Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Editors Note: For resident of many countries, seeing a map of your home town with all the labels in Cyrillic lettering represents a frightening alternate reality -- where the Soviets won the Cold War. John Davies looks at these relics of the Cold War and finds surprisingly good maps with few errors (considering that the cartographers were working far from the mapped area and with limited data sources). And what a loss when tons of these topo maps covering the entire world were largely destroyed after the collapse of the USSR. Just for the historical interest alone--to see a map of say Santa Cruz in Cyrillic with Soviet military targets highlighted would be amazing. Soviet Spies Map the World: "During the Cold War, the Soviet Union compiled topographic maps of virtually every corner of the world, to the extent that they are the only topo maps available for certain countries. The maps were both standardized and accurate; they were made for military purposes, so the same, specific information was needed regardless of which area was being mapped. John Davies has been studying these maps, in particular on how the Soviet Union mapped the United Kingdom. His site includes scans of a few of the maps as well as a two-part paper that, in part, deals with how the Soviets compiled their information (and whether they violated Ordnance Survey Crown Copyright in the process). Tremendously interesting stuff. " 7:25:09 AM

Adobe Bridge 1.0.3: "Adobe have released a new version, 1.0.3, of Adobe Bridge." (Via PhotographyBLOG.) 6:22:12 AM

Google Unveils Tool to Map Shopping Trips: "SAN FRANCISCO -- Joining the herd of Web sites jostling to cash in on the holiday shopping season, online search engine leader Google Inc. is adding a tool designed to make it easier for consumers to map out their local trips to the mall." (Via washingtonpost.com - Technology.) 6:22:06 AM

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