Points of Interest: January 6, 2005

Mapping Portal. DM Solutions launched a mapping portal addressing the Tsunami Disaster in the Indian Ocean Region. A note on the website specifically requests input from the community: "We encourage Data Providers to help us respond to Data User requirements by providing no-cost, high quality (geo-referenced) data that can be quickly and effectively integrated within this Website and used to generate meaningful and helpful maps."

Young Geographer Saves Hundreds. A ten-year-old schoolgirl from outside London warned her vacationing family, and many others of the impending tsunami. Sources say by doing so she saved hundreds of lives. Tilly Smith, from Oxshott, Surrey learned about the waves weeks before in school and when she saw the tide rush out at Maikhao beach in Phuket, Thailand, she told her mother. That message was relayed to others on the beach and the hotel staff. With the beach cleared, there we no serious injuries.

Natural Sensors. Five tribes inhabiting the Andaman and Nicobar Islands escaped unscathed from the recent tsunami. How? Anthropologists believe that traditional warnings read from the changed sounds of bird calls and other natural phenomena prompted the groups to move to higher ground in preparation for the quake and wave.

Build a Tsunami Sensor on Your Own. Robert X. Cringely offers in a recent column that we best not wait for the various governments of the world to develop a tsunami warning system. We can do it ourselves. In "Wave of Change: How to Build a Global Internet Tsunami Warning System in a Month" he explains how. So much of his argument is about getting at the needed data, crunching the model and getting the word out. Sounds like a lot of what we here in the geotechnologies world do in our day jobs.

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Source: Material used herein is often supplied by external sources and used as is.