The Map of Human History / / No Comments You wait an age for a historical Wikipedia map and then two come along at once. Hot on the heels of yesterday’s post about Landnotes, we can now explore another Wikipedia-sourced map of human history.The Globe of History is an ambitious new interactive map that attempts to visualize the entire sweep of human history – 6,000 years of wars, inventions, discoveries, philosophers, political Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: History, Human
Gemini File Search and File Stores for Easy RAG / / No Comments I am really excited about this post as it’s one of the most powerful changes I’ve seen to Google’s Gemini APIs in quite some time. For a while now it’s been really easy to perform searches against a document, or a group of documents. You would upload the file (or files), ask your questions, and that was all you needed. However, the files you uploaded were only there temporarily. This was fine for processes like summarization or categorization where you could automate the process and be done with it. This was also fine for basic chat uses. I blogged an example of this last month: "Building a Document Q&A System with Google Gemini". The new features I’m... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Easy, file, Gemini, search, Stores
Using Google Static Maps in Your Print View / / No Comments This is just a quick thought experiment really. Yesterday I was working on a demo that made use of Google’s Static Map API. I’ve blogged about this API for probably over a decade now and I rarely see people use it, but it’s a lightweight, image only "API" for when you need simple map images without interactivity. Honestly, I see a lot of sites using the full JavaScript maps library when a simpler image would be fine. It’s also an excellent way to use maps in presentations or emails as well. It occurred to me that the static map image could be a great way use of print media queries in CSS and I thought I’d build a quick demo to show this. Media queries and... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Google, maps, print, Static, using, View
Time Traveling with Street View / / No Comments Have you ever wondered what your neighborhood looked like in the 18th century—or even during the Middle Ages? Thanks to Street View and AI, you can now almost find out. TimeJourneyAI is a new application that lets you pick a location in Street View and generate an AI-imagined version of that same spot for any year in history.Liberty 2025rom my limited testing, the historical views Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: Street, time, Traveling, View
JavaScript SpeechSynthesis API / / No Comments As the web continues to be the medium for all users, standards bodies need to continue to provide new APIs to enrich user experience and accessibility. One underused API for unsighted users is speechSynthesis, an API to programmatically direct the browser to audibly speak any arbitrary string. The Code You can direct the browser to utter speech with window.speechSynthesis and SpeechSynthesisUtterance: window.speechSynthesis.speak( new SpeechSynthesisUtterance('Hey Jude!') ) speechSynthesis.speak will robotically tell the user anything you provide as a SpeechSynthesisUtterance string. Support for this API is available in all modern browsers. I wouldn’t consider speechSynthesis as... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: JavaScript, SpeechSynthesis
Make Your Own Ridgeline Plots / / No Comments Joyplot Map Today’s #30DayMapChallenge is to use a New Tool (create your map using a software, language, library, or technique you have never used before). For this challenge I decided to build something using Terrain RGB.My Joyplot Map is an interactive map that turns elevation data into ridgeline plots – right in your browser.This map lets you draw a rectangle anywhere on the globe and view Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: plots, Ridgeline
Fix “This video format is not supported” on YouTube TV / / No Comments Setting up a new computer is bliss — no old, unused apps and the machine performs much better than the previous. Unfortunately, you may encounter new problems based on the new hardware. One such issue I encountered with my new MacBook was a “This video format is not supported” message when I went to YouTube TV. Not being able to watch my favorite live show is a real problem. After a bit of research, I found the solution to the “This video format is not supported” error message. To solve this problem: Open your browser settings and do a search for DRM You should see reference to Widevine, a form of DRM Enable this Widevine setting Restart your web browser Enabling... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: format, supported”, this, video, YouTube
There Are No Roads in London / / No Comments Streets of London Today’s #30DayMapChallenge is to use OpenStreetMap (OSM) data as your primary source.To meet this challenge I decided to use OpenStreetMap data to explore the toponyms of London’s streets, visualizing how different road types – Streets, Lanes, Alleys, Courts, Yards, and Avenues – are named and distributed across the City of London.One of my favourite quiz questions is – ‘How Maps Mania… more → Posted in: Interactive Maps Tagged with: London, roads, there