Recently Google bought @Last Software, a 3D CAD company. They did it for this plug-in than allow the user of their software to place the finished building to the exact location of interest to see the final outcomes in the right geographical context.

I think the same kind of technology may reveal to be super useful for thousand of similar situations not just in the architectural domain. See for instance the track on blogjects or in general the internet of things. My point is that everybody likes maps. It is a nice framework to share ideas and communication in general. Looking at a map, communication becomes sharp and direct and grounding takes place spontaneously.

Tags: collaboration tools, google, information visualization, interaction design, map algorithms, maps, universal cognitive distance, urban planning