iO9 has a captivating series of animations entitled ‘the Breathing Earth’, which show the wax and wane of the vegetation and ice cover that the Earth undergoes during a typical year around the sun. Simply wonderful to watch.

Speaking of maps of the earth (sort of) the Philippines are a bit peeved at China at the moment, after China published a new ’10-dash’ map in January, which places a new dash, carving out some of the island nation’s maritime territory for itself. Indeed, as well as the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam have been contesting China’s claim of the territory.

The Conversation have a piece that outlines 10 reasons why Australia needs a space agency, and needs to stop ‘piggy-backing’ on other nations for our needs.

The Informatica Blog has a post entitles ‘Metadata, so Mom can understand’ which – as you probably guessed – provides a good primer to just what metadata is, and discusses how it relates to the fairly recent Edward Snowden whistleblowing.

Space News has an article announcing the EUs decision to offer free access to Sentinel earth observation data. The EU argues that any harm to private-sector satellite operators will be outweighed by the expected growth in value-added services derived from the data.

The Washington Post has informed us that Google ended up paying USD 966 million to acquire Waze.

And, continuing along the vein of location-based technologies, Apple has filed for a patent on tech that uses your location, as well as device usage history, to tailor the power profile of your device. For instance, it knows when you’re heading to the office (and the charger you keep in the drawer there), so isn’t afraid to give your phone power all the power it desires. If, however, you go for long bushwalks on weekends, then it’ll make sure your phone will last until you get home. A very clever use for location data.