Welcome to Ted Tuesday. Hopefully, for all you students, this will keep you preoccupied from the studying that you, oh so need to get done and for you all worker bees, may this give you a nice little break from the corporate queen. Grab a green tea, sit back and let your mind get a blast of intellectual inspiration and awe. Its pretty short then the usual videos I put up. Just 7 minutes, 45 seconds.
Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos augmented-reality maps - 7:45
Pretty nifty display on where we are headed when it comes to digital cartography. Its crazy to think about our current state when it comes to maps. I remember briefly living in a time without GPSs. I would use mapquest to print out directions to where I wanted to go. Go back a year from then and people were using road atlases and shudder....asking for directions. I remember back in my freshman college days, I would, for shits and giggles, drive around aimlessly for hours and then try to find my way back. Sometimes, I was able to find my way, and other times I caught myself begging the travel gods for assistance as I drove through dark, unpaved roads. Surrounded by trees and occasionally passing no trespassing signs written in a dark red color.
Its pretty cool to check back at some of the maps from the ancient times.
Post Edit:
While walking Xander through the park a thought crossed my mind about us being cartographers of our own lives. We start with a blank sheet, upon which, we can draw out the paths that we want to travel. For some, the map is marked with predetermined goals, for others there is nothing. The metaphor continues to grow as do we; our memories, experiences, choices, slowly start to fill the map out. An unexpected thing like a camera landing on your lap, suddenly pushes you towards a path that never once crossed your mind. We are cartographers of our souls. If you ever get stuck, pull out your map, that only you can see and pick where you want to go. Travel well, travel safe.
