Coronavirus Updates: Native Americans Put Digital Spin On Traditions Amid Pandemic

This article describes Native Americans in the United States, specifically the Midwestern states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and their use of online media to record and stream rituals and practices, such as powwows and dances. Facebook and other social media sites are becoming an integral part of Native American culture. Not only are digital means being used, but Native American tribes are trying to bring in person rituals and practices back. Native Americans are using the social distancing guidelines to bring back in person rituals

Scented cybercartography: Exploring possibilities

Olfactory cartography is part of the emerging discipline of cybercartography (Taylor 2003), a transdisciplinary endeavour that investigates, among other things, the integration of multimedia, multi-sensory, and multimodal data into digital atlases and maps. The physiology and psychology of the olfactory system, its special characteristics, its influence on performance and memory, and some of the issues that make the study of olfaction difficult are addressed. Characterizing, classifying, and labelling scents is problematic, and it is recommended that methods from other communities of practice be adopted and adapted by cartographers. Literature from a wide range of disciplines, including olfactory geography, is reviewed, and a number of innovative ideas are provided. In addition, olfactory applications in different areas such as marketing, art installations, film, and virtual environments are described, as are a range of currently available olfactory diffusion devices. These, however, have not been explored in a cartographic context, nor have they undergone usability testing. We conclude that it is too early to provide cartographic guidelines and methods but that scented applications, odour diffusion technologies, and olfactory data collection methods provide knowledge that can be applied toward developing a scented cartography