How Geospatial Web Apps changed our lives

Ever since Geospatial web applications became available to the general public, our lives have been changed. When is the last time that you used a regular paper map for directions during your travel? Atleast for me, it's been a couple of years.

I fell in love with mapping applications the first moment i started using them. They are a great and effective tool which makes everybody's lives easier when they are on the road. The introduction of portable GPS systems does take a bit away from web applications but nothing beats the price of a free web application.

Such applications like Google Maps, Google Earth, Live Search Maps and others have proven themselves to be essential in day to day activities. From finding the best route to the kid's next soccer game to finding the nearest italian restaurant, seeing a neighborhood and all its areas (Using Google's StreetView) and feeling like you were there, right now the possibilities of these applications is endeless and the developers keep surprising us with their ideas all the time.

View exotic locales like Maui and Paris, as well as points of interest such as local restaurants, hospitals, and schools. These applications combine satellite imagery, and maps to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips. With Google Earth you can fly from space to your neighborhood, just type in an address and zoom right in, search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions, tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings, save and share your searches and favorites and even add your own annotations.

These applications are not limited to your computer, you can access most of them from you celullar phone also, making it easy to get directions on the road. The benefits of these applications are great, but they also bring privacy concerns.

These privacy concerns are mostly raised because of the information and imagery displayed in these web applications. Google has been constantly sued since the release of Streetview due to the images it displays. These images include detailed pictures of surroundings of people homes, office building and sometimes embarassing moments that are captured by Google's cameras.

Personally I do beleive that the advantages that these web applications bring are great but some of the information displayed should be regulated. The information displayed in these applications could be potentially used by a would be predator, robber, murderer, etc in order to commit a crimes and plan their escape. It is also common for stalkers to use this information to verify where people live, where they work, etc.

This is why I beleive that although these applications are great, some sort of control needs to be put on the information that they are able to display.

Below is an image of the UMass Lowell Campus as seen from Google Earth.