Google Maps Updated To Include Cape Town
Great (and terrifying) news: Google Maps has finally been updated to include Cape Town (and, from what I understand it, the rest of South Africa).
When Google Maps was launched only a small area of Cape Town, extending from "below" about Milnerton in the north to Tokai in the South and the eastern side of Table Mountain in the west to approximately Bellville (if I remember correctly) in the east. Although this covered much of my neighbourhood and areas that I frequent, it didn't - oddly - cover the city centre, where I spend much of my day during the week and where most of the interesting places in Cape Town are to be found.
I had stopped checking months ago to see when the city might be added but, thankfully, I ran across this post at Times In New York today, indicating that Google Maps has now, finally, been updated.
Above: Cape Town, South Africa, forever immortalised in Google Maps.
So now I can zoom in to my building, and every other building, in the city, and it's all totally unnerving. It's fun when it's a city that you don't live in (I have previously lost many working hours looking up sites in London, Paris, and Las Vegas, among other areas), but it's not so much fun when it's your own city. The photos also zoom in closer than they did before (I can make out details on my house that I couldn't previously see) so it's all very 21st-century stalker creepy.
Of course, one plus to all of this is that I can blog about the city, with pictures, without having to leave the comfort of my office. Instead, I can just use the spy-satellite imagery for good, instead of for its intended purpose, whatever that is (but we know it's for evil).
Now, A Showcase To Prove My Point (Both Of Them)
Above: Rondebosch Common and the Red Cross Children's Hospital: here be creepy-crawlies and ill children.
(For more information on how you can help the hospital not run out of money visit The Children's Hospital Trust.)
Above: Sea Point Main Road (the one that's not the coastal road): here be prostitutes at night.
Above: The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront: here be German tourists (look for the people with moonbags, wearing floppy hats, shorts, and sandals in winter).
Disturbing, isn't it?
When Google Maps was launched only a small area of Cape Town, extending from "below" about Milnerton in the north to Tokai in the South and the eastern side of Table Mountain in the west to approximately Bellville (if I remember correctly) in the east. Although this covered much of my neighbourhood and areas that I frequent, it didn't - oddly - cover the city centre, where I spend much of my day during the week and where most of the interesting places in Cape Town are to be found.
I had stopped checking months ago to see when the city might be added but, thankfully, I ran across this post at Times In New York today, indicating that Google Maps has now, finally, been updated.
Above: Cape Town, South Africa, forever immortalised in Google Maps.
So now I can zoom in to my building, and every other building, in the city, and it's all totally unnerving. It's fun when it's a city that you don't live in (I have previously lost many working hours looking up sites in London, Paris, and Las Vegas, among other areas), but it's not so much fun when it's your own city. The photos also zoom in closer than they did before (I can make out details on my house that I couldn't previously see) so it's all very 21st-century stalker creepy.
Of course, one plus to all of this is that I can blog about the city, with pictures, without having to leave the comfort of my office. Instead, I can just use the spy-satellite imagery for good, instead of for its intended purpose, whatever that is (but we know it's for evil).
Now, A Showcase To Prove My Point (Both Of Them)
Above: Rondebosch Common and the Red Cross Children's Hospital: here be creepy-crawlies and ill children.
(For more information on how you can help the hospital not run out of money visit The Children's Hospital Trust.)
Above: Sea Point Main Road (the one that's not the coastal road): here be prostitutes at night.
Above: The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront: here be German tourists (look for the people with moonbags, wearing floppy hats, shorts, and sandals in winter).
Disturbing, isn't it?
Labels: Cape Town, Technology
posted by Mandy J Watson at 4:05 PM
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11 Comments:
The part about "floppy hats, shorts, and sandals in winter" certainly is.
Hee hee. One of my favourite games to play is Spot The Tourist.
Not much of a challenge at the V&A, though.
Ag stop complaining. Google Earth has been showing the high res images for a very good couple of months now, and they went up as far as Sonstraal , and cut off just under Durbanville. I use it regularly to direct the black van around, collecting money, breaking kneecaps et al.
KN: Yeah, but it's more exciting to show an image of the V&A than St George's Mall (because you need a paragraph to explain that St George's Mall is not a mall).
FM: Excuuuse me, but those of us on a Mac didn't have access to Google Earth until recently. And those of use behind a corporate firewall (et al) aren't supposed to be installing such things anyway.
You just wanted to talk about your van...
Guilty as charged mkay! Well Google Earth uses the images from Google Maps so it's a crappy excuse you have anyways. ;)
I don't know what you're talking about, because if that's the case then Google Earth only covered a bit of Cape Town (and not the city centre) so it was just as useless as Google Maps was until recently.
Why must you always be so confusing on my blog?
Be confusing on your own blog!
(I mean, get your own blog first and then be confusing (but there, not here) okay?)
Huh? Most of Cape Town was covered!! And it's not like Google not to abuse that vast knowledge of Google-mappage. *ponders* Someone f**ked up at Google. Right, time to invade them. I'll be sending my black van on a super-long-top-secret-spy-mission. I must not forget to pack a couple of tins of Toffeepops.
What the hell is a toffeepop? Are you making up words?
Ooooh please tell me South Africa has toffeepops. Man they are divine. It's basicly a round shortbread biscuit (think Eat Sum mors but round) covered on the top with toffee, and the whole toffee/biscuit is covered in chocolate. *drool* I buy them at the Spar here!!!! Surely we have something similar there? If not, I will have to pack less clothes and more Toffeepops.
Yes, you will, because you need to bring some for me!
I've never heard of them. I've never seen them. This is all very new(s) to me. Interesting.
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