May 2013
98 posts
Bob Dylan, Facebook Crimes & the CSS Map
Amnesty International in New Zealand has developed an app that analyses your Facebook timeline for possible crimes under international law.
If you connect Trial by Timeline to your Facebook account you can view a map of all the locations in the world where you could face imprisonment for your behaviour. I must remember not to post drunken messages to my Facebook wall if I’m ever in...
A Google Map of Public Stocks
The Atlas of Public Stocks is a searchable Google Map of publicly listed companies around the world. The map allows users to locate public companies within definable distances from a given address.
If you select a marker on the map you can view detailed information about the company, including the postal and website address. The details include which sector the company is in. Probably the only...
Indian Real-Estate with Commute Times
HouseinCity is a Google Maps based real-estate engine for a number of Indian cities.
HouseinCity allows house hunters to search for a property by location, price, the number of bedrooms and by the property’s builder. In what I think is a first for Indian real-estate websites, HouseinCity also offers users the option to search by commuting time.
The map includes two commuting time...
The future of the Street View Trekker
We told you about the Street View “trekker” a few months ago; the amazing backpack-based camera system for adding Street View imagery from remote locations. The folks from TechCrunch have been digging deep into Google’s technology (including great insight into how underwater Street View works), and they’ve spent some time looking at the trekker. The […]
The post The future of the Street...
Find Garage Sales & Plan Your Route Map
gsalr.com is a garage sale, yard sale and estate sale listing service with a handy Google Maps interface and trip planner that can help you plan your weekend garage sale trips.
If you select a sale’s marker on the map you can view details of the sale and click on the ‘add to trip planner’ button to add the sale to your personal trip planner. After you have selected all the...
Post Tornado Satellitte Imagery
Today I came across this Open Street Map of aerial imagery showing the devastating damage caused by the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma.
Unfortunately the map doesn’t have any zoom controls or an option to view aerial imagery of the same location before the tornado struck. The map, however, does include a dynamic URL that gives the latitude and longitude of the current view. Therefore, if...
Victims of the Holocaust
Since 1997 German artist Gunter Demnig has been creating memorials for individual victims of the Holocaust. Demnig’s stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) are small, cobblestone-sized memorials for individual victims of Nazism.
Each stolperstein is placed in the sidewalk outside the victim’s home. Stolpersteine Online is a Google Map of the memorials that have been erected. The project...
SketchUp 2013 released
Trimble (the company that purchased SketchUp last year) has just released SketchUp 2013 with a variety of upgrades and enhancements. Extension Warehouse The new Extension Warehouse is designed to be a “one-stop shop for anyone looking to customize their copy of SketchUp”, with tons of new features included. LayOut in SketchUp Pro 2013 New in […]
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I'll Name that Mountain in One
Street View Quiz is a series of quiz questions based on Google Maps Street View.
In each quiz question you are presented with a Street View and then have to answer a question related to the view presented. The questions might ask you to name something seen in the Street View or you could get a more general question about something that happened at the location.
Street View Quiz includes a...
Street View from Moore, Oklahoma
The New York Times have created two evocative custom Street View images of the devastion caused by the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma -Before and After: 360° Views From Moore.
The custom Street Views were captured on Tuesday and have been synced with the Google Maps Street Views that were captured in December 2007. If you pan either Street View both the before and after image moves so you can...
The Polygon Masking Wizard
I’ve long been a fan of Vasile Cotovanu’s polygon masking effect that allows you to highlight a particular area on Google Maps. Vasile has now released a wizard app that can quickly create the GeoJSON, KML, or Google Maps API polygon code needed to create your own polygon mask.
Geomask allows you to simply draw around an area on Google Maps and just press a button to generate the...
Moore, Oklahoma in Google Earth
As Google often does after horrible events like the tornadoes in Oklahoma this week, Google has created a Crisis Response Page to assist with the relief effort. The map includes a wealth of information including shelter locations, church and school closings, storm reports, a preliminary tornado track and much more. In addition, the +Google for […]
The post Moore, Oklahoma in Google Earth...
Finding Food Trucks with Google Maps
Street Food App is a desktop, iOS and Android app for finding food trucks in a number of US and Canadian cities.
Currently the Street Food App can help you find nearby food trucks in Boston, Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Columbus and Victoria. Each city includes an option to view the current location of the food trucks on a Google Map.
Each truck is displayed on the...
20 More Museums Added to Google Art
The Google Art Project is an amazing collection of museums, art galleries and works of art that can all be viewed with Google Maps Street View.
Today Google has added 20 more museums, 1,500 new high-resolution artworks and 16 Gigapixel images to the project. The Gigapixel images include “The Scream” by Edvard Munch. The new museums include the Fondation Beyeler Museum in Switzerland and the...
The Many Faces of Google Maps
Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon that leads us to see familiar objects in random patterns. For example, when we look at aerial imagery of the Earth we might think we recognise faces in the topography.
onformative has created a computer program, called GoogleFaces, that scans Google Maps satellite imagery looking for patterns that humans might believe are human faces. GoogleFaces scans...
Tech Maps Around the World
Companies Near Me is a Google Map of tech companies in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The map includes options to filter the companies displayed on the map by location and by sector. The map is primarily focused on the San Francisco Bay Area but the developers say that they have plans to expand the site to include other tech hubs such as New York, Los Angeles and Boston.
Made in NI is a Google...
Old Trafford Stadium in Google Earth
Home of Manchester United, Old Trafford is a historic stadium in England that can hold over 75,000 spectators. Manchester has been playing there for more than 100 years, starting when the stadium opened back in 1910. Ale Zuniga (known as Azz8® in the 3D Warehouse) has constructed an amazing model of the stadium, seen here: […]
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Mapping Newspaper Text
Mapping Texts is a Google Map from Stanford University that plots the language patterns embedded in 232,567 pages of historical Texas newspaper.
The app analyses the language patterns found in Texas newspapers from 1829-2008. Using a timeline slider tool you can select any date range and, using the map, you can select from a number of locations in Texas. The results of each search are then...
Climbing Pic d'Anie on Google Maps
Climbing Pic d’Anie is another Neatline interactive map. This Google Map displays a series of photographs taken during an ascent of Pic d’Anie in the Pyrenees.
The map displays the route of the climb from the nearby small hamlet of Lescun to the summit. Photographs are indicated on the map by a small blue dot and a thin line. The line shows the direction of the viewpoint in each...
Mapping 19th Century Teenage Life
What did teenagers do before cell phones, video games and the internet?
I know - they made maps.
At least that what Frances Alsop Henshaw was doing in the 1820’s. Henshaw’s ‘Book of Penmanship Executed at the Middlebury Female Academy’ contains a number of hand-drawn maps of nineteenth century America.
Neatline.org has used its map timeline tool to create an...
The Russian Warehouse Google Map
AllWarehouses is a nicely designed Russian real-estate search site for finding warehouses for rent or sale.
Users can search for warehouses by location and by size of warehouse. The map includes a simple drawing tool that allows users to closely define their search area by drawing it on the map. Once the search area and criteria have been decided the results are then displayed on a Google...
How the new Google Maps redesign came together
Last week Google unveiled a new version of Google Maps, which includes native Google Earth support without the need for a plugin. One of the other big pieces Google is working to include is a map that is customized specifically for each person. As TechCrunch shared, the idea was similar to drawing a map on […]
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Not the New Google Maps
Because of the design changes in the new Google Maps, v4 of the Maps API must be in the pipeline. I expect however that the release is some way off.
Inspired by the new index card effect in Google Maps I decided to have a little Sunday hack to see if I could create something similar. Here’s the result, Not the New Google Maps.
First off to add the new look map base layer it is a...
Luftwaffe Aerial Imagery on Google Maps
FlyfotoArkivet LW1944 is a Google Map of Denmark overlaid with historical aerial imagery of the country taken by the Luftwaffe, under occupation, in 1944.
Just over 75% of the country is covered by this collection of historical aerial photographs; including Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense.
Other Historical Aerial Photo Maps
The New Jersey State Atlas - aerial photography of the entire state...
Google Maps - New Maps for Old
Ubilabs have been testing out the new look base map layer that is now available in the Google Maps API.
They have created a simple demo that allows you to compare the new look that is available if you add
google.maps.visualRefresh
to your code. If you mouse-over the demo map you can switch between the old and new designs. So far Ubilabs have confirmed the following design changes in the new...
Modern Life is Rubbish
Have you ever wondered what the 19th century version of Street View would like?
No. Well I’ve found out anyway. Today I was rummaging around in the back of the internet’s attic and came across this early prototype of Street View from 1876.
Vintage Street View is an album of some of the oldest ever Street Views. You can view the album in any browser you like but you won’t get...
Franco's Prisoner Work Battalions
During and after the Spanish Civil War General Franco created 541 forced labour battalions. Frankismoan Preso Batailoiei is a Google Map showing where Franco’s forced labour battalions were put to work in the Basque region of Spain.
The map shows the locations where prisoners were used as slave labour to build roads, work in factories and /or on other construction projects. If you click...
How underwater Street View works
Last September we showed you the first set of amazing underwater Street View images that Google had released. They were absolutely stunning, as you can see in the example here: TechCrunch recently spoke with Google about their Ocean Street View program, and came away with some amazing insights, including: …the cameras his team uses for […]
The post How underwater Street View works...
Hands on with the New Google Maps
I got my invite through today to connect to the new Google Maps. Colour me f**king impressed!
By far and away the stand-out feature in the new Google Maps is the integration with Google Earth - and Google Maps users no longer need a plug-in to view Google Earth imagery in Google Maps. But so what? - With all due respects to my friends at the Google Earth Blog I’ve always thought that 3d...
Nature Rocks on Google Maps
The Nature Conservancy’s Nature Rocks programme aims to make it easy for families to have fun in nature. To find great natural spaces to visit you can use the Nature Rocks Map.
This Google Map allows users to search for nature locations by location and by type (e.g. hiking, swimming, fishing, parks, camp-grounds, zoos etc). After you enter a zip-code in the map search bar you can...
Mapping Live Edits to Wikipedia
The Hatnote Wikipedia Recent Changes Map is a real-time map of live edits being made to Wikipedia by unregistered users.
Unregistered users are far more likely to make incorrect, false or spam changes to Wikipedia. Only 15% of the contributions to English Wikipedia are from unregistered users. So the map actually represents only a small portion of the total edit activity on Wikipedia.
The...
Google Earth arrives in the browser with no plugin...
The Google Earth Plugin has been an amazing tool to help bring Google Earth into the browser, but with the upcoming release of Google Maps you’ll be able to view Google Earth in your web browser without needing a plugin at all! Here’s a quick video from Google that shows more of what’s coming in […]
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A Decade of Fires on Google Maps
España en llamas (Spain in Flames) is a Google Map displaying ten years of data about the location of forest fires in Spain. The map includes data on 1,508 fires, 699,560 hectares burned, 24 deaths and 191 injuries.
If you click on the ‘Explora los incendios’ link above the map you can view the map filtering tools. These allow the user to filter the results displayed on the map by...
Get the New Look Google Maps in Your Maps
With the huge new changes to Google Maps I’ve been wondering today if the Google Maps team were about to announce v4 of the Google Maps API.
The short answer is ‘no’.
But you can get the new base map tiles in your Maps API maps from today. If you add
google.maps.visualRefresh = true;
to your code you will see the new fresher looking map tiles in your own API maps.
As...
The New Google Maps
Google are beginning to push out the new Google Maps. You can request an invitation here. Google will then e-mail you an invite. The invites will start being sent out from tomorrow morning.
One of the stand-out features of the new Google Maps is the integration with Google Earth (without the need for a plug-in). The photo above is an actual view of the new Google Maps (the poor quality is due...
Google Maps at Google I/O
In the Keynote presentation at Google I/O today Google announced three new location API’s for the Google Maps Android API v2.
1. Fused Location Provider
The Fused Location Provider is an improved location detection service for Android. As well as improved location detection the Fused Location Provider is more power efficient and uses less than 1% of the device’s battery per...
10 things you didn’t know about Google Earth
PC Advisor recently published an article that discussed the “10 things you didn’t know about Google Maps and Google Earth” and I thought we’d take a look at it. Some of these won’t be surprises for you, a Google Earth Blog reader, but it’s a list that would be fairly helpful to the typical computer […]
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Virtual Reality Street View
The Oculus Google Street Viewer is a link that has been sitting in my bookmark folder for a while. While the app looked impressive, and I was sure something clever was probably going on, I had no idea what it was actually for. Little did I know that the clue was in the name and I just needed to Google ‘Oculus’ - doh!
Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset, designed to give video...
More on the New Google Maps Design
Droid Life has managed to grab a series of screenshots of what looks like a major redesign of Google Maps. Apparently a sign-up page for the new Google Maps briefly went live last night and Droid Life managed to capture a number of images used in the sign-up page that reveal some of the new features coming to Google Maps.
A Smarter Search Box
The sign-up page promises a smarter search box,...
Find Cheap Parking with Google Maps
ParkMe is a very handy iPhone and desktop application for finding the cheapest and closest parking.
The app uses Google Maps to show nearby parking locations with the prices displayed clearly in the individual map markers. As well as clearly displaying prices the map shows you which parking lots are currently open and which are closed (open lots are displayed in blue, closed lots are grey).
...
The Down Survey of Ireland on Google Maps
The Down Survey of Ireland was the first ever detailed land survey undertaken on a national scale anywhere in the world. The survey was taken in the years 1656-1658 to measure all the land to be forfeited by the Catholic Irish after their defeat by Oliver Cromwell’s armies of the English Commonwealth.
Trinity College Dublin has brought all the surviving maps together for the first time...
Google Maps at Google I/O
Google I/O kicks off tomorrow. Over the last few years Google has used the occasion to announce the introduction of important new features to Google Maps and the maps API.
If the rumours of the introduction of a new design for Google Maps are true then it looks like Google will once again be using I/O to make some announcements of interest to map developers.
The Keynote Session is scheduled...
Reconstructing a lightning bolt in 3D
Thanks to sheer luck, two people in the Denver area captured a photo of the same lightning bolt from very different locations. Richard Wheeler to decided to try and use those two images to reconstruct the lightning bolt in Google Earth and seems to have done a pretty good job! Richard went through a number […]
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The Google Maps Guides to the World
The travel guide publishers Rough Guide have used the Google Maps API to provide a guide to great place to visit worldwide.
As you navigate the Rough Guide website look out for the ‘view map’ option that allows you to view Rough Guide recommended locations on a map. The drop-down menu above the map allows you to select individual countries and cities.
If you select a country or...
Stunt Planes on Street View
Air Hogs are promoting their remote controlled aircraft with a little Street View game. Sky Stunt - Stunt Around the World is a game in which you have to control an Air Hog remote controlled plane as it flies around some interesting locations around the world.
Only the first mission involves Google Maps Street View. In this mission you can choose any location that has Street View and then...
Testing Website Speeds with Google Maps
The Worldwide Website Speed Test allows you to test how fast a webpage loads from anywhere in the world.
To test a website you just need to enter its URL in the search box and click on the Google Map. The app then uses a huge network of proxies to test the loading speed and displays the results beneath the map. You can select multiple locations on the map and compare the speed of loading the...
The Euro-Pop Map
At about this time every microformats.dk creates a Google Map of all the songs featuring in the annual Eurovision Song Contest. This year microformats.dk has been saved the task of mapping the best in Euro-pop because he has found that DR dk has already created a map.
The map features embedded videos of all the countries’ entries into the competition. As ever the Eurovision Map includes...
Holy Bat Map, Batman!
The UK’s Bat Conservation Trust has created The Big Bat Map in order to crowdsource sightings of bats.
If you have seen a bat or bats you can add your sighting to the map by filling in a short form, giving the location, the number of bats and description of what the bat(s) were doing. If you want to see some bats you can use the map to find map hotspots. The Big Bat Map hotspots have...
Tracking down Star Wars in Google Earth
Roughly 35 years ago, the original Star Wars movie was filmed in a variety of locations around world. The opening of the first movie features Luke complaining about having to work at his uncle’s moisture farm, and was shot in the country of Tunisia. The sets have been left virtually untouched for all this time, […]
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Photos from the ISS Mapped
Like thousands of over people around the world I have been avidly following Cmdr Chris Hadfield’s Twitter account, during his mission aboard the International Space Station.
One of the features of Cmdr Hadfield’s tweets has been his amazing photos of Earth taken from the ISS. While viewing the photos I’ve often hoped that someone would undertake the task of mapping them -...
