contributions by individuals given through Kickstarter.com.
See a short video about the project here. Warren has also used balloons to take aerial photographs which are then matched with latitude/longitude coordinates and overlaid into a high-resolution maps. He described a project in Lima intended to help residents who don't legally own the land they live on because the local government doesn't have the resources to map the parcels and issue deeds. "There's a big need for making maps quickly and inexpensively," says Warren.
This is a great example of how speed and inexpensive, easily available materials (Warren's suggested rig involves inexpensive, off-the shelf digital cameras and two-liter soda bottles) can change deliver more data faster than more expensive tools and methods. That's something that's true of placeblogs, too, many of whom cover communities at a greater level of speed and detail than the much larger organizations than they compete with.
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