The modern map is ingrained into every aspect of our lives, from commuting, to ordering products on the internet and even picking the best restaurant in your area. You use and depend on them far more than you probably realize, guiding you through our world of hyper-technology in ever more efficient and helpful ways.
Apps have become the champions of the digital map and a myriad of apps make use of GPS overlays guiding you to desired destinations. A few of the more complex mapping apps include an impressive combination of GPS, historical mapping and user-input. The app allows people to quickly and accurately report locations of crimes.
Not only do these reports allow police to quickly respond with pinpoint accuracy, but they are logged in a database where over time, patterns of different crimes in different areas are built up resulting in “warning zones” of high risk areas. Using historical map data as a canvas and GPS points as ink, this revolutionary app has stitched an informative mosaic into cyberspace.
At the core of most modern mapping conveniences, GPS satellites are the unsung heroes of our modern world. Without them, we would have no global positioning network or digital mapping systems, plunging the world into absolute chaos. Planes wouldn’t know where they were, car sat-navs will be driving people into fields, (more than they do already) and you would have to actually go outside and physically look for good restaurants… a horrifying thought.
Without modern mapping conveniences, society would grind to a halt and be thrown back in time by decades. No longer would you be able to put an address into a gadget and have it tell you where to go, you would have to read road signs and ask people for directions. It would be utter pandemonium
We take maps for granted in this day and age because we rarely ever see them in their classical form. Probably the most obvious mapping service used is Google maps, which not only allows you to look at road maps anywhere on the planet, but also allows you to see individual buildings; extremely useful when trying to find out what a place looks like as well as where it is.
Maps have been constantly evolving since their inception and have been crucial to society at every stage in history. This is still true today and will be true for as long as people need to get from A to B.