IEEE Spectrum talk of highlights from a recent drone games competition, where competitors were invited to hack existing drones. The winner was a drone that infected other drones with a virus, which then spread to other drones they came across. Other notable drones included one that would “behave itself on the end of a leash, which is neat, but it’s also constantly taking pictures and performing facial recognition, posting the resulting images to Twitter in real-time.”
Google Maps Mania highlights some Street View imagery that Google recently uploaded that shows – in first-person – some of the destruction caused to the interiors of buildings thanks to the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami.
The fails keep on coming for Apple Maps, with the Australian running a story about the Victorian Police urging drivers to not use the now infamous Maps application when navigating, as three drivers looking for Mildura have had the app tell them to leave the freeway and ended up being stranded in the desert without food and water for up to 24 hours.
DigitalGlobe are again running its top satellite image competition, and want you to vote for your favourite image from its shortlist of 20.
Stuck for that perfect Christmas gift for the special geo-geek in your life? Why not turn an old map into a bag or satchel, using this handy guide, brought to our attention by GIS User.
GIS Lounge has a post about NASA’s new night-time image of the world, highlighting cities across the globe. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that there appears to be many lights in the outback of Western Australia – what’s happened here is that the satellites – capturing data over periods of weeks – have captured several bushfires that were burning in the area during those weeks, and is showing the light generated by them.
And, finally, a post on the Andrew Zolnai blog will be sure to keep history buffs and cartographers amused for hours. The British Library have released a tonne of old maps into the Old Maps Online portal. There are some staggeringly beautiful maps here, and it’s well worth a dive in to see what you can find.
