Using aerial shots and local information, people have created the most detailed, and certainly most up-to-date, maps of cities like Karachi that have probably ever existed.
After the earthquake struck in Ecuador, HOT sent out an e-mail to enlist volunteers to build up-to-date maps for aid workers.
If GPS systems fail, pilots on planes and ships fall back on compass navigation and so need up-to-date maps on their onboard computers.
The emergence of in-vehicle entertainment systems and self-driving vehicles, and the latters' need for high-resolution, up-to-date maps, will bring a further increase in the amount of data vehicles consume.
So for decades, most commercial brokerage firms have had full-time canvassers or even entire departments of agents relentlessly pacing city blocks to keep up-to-date maps of fast-changing storefront businesses.
The data will be used, among other things, to create up-to-date maps of the areas most prone to flooding, the buildings best suited for the installation of solar power and the neighborhoods most in need of trees.
In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, rescue workers used real-time data uploads on Open Street Map, via text and cellphone messages, to help create up-to-date maps of Haiti and find the injured.
Simply put, it means that up-to-date maps of social infrastructure used by nearly a billion people around the globe can be created using crowdsourcing tools, partnering with volunteer mappers using GPS enabled phones and other devices.
So it makes sense for police and parole officers to keep close tabs on former gun criminals.Like nearly every other large city, Baltimore has learnt from New York's example in the 1990s and now uses computers to create up-to-date maps of where crimes are being committed, so that officers can be sent where they are most needed.
After Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico in September, international aid agencies were confronted with an unexpected challenge: no up-to-date maps were available for some parts of the island, so relief workers had trouble locating people who needed help.
