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Something weird is in the air at Foxoak St, Cradley Heath, West Midlands B64, United Kingdom. Check it out on Google Street View, but only look up if you are brave enough! Link -via Dangerous Minds
In that case, I’ll just take the Tube. Let us thank Google’s programmers for offering this prudent warning.
The map is of northern London, but you can overlay a map in your own city by choosing “The Shire” as your starting point and “Mordor” as the destination when searching for directions.
Link -via Geekosystem
Where in the world are zombies? Oxford Internet Institute researchers Mark Graham (of Floating Sheep's fame), Taylor Shelton, Matthew Zook, and Monica Stephens mapped the world's zombie outbreaks:
Using a keyword search for "zombies," the following map visualizes the absolute concentrations of references within the Google Maps database. The map reveals two important spatial patterns. First, much of the world lacks any content mentioning "zombies" whatsoever. Second, and related, the highest concentration of zombies in the Geoweb are located in the Anglophone world, especially in large cities. The results either provide a rough proxy for the amount of English-language content indexed over our planet, or offer an early warning into the geographies of the impending zombie apocalypse.
See also NeatoShop's Zombie Shop
René Voorburg, an archivist at the National Library of the Netherlands, digitized a Roman road map from about 300 AD. OmnesViae displays a route between two towns of your choice and provides driving directions. Pictured above is one that I created from Ostia to Brundisium.
Link -via The Presurfer
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I have spent hours just typing in a random location and using Google Maps to “visit” it with the street view application. If that wasn’t entertaining enough (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it) Rorschmap is a website created by James Bridle which takes Google Maps and creates Kaleidoscope like images out of them.
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Shiekh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan of the UAE, owner of the largest pickup truck in the world, would like to leave his mark on the world. He’d prefer to do so in a way that’s visible from space, so he had workers dig letters a thousand feet across into the sand of his island Al Futaisi:
The name is two miles across — with letters a kilometre high. It is so huge that the “H”, the first “A” and part of the “M” have been made into waterways.
The mega-rich sheikh, 63 — a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi — in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates — boasts a £14billion fortune that is second only to the Saudi king’s.
Link and News Story -via Gizmodo | Image: Google Maps
Google Maps has a list of punny slogans that users have tagged onto towns and cities. A sample:
Gas, KS
“Don’t pass gas, stop and enjoy It.”Hooker, OK
“It’s a location, not a vocation.”Bushnell, SD
“It’s not the end of the earth, but you can see it from here”Walla Walla, WA
“The city so nice they named it twice.”
Click on a slogan at the site and the map will show you where the town is. Link -via Buzzfeed
Google Maps has a cute new function called Map Your Valentine. It lets you create a heart around a special location and send a message to your sweetie. When received through email, the valentine reads “I picked this place especially for you.”
Link via Fast Company
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Note: The red dots shows homes currently in foreclosure.
Gus Lubin of Business Insider’s Money Game takes us on an unusual tour of sort: using Google Maps, he has created the Satellite Tour of America’s Foreclosure Wasteland. I was surprised to learn that 1 out of every 9 homes in Las Vegas are in foreclosure!
Link – Thanks Adam!
Double rainbow! This image is from Google Maps’ satellite view. It shows a plane flying over Hyde Park in Chicago.
Link via Geekosystem | Screenshot: Atlantic
Google Maps lets users submit reviews for different locations, including the mysterious Area 51 in Nevada. Most people seem to be displeased with the customer service found there.
Link via Glenn Reynolds
Previously: Travel Reviews for Mount Everest
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Yucca Flat in Nevada was the site of 827 nuclear detonations while the US enhanced its nuclear weapons. Pictured above is a Google Maps satellite view of the pock-marked surface.
Link via Boing Boing | Image: Google
Jason McDonald, a fan of Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead series has mapped out major events from the comic book series. Markers on this interactive map illustrate exactly where all the action goes down. It’s zombielicious.
The editors of Buzzfeed created nine sets of Google Map directions that show song lyrics, such as the above “Hotel California” by the Eagles. What song do you think would make for a good Google Maps song?
Link via Geekologie
Online map services like Mapquest can take you to the doorstep of a building, but what do you do if you need navigational help inside a building? A research team at the University of California at Berkeley responded to that need by creating a backpack-sized device that instantly creates 3D models of interior spaces:
Grad student Nicholas Corso dons a backpack brimming with lasers and cameras. As he hikes the hall, the lasers scan everything from floor to ceiling and the cameras capture a panorama.
“The idea,” explains Professor Zakhor, “is that you wear a backpack, you walk inside the building. You’re done. You push a button and out comes this model.”
The model is textured (covered) with the photographs.
The team is also behind the technology that creates 3D views of major cities on Google Earth. So, why not fly into the buildings and not just around them? The outdoor version relies on GPS but you can’t rely on GPS indoors. So, the team in the imaging lab combined a new breed of miniature laser with an inertial management unit (IMU) like the ones that guide missiles.
Video at the link.
Link via DVICE | Image: KGO-TV, Screenshot by DVICE
Australia has streets that look oddly like USB cords strewn across the floor of a rain-damaged basement. It turns out the ends of the “cords” are actually buildings, and you can view the Google Map here.
Via Fogonazos
You don’t have to have a printer to make your own envelops, but if you do, you can print a Map Envelope! Enter your location, print out and fold, and your envelope will have a Google Maps image of the place the enclosed letter (or whatever) originated on its inside. You can even add a message for a little something extra for your recipient. Link -via the Presurfer
Google Maps has assembled a series of about 40 YouTube videos which apparently cover the entire distance from Moscow to Vladivostok. Thankfully you can jump instantly and randomly from one segment of the trip to another either by clicking on a different selection or dragging the cursor on the map, which moves in sync with the videos. The map beneath the video can be zoomed, switched from satellite to terrain mode, and dragged like any Google Map. All of the segments I visited were filmed in daylight. While viewing the videos, you can select an audio background of railroad sounds, Russian music, or recitations of Russian literature.
NORAD has been tracking Santa every year since 1958. In 2007, Google Maps and Google Earth got involved with following Santa’s progress on Christmas Eve. As often happens with new projects, something went awry in 2008. Jeff Martin, a senior marketing manager at Google Geo, found himself in hot water quickly.
Inexplicably, as Santa made his way through Toronto that night last year, the mapping software began identifying the city as being in the United States. Instantly, NORAD Santa’s dedicated Gmail account “just lit up” with messages from irate Canadians, Martin said, and quickly, the Google team fixed the problem.
But not before Martin’s run-in with Canadian Lt. Gen. Marcel Duval. “He said, ‘I understand that you have a new American city,’” Martin recalled. “It was a slightly tense moment for me, standing in front of a three-star general explaining to him why one of his cities had been designated as a United States city.”
Read more about how the NORAD Santa Tracker came about and the technology used in the program today. Link -Thanks, Vince d’Eon!
You’re looking at the the star fort of Bourtange in the Netherlands. It sure looks fantastic, but there’s a wily logic behind building a fort in such a shape. Turns out, a circular fortification of the medieval era was vulnerable to cannon fire. All the crazy angles and moats surrounding the star-shaped fort was made it easier to defend.
There’s no danger of an invading horde today, but these star-shaped formations are so darned picturesque that I wish they’d build more of these instead of ho-hum suburbs and strip malls.
If you like the Bourtange fort above, check out this article written by one of our favorite bloggers, Shaun Usher (better known as deputy dog). He has compiled 6 communities with intriguing bird’s eye shapes as can be seen on Google Maps. He even turned the caps on for us: Link – Thanks Dave!
Rhett Dashwood has compiled a fastastical collection of buildings, lakes, fields, roads, forests, and other fun things you can see from space with a fancy pants satellite that form a complete alphabet.
The pic here shows letters from Victoria, Australia but of course one could apply this idea to anyone’s home town/state/ecosystem. Fun!
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Another Jake.
Urlesque has a neat round up of 10 strange, funny, and plain surreal scenes caught on Google Maps Street View. The list includes things like passed out drunks, hidden Chinese subs, accidents and fire – and even a Viking fight!
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by thatguy455.
