9 d. ago Looking for the last human place on the internet? Try Google Maps

The navigation app might be built for function – but dig deeper and you’ll find a trove of inside jokes, neighbourhood quirks and charming errors• Read more in the Internet wormhole seriesThere is a certain kind of guy who looks at Google Maps for fun. I am that guy. As a kid I went through a cartography phase, drawing elaborate maps of fictional islands and poring over the family street directory in an effort to reconcile the lines and dots on the overcrowded pages with the streets, shops and friends’ houses in my mind’s eye. You could say that phase never really ended.In much the same way as some people will pull up a movie’s IMDb entry the second they start watching, any time I come across an interesting town, country or geographical oddity (which is often in the news business), I’m firing up Maps to see what topographical morsels I can uncover. I’m no GeoGuessr savant, but I’ve spent many pleasant hours puzzling over interesting enclaves and panhandles, or pootling around far-fl...

Technology

1 week ago This unAmerican life: can you really divest yourself of everything from the US?

iPhones and Google Maps are out – and you can keep your existing friends from across the pond, but don’t go making any new onesI really wish I had a Tesla. Ideally it would be a Cybertruck but any Tesla would do. Then I could plaster it with those “I bought this before Elon went mad” stickers, shamefacedly sell it at a loss and write a performative social media post about no longer being able to stomach the guilt of driving it around town. But as I don’t actually own a car, let alone a Tesla, I’ve felt unable to add my voice to the anti-Musk and anti-Trump protests gaining momentum around the world. Until now.Of course, I will not be travelling to the US at any time soon. As former US secretary of labor Robert Reich writes, why reward Trump’s America with my tourist dollars? But as I wasn’t planning to visit America, this doesn’t feel like a sacrifice, let alone a meaningful one. So the appearance of the #BoycottUSA movement has arrived at just the right time. Here is a campaign I c...

Politics

1 week ago 'Death camp' fears in notorious El Salvador prison as horror Google Maps image goes viral

WARNING, DISTRESSING CONTENT: With lawyers unable to reach a US citizen they say is wrongly incarcerated inside El Salvador's CECOT prison, a grim picture showing a red stain has sparked panic

Events

1 week ago Driver plunges 40ft from unfinished bridge while following Google Maps

A driver plummeted 40ft from an unfinished overpass after mistaking navigation directions on Google Maps.

Politics

2 w. ago Area 51 mystery tower on Google Maps prompts 'alien tech' claims

A mystifying tower spotted online at Area 51 has prompted new theories into the secret Nevada site - with some social media users claiming aliens could be behind the odd structure

Politics

2 w. ago Mysterious triangular tower at Area 51 is discovered on Google Maps

Visible on Google Maps, the unusual structure is stationed in a remote spot in Nevada, about 80 miles (130km) northwest of Las Vegas.

Politics

2 w. ago Astonishing moment driver shoots off a 40ft unfinished bridge after getting confused by Google Maps

Rudie Heru Komandono said it was not his fault that he had crashed through the construction site while following a map to his friend's house in East Java, Indonesia

Events

3 w. ago ‘I thought I was going to die – and it was so freeing’: Blink

His gleefully puerile take on punk brought him fame, an art collection and a Beverly Hills mansion – then the band split and he was diagnosed with lymphoma. How did he bounce back?Mark Hoppus is prodding at his phone, attempting to find a photograph of the swimming pool at his mid-century modernist home in Beverly Hills. “The house was built in 1962. It has this really cool circular design – the whole house is a semi-circle, built around the pool, and the pool kind of mimics the semi-circle of the house itself, then it goes out into a normal pool shape,” he says. “So it looks like a dick. I have a dick-shaped swimming pool,” he nods.There is more prodding. For a 53-year-old cancer survivor, he is oddly boyish – and not merely in his enthusiasm for swimming pools that look like genitalia: his skin is unlined; his hair stands up in a vertiginous, spiky quiff; he is wearing a pair of Vans skate shoes. “I’ll look it up on Google Maps so you can see it let’s go to satellite view. It...

Events