For Facebook, Waze represents an opportunity to expand its mobile expertise and acquire a valuable asset in the mapping space.

WSJ: Facebook in Talks to Buy Driving App Waze

That move makes sense for Apple, which in the last year has attempted, with varying degrees of success, to go head-to-head with rival Google in the mapping space.

CNN: The growing push to track your location indoors

And most of that space goes for essential apps like various mail, sms, document management, file management, mapping applications etc leaving little space for apps.

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You may be aware of Goce, the European Space Agency's gravity mapping satellite.

BBC: Satellites have an electric future

Microsoft said its mapping services provide other measurement points about online sales such as the amount of space the ad takes up on a Web page and how many times a user sees an ad.

FORBES: Microsoft's Desperate Move

In fact, most of the value-added uses for space today (GPS navigation, communications, direct broadcast TV and Radio, weather, photography and mapping) owe little to the Apollo program.

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