git ssb

title: "Map.search.ch Gets Cooler" date: 2005-04-08 12:49 status: published description: > It's like GTA but for the real world!

links:

• url: http://map.search.ch/index.en.html
  title: "map.search.ch in English" rel: related type: text/html
• url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX
  title: "AJAX (Wikipedia)" rel: related type: text/html

<p>
<a href="http://map.search.ch/index.en.html" title="map.search.ch in English">map.search.ch</a>, arguably the “web application” that sparked the current <a href="http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php" title="Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications (Adaptive Path) – the article that coined the term “Ajax”">AJAX</a> trend, and undeniably the inspiration for <a href="http://maps.google.com/">Google Maps</a>, has been upgraded since <a href="http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2005/01/05/swissMaps" title="map.search.ch (Simon Willison's Weblog)">the initial hype surrounding it</a>. </p>
<p>
It now includes icons labelling the position of banks, cafés, cash machines, churches, hospitals and car parks among other things. Pointing to any of these shows more details such as the building's name, address and phone and fax numbers. But what's even cooler is that for car parks (at least in <a href="http://map.search.ch/basel.en.html">Basel</a>), these details include damn-near-real-time information about <em>how full the car park is</em>. </p>
<p>
The overall effect reminds me very much of the maps that came with the original <a href="http://www.rockstargames.com/gta/">Grand Theft Auto</a> for the <a href="http://www.playstation.com">PlayStation</a> – except it's the real world. </p>
<p>
We need this in the <abbr title="United Kingdom">UK</abbr> – now... it's just far too cool. </p>