Friday Fun With Google Maps

London Treasure Hunt

Moblog are holding a Treasure Hunt around London based on Google Maps.

You will need a digital camera or a cameraphone to take part, and access to google maps or any other online/mobile mapping application. The objects you have to find are a little bigger than postcard size, and 2cm thick. They are within 10 metres of the hidden locations.

The found objects contain letters and the letters will spell out a question. Looking at the map above, which contains an overlay of a man's arm over a map of London with markers added where objects have been found, I would guess the clues are going to make up a picture (or tattoo) as well.

For those wanting to play there is a Twitter feed and I think this is one of the clues:



The Future of Mapping

I certainly learnt about the history (and future) of maps from this video of Andrew Turner of Mapufacture at the Future of Web Applications.



Video Link

Where's Stephen Fry?
British comedian, author, television presenter and actor Stephen Fry is currently filming in Africa. Fry is using Twitter to update people on his location. Obviously, when I saw his Twitter location updates, I had to map them.

If you don't know who Stephen Fry is - here he is in an early episode of the original English version of House MD.



Video Link

Russia Spotting

The Inverse Square Blog has been wondering if you really can see Russia from Alaska. As the solution posed by Inverse Square is all to do with horizons and visibility Hey what's that? decided they are the perfect people to give the definitive answer.

Hey what's that? can compute the horizon view for any point on the earth. To calculate a horizon all a user has to do is click on a Google Map and Hey what's that? produce the view.

So can you see Russia from Alaska? The answer is yes and at Hey what's that? you can see for yourself.