Friday Fun With Google Maps

The US After the Next Civil War

Apparently a Russian’s professor has predicted that the United States will fall into civil war and segment into six countries by July 2010. Off the Map have produced a Google Map mashup to show what the new US will look like post 2010.

Mashable's Top 100 Google Maps Mashups
Mashable yesterday published a list of their top 100 Google Maps mashups and tools. I think it's time I updated the Google Maps Mania 100 Things to do with Google Maps.

Turf Bombing

Turf Bombing is a location-based turf battle game which rewards that encourages traveling and learning about different neighborhoods. This game requires a laptop and works anywhere in the world where there's a wifi connection.

Gangs are assigned by the zip code of your home address. The goal of each gang is to gain as much territory as possible.

Territories are acquired as players plant time bombs at different locations in physical space. If the bomb is not diffused by a local gang member in time, the bomb will explode and the territory will be turned over to the gang that planted the bomb.

There are 4 ranks within each gang. General > Lieutenant > Sergeant > Civilians. Your rank is determined by your share of the gang's territory. Higher ranking players have more power and influence.

Via: Programmable Web

Blurry Map

This is either a map of how the world looks after a night out on the town or a world map as drawn by Seurat.

GPS Trails Over 24 Hours
The video below shows the GPS track of urbanTick over 24 hours. The data is shown in Google Earth with day and night effects.


plymouth365_24h_sun from urbanTick on Vimeo.

Visualising Population by Lights
Probably not a Google Map but another brilliant bit of mapping from one of my favourite blogs Digital Urban.


Visualising Data: UK Population One Light per 200 People from digitalurban on Vimeo.

Via: Digital Urban: Visualising Geographic Data - Population by Lights

Paranoid Parents Track Your Children
A GPS tracking device called Nu.M8 is being released so parents can track their kids. The device even looks just like a digital watch so parents don't even have to tell their kids they are being tracked.

But it doesn't come cheap. Available in the UK in March and the USA in late spring the system will cost £149.99, plus a monthly subscription charge. And your kids will never forgive you.