That's how Linux Devices describes a new game, WiFi Army, shown at CES, for the still in the early days Android platform. It's from W2Pii and is Java-based.

[Once activated] the game scans for other users within 300 feet and sets up a direct WiFi connection, swapping photos of each player for identification purposes. The user tracks the other player via continually updated GPS coordinates on a Google map interface, and when a positive identification is made, the user can shoot to kill using the phone's camera. The photo is then uploaded to the W2Pi site to see if there's a match, and if so, the user is awarded points.

The game is free but enhanced weapons and armor require micropayments. Also of note: for the beta just 500 slots per city are available.

Did you ever wonder what happens to bring your GIS software to market? For many years a process referred to as the "waterfall method" was used. In the last 10 or so years a new method came on the scene, one referred to as agile practices. Today, with insights from agile proponents like my guests Chris Spagnuolo and Dave Bouwman of Data Transfer Solutions, GIS development organizations, including ESRI, are looking to this new way of managing and developing software.

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The article is titled "Web-Based Mapping Tools Help Governments Transform GIS into New Services" which seems a bit dated to me.

The main focus is Google apps - implementations by Utah (Mapserv) and Alabama (Virtual Alabama) and Las Vegas (which has an ESRI backend). Then there's a bit about Sheboygan, WI and it's use of Autodesk software. After that rundown you read this:

Google Earth, Autodesk and a host of other platforms offer possibilities limited only by the imagination. But do these applications threaten the demise of traditional GIS? It might seem like these new, user-friendly manifestations of GIS data would spell the end for ESRI, CARIS and other traditional GIS solutions providers. But according to those using new-school applications, the opposite is true.

The first defender is not who you might think; it's a rep from deCarta. Then there are co-existance words from Chikai Ohazama, product manager for Google Earth and the theme of "moving such tech to the masses is the real revolution" from Chuck Herring at DigitalGlobe.

Also, you can read Jack Dangermond's latest predictions about the future.

This week editors Adena Schutzberg and Joe Francica tackle a question and why it's so hard to answer. The question is: How big is the geospatial market or a part of it? That's often followed by: Who has the definitive numbers on how much money is to made and how many users and potential users are out there? They take a look at some resources and tease out why definitive numbers are so difficult to acquire.

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Patrick Wright, NOAA coastal associate for the State Planning Office, and Gary Smith, of Green Mountain Geographics (the paper got his company name wrong) taught 17 people SketchUp at a training class at Bowdoin College in Brunswick.

Here's how it works:

After distributing to participants CDs that contained assignments, Wright explained that the group would focus on about 106 Brunswick buildings for its project. These buildings included businesses such as Day's News, Bull Moose Music, Hannaford and 7-Eleven. Also included were local churches and libraries. Wright split the 106 buildings into 12 color-coded blocks, each with about 10 buildings in it. One block was assigned to each group of two. Also, some volunteers offered to work on additional blocks in order to complete the project.

If all goes well the buildings will all be modeled in about five months.

- Times Record News

Jason Lee Miller at WebProNews reviews Hitwise's latest stats on the MapQuest vs. Google Maps battle. In short, Google Maps is catching up, if slowly. One stat:

"This [Google Maps up 7%] throttled down MapQuest's lead over Google Maps significantly, falling from 429 percent more visits a year ago to just 126 percent more visits.

Still, MapQuest has more than 50% of mapping hits to Google's 22% and Yahoo's 13% (and dropping).

Heather Hopkins VP at Hitwise offers that "Google's aggressive promotion of Google Maps – search result embeds and sponsored search results have helped drive the spike in traffic." I'd tend to agree if only because there's suprising little "coverage" of Google Maps in the press. Google Earth? Yes. Google Maps? Not so much as shown by mailing daily explorations.