It looks like Google maps have been busy updating pretty much all their map’s image resolution, taking the image quality to similar standards as Google Earth. The notorious white cloud has gone, leaving Cape Town exposed. (courtesy of Techblog)
I went searching and spotted our Gravit8 offices, next door to the Cape Town City Police Station. The image quality is great, the Police station’s blueprint makes the Prison Break series a reality for some genius brother of a Cape Town gangster sitting in a holding cell.
Making Big brother even more noticeable is Loki, the first location-based search, navigation and sharing web application.
With Loki all you need to do is install a Firefox extension, that installs a driver to your computer. This driver is then used everytime you use the Loki search tool in Firefox, for instance to search for coffee shops nearby, or the nearest train station. Loki pinpoints your location to within a few metres and lets you know what is avaliable in your near surroundings.
It all seems pretty freaky to me, why would people want to do this? I’m sure it serves a good purpose for the FBeyeee and secret services in finding criminals, but do you really want to give out a whole bunch of personal information to any Tom, Dick, or Harry? I know I would struggle with stalkers following me everywhere, its hard enough already.
Who knows what other information Loki would obtain from your computer using their little “driver”.
With satellite tracking and geo-mapping, of just about anywhere in the world, obtainable at the click of a few buttons, you got to wonder what information is avaliable about you, and what psycho is going to use it.
2 responses
It is a pity we don’t have detailed coverage in SA like you would find in the States. For that matter it would be pretty cool if services like Google’s and Yahoo!’s ‘Local’ search/mapping/whatever were available here. Why is it that because we are down south we are relegated to a couple years ago?
Probably Telkom’s fault! 🙁
It would be interesting to see what it would spit out, but I agree – who knows how the information provided might be used against you….