Ralph Straumann over at Spatialists shows off a beautiful cartographic typography made from images of contour lines and lakes. Best yet, the relief has been extruded to 3D, and the letters still look great. Worth a look for the 3D versions.

UpWorthy has a post that shows off some of the devastating effects that humans have had on the Earth, by using time-based satellite images compiled from Google Earth. Watch in horror as the Amazon rainforests disappear, as glaciers recede, and as lakes dry up.
And, don’t forget the recent study that shows, without a doubt, that there is no question that humans are responsible for climate change.

Speaking of climate change, mineralresource.info has a post that talks of the shift away from GIS as mandatory in mineral exploration, instead giving stripped-down, possibly web-based, GIS to all but the most competent power users. What are your thoughts? Desktop GIS for all, or only the elite?

In yet another example showing the growing role that UAVs are playing in a broad swathe of industries, IT News has an article on their use (as well as robots) in Australian agriculture.

Google’s Street View continues to reach new and interesting places, with the Galapagos Islands becoming the latest great wonder to be captured for the world (at least, those with a decent internet connection) to see.

LiDAR? RADAR? What’s the difference, anyway? LiDAR News has the answers.

And, to wrap up this week, Jonathan Crowe has his first impressions on using the new Google Maps interface that was revealed at Google I/O recently, and everyone has been talking about since.