Spying on Those You Care About

My wife is flying through thunderstorms from Philadelphia to Fort Myers, Florida. I just got a free iPhone app called "Flight Aware" so I can see where she is. You can also see the thunderstorms moving out to sea.

I can also see what kind of air traffic she'll be up against in the area.

And take look at the airport area to see how much more traveling she needs to do from the airport. This is almost as cool as Passur's live airport monitors!

UPDATE - she made it! Thank you airline industry!

Map of the Week-The Atlas of True Names

I missed the Atlas of True Names when it first came out almost two years ago but they now have an iPhone app so that gives me an excuse to talk about it. The Atlas takes the etymology of place names and translates their original meaning into modern English. London becomes "Unfordable River Town", San Francisco is "Saint Little Frank One", etc. Here is an iPhone screen shot of southern Africa.

 When you click on a country, it gives you some etymology.

Unfortunately, the Land of the People with Tall Caps did not make the iPhone map. This is from the world map detail on their web page. The area looks identical on the phone except for no people with tall caps. I want my money back!



 There are some additional search and bookmark functions but that's mainly what you get for your $3.99. The World Map is nice but you don't get the level of detail that you get from some of the regional maps like their online example below. Hopefully that will be a future enhancement.