Military Tactical iPad App Looks Like a Real Life Starcraft II

This is the SoldierEyes map, a tactical application for iPad that shows friends and foes’ real time positions in the battlefield. It isn’t a game, even while it looks like an RTS, similar to Raytheon’s Advanced Tactical System (RATS).

Like RATS, the encrypted SoldierEyes network uses smartphones or iPod touch units to gather the information and distribute it. Soldiers can even use an augmented reality app to capture terrain and enemy data to share automatically with other units. All that information is displayed automatically on the iPad and relayed to commanders anywhere in the world.

Sounds like a neat game to play, until you realize the system requirements include actual bullets and mortar fire.

Painter Transforms Google Maps Into Works of Art

Megan Scheminske has a great eye—she took the same mundane map imagery you look at every time you check directions with Google and spun it into minimalist, hyperlocal beauty—the “You Are Here” series.


Scheminske’s website is essentially an art project in itself, pairing photographs on the terrain that inspired them with a google pin drop of that area. It’s all very meta! But the work is novel, and interesting far beyond its gimmick.