Does anyone have pointers to anything like this, freely available, for modern shipping? (i.e. after GPS and AIS)
All the Ships in the World: Visualizing Data with Google Cloud and Maps (https://developers.google.com/live/shows/505972914)
There are also a few other projects that have overlapping data. (aprs sites, e.g. aprs.fi - more of an amateur radio thing but will still pick up lots of interesting signals)
(Edit: perhaps more interesting to people around here an usb/serial ais receiver can be had for a few hundred dollars and there is a site called http://www.aishub.net/ where you can get access to the firehose provided you cover your area. Disclaimer: I never tried aishub.)