Google Maps & Google RideFinder

The future is disturbingly convenient

I’ve been using Google Maps for some time now, as a replacement to Yahoo! Maps and the godforsaken MapQuest for plotting out jaunts around Chicago. Completely functional, though still in beta, it’s just about the coolest cartography thing on the web, challenged only by this map of Switzerland. I’m watching to see how long it takes before my home town of 20,000 gets the full satellite zoom.

If this wasn’t cool enough, a new Google beta project called Google RideFinder lets you see the distribution of cabs around your city. Google RideFinder currently tracks the movements of cabs in twelve cities. It’s interesting and somewhat troublesome to see where the cabs are concentrated and what areas they seem to be avoiding.