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The same maps that can help you find your way to the mall can help the police predict where meth labs will pop up next. Here's a look inside the strange, fascinating world of geospatial predictive analysis. Google Maps is a lifesaver

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In Google Maps , the distance-measuring tool offers a choice of three unit systems: Metric, English or “I’m Feeling Geeky.” If you click the third one, you’re offered a long list of, ahem, somewhat uncommon measurement units, including parsecs, Persian cubits, and Olympic swimming pools. Mac OS X’s text-to-speech feature, meanwhile, lets you endow your Mac with any of dozens of different human voices. Each speaks a funny sample sentence.

Google will keep you from sprinting to the bus every morning by telling you when it's actually coming, not just when it's supposed to come. Veteran public transit users know that scheduled departure times rarely match up to actual departures.

Poynt deserves the "super app" moniker by which it is often described: The free application, which works for Android, iPhone, Windows 7, BlackBerry (including integration with Playbook), and Nokia QT, is a third-party service aggregator that provides local business listings and entertainment options (via Citysearch), directions (Google Maps), dining options and reviews (OpenTable), movie listings, and ticket purchases (CinemaSource and Movietickets.com).

Who the hell still uses MapQuest? Unless you're driving down the highway listening to "Da Da Da" circa 1997, with printed-out directions sitting on the passenger-side seat of your Volkswagen Golf Cabrio, you've likely moved on to better mapping software from Google or Bing. Unless you're Arianna Huffington, that is, and you own a hefty stake in AOL, which purchased MapQuest in the early aughts

Wondering what it's like to explore Osama Bin Laden's now famous compound? Google Earth Blog points us to the Google 3D Warehouse , where a number of 3D modelers have taken it upon themselves to sketch up Bin Laden's home--in both serious and amusing detail. Once you've found a model you like, you can view it in Google Earth and feel even more like you're wandering around Pakistan.