PC World has an interesting post on a new collaborative, gamified ocean mapping project called TheBlu. It hopes to map all of the ocean, but currently there are only a few spots (including the Great Barrier Reef). It’s interesting because “a collaborative art project, and ambitious plan to map out the world's oceans, and a social networking game.”
Wired has a great piece on how the impending Google Maps paywall (as previously discussed in SpatialSource) is causing enterprise users to switch to Open Street Maps.
Speaking of Open Street Maps (OSM), OpenGeoData have a post that talks about how, traditionally, OSM has played ‘catch up’ with the big map providers, but could take the lead in indoor mapping. Worth a read, if only to learn about this emerging field.
The last 30 minutes of the voyage of the recently sunk Costa Concordia has been mapped, and Google Maps Mania have the skinny.
LiDAR News has a video showing the ARIADNE robot exploring and building a 3D map of the castle Birlinghoven in Sankt Augustin. Very cool, and the fellas a cutie, too.
Cycle enthusiasts will enjoy these Google Earth fly-throughs of the various stages of the Tour Down Under cycle race that started this week.
And, finally, Got GeoInt talks of the US Navy moving forward on plans to make a vertical take-off UAV large enough to carry cargo. They are developing a program that would include “a vehicle autonomously avoiding obstacles while finding and landing at an unprepared landing site in dynamic conditions, with goal-directed supervisory control by a field operator with no special training.”
