--- 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 ---

map.search.ch, arguably the “web application” that sparked the current AJAX trend, and undeniably the inspiration for Google Maps, has been upgraded since the initial hype surrounding it.

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 Basel), these details include damn-near-real-time information about how full the car park is.

The overall effect reminds me very much of the maps that came with the original Grand Theft Auto for the PlayStation – except it's the real world.

We need this in the UK – now... it's just far too cool.