The Geo-Referenced Novel

What happens when you cross new technology with old – Google Maps and a book? An Austrian man has written a geo-referenced electronic novel called Senghor on the Rocks. It's an adaption of a book written by Christoph Benda, a former advertising copywriter now working at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and is based on his travels in the Senegalese capital of Dakar. The left-hand page has a map, fixed in the "satellite view" mode, that moves as the location changes in the novel. Every page of text is accompanied by a corresponding map.

"For me, the project always has been related to a map in a certain sense. Only that it wasn't hi tech, online satellite imagery but the rather worn out paper map I had carried with me throughout all my time in Africa," Benda said.

The only downsides are that you need to be able to read German, and have an Internet connection. But with Amazon's launch this year of the Internet-connected Kindle electronic book reader, Benda believes it may not be too long before geo-referenced publications hit the mainstream. Click here to read more.