Each month, we look back on the best of the month’s Best of the Blogs.
Battle Maps are set to become a recurring trope this season of Game of Thrones (SPOILER ALERT!) Cersei and Daenary’s both came into possession of battle maps in episode 1 and it’s easy to anticipate what this will mean for the ensuing season. As one blogger describes, it’s coming down to a ‘battle of the battle maps’. [See our full Game Of Thrones map collection here]
Danaerys and Tyrion observe their awesome new carved map of Westeros, while what appears to be a precise GNSS receiver rests on a pillar in the background.
You may be familiar with continental drift theory, but have you seen it in action? A new interactive map shows how the continents have drifted over the millennia and how we got to where we are today. You can sit back and watch the world spin and evolve, or you can zoom to specific times in history, like first plants, first animals and the age of dinosaurs. [Map of the Week]
These days, our maps seem alive: they speak, in robotic voices, telling us precisely where to go. We now have the whole world in our hands, but how did we get here? From Ptolemy to GPS, this article is a fascinating yet brief history of maps. [Smithsonian]
London-based AI DeepMind has revealed fresh inroads towards the creation of an artificial general intelligence that uses spatial reasoning – what might be likened to the holy grail of computer science. The focus of the research concerns the ability for machines to grasp the relation of objects to each other. This kind of spatial reasoning has proved difficult for computers, at least until now that is. [Extreme Tech]
An Australian engineer is hoping to use drones to plant 1 billion trees every year to fight an unfolding global catastrophe. An ambitious plan to remotely plant nearly 100,000 trees a day with smart drone technology (shown in the video above) aims to win back the battle against climate change and deforestation. [ABC News]
If you haven’t seen an augmented reality sandbox in action, it is truly a sight to behold (see above video). Doing it in real life is even better. Now you can make your own, thanks to this post from Constant Geography, which runs you through all the kit required and all the steps you need to take. [Constant Geography]
