November 2024 Summaries

Kerry Bannen, during her Master's in Information Science at the University of North Carolina, combined her passion for historical maps with her skills to create an interactive web map showcasing the history of U.S. counties and their evolving boundaries. Inspired by beautifully designed maps made with Mapbox, she used the platform to visualize complex historical data, initially focusing on North Carolina as a proof of concept before expanding to the entire United States using data from the Newberry Library's Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. Her map features a time slider that allows users to observe changes in county boundaries over time, and she added Native Land data to provide context about Indigenous territories, enhancing the historical narrative. Kerry's project relied heavily on Mapbox documentation, StackOverflow, and collaboration with her IT colleagues, demonstrating that even those new to map building can create meaningful projects with the right resources and determination. Her journey underscores the importance of starting small, leveraging available learning tools, and focusing on user experience to create impactful educational tools.

Mapbox has introduced Mapbox Geofencing for iOS and Android, an API designed to simplify the creation and management of geofenced areas, allowing developers to monitor device movements across virtual boundaries and trigger personalized actions based on real-time locations. This tool enables a variety of applications, such as automating IoT tasks, delivering targeted marketing promotions, enhancing user safety, and ensuring regulatory compliance. The API supports complex boundary geometries and offers flexibility by functioning both online and offline, with no limits on the number of geofences. Developers can define events based on user interactions with geofences, upload geofence data as GeoJSON files, or dynamically generate them, and integrate these events with marketing tools to optimize promotional campaigns. By integrating with the broader Mapbox platform, users can save development time and effort typically spent on platform-specific implementations and third-party integrations. Currently in beta, Mapbox Geofencing includes examples for creating geofences and interactive map features on both iOS and Android platforms.