Google Maps Quest

In case you missed it, Google Maps had a lovely April Fools Day feature called Quest, which gave their maps quite a makeover. Here's Michigan:

As someone with a healthy dose of nostalgia for early RPGs, I absolutely loved the new art, as well as the 'commercial' that Google made.

Here's Ann Arbor:

Those two figures in the rainbow beanies watching beatifically over the city are the symbol that Google put to represent their Ann Arbor office.

The StreetView feature also got quite a bit more pixellated, as can be seen in this screenshot of the Michigan Theater on Liberty:

The StreetView character was decked out in armor, as every good adventurer should be (safety first!):

There are also plenty of Easter eggs hidden around the world, like this one of Area 51:

Check out more cool Easter Eggs here, and explore the 8-bit glory of the map for yourself here (it's no longer available on the Google Maps main page).

Geothermal energy potential in the U.S.

Over the span of three years, Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org, supported a project run by the SMU Geothermal Institute intended to map out the potential for geothermal energy use in the United States. Below is the result of their research.

This map incorporates tens of thousands of new data points measuring the potential of Enhanced Geothermal Systems, and is the most comprehensive map of such data to date. There is a wealth of untapped geothermal energy in the nation's ground, just waiting to power our houses!

Read more about the results of the study (and Enhanced Geothermal Systems) here, and see some 3D models of Enhanced Geothermal Systems here.

Got Spam?

Like a majority of the population when spam appears in our inbox we delete it or send it to the spam folder with no regard for what message it holds, perhaps getting a chuckle out of he subject.
But have you ever wondered where it originated from? Thanks to the all knowing power of google you can peruse a map of malicious ip addresses and see that maybe... just maybe it could be someone next door in your little town filling your inbox with advertisements for special enhancers.

Check it out for yourself here.