Google Maps Mania

Google Moon Events

2009-07-19T06:14:00.006-05:00

Google is holding a special event in Washington DC tomorrow. The event will launch the "...newest addition to Google Earth". July 20th is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing and the list of speakers includes Buzz Aldrin and other members of NASA. This has lead Frank Taylor of the Google Earth Blog to suggest that Google will almost certainly be unveiling a 3D Moon mode for Google Earth tomorrow.

The event is being held at the Newseum in Washington DC at 11am. Google say that "if you can make it, it would be great to see you there", so it looks like it will be an open event.

Today I found the astronaut pegman images (above) in Google's 'mapfiles' site. I suspect that Google will be using the astronaut pegman in Street View tomorrow. Possibly the astro-pegman will appear around the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Spanish Elections on Google Maps

2009-07-18T20:40:00.004-05:00

Google.es

Google Spain have released a number of gadgets for the forthcoming general election in the country. One gadget, Mapa Electoral, shows the results of past elections by province. The map uses coloured polygons to show which political party won in each province, going back to 1977.

A Google My Map of past election results is also available (just select Mapa Electoral from the sidebar) at google.maps.es. As well as showing the election results going back to 1977 the map has an added feature; if you select the results for 2008 map markers are added to the map. These markers reveal detailed charts that breakdown the results for each province.

The map will also display the results of next Sunday's election in near real-time. Every 15 minutes the results for declared provinces will be shown via coloured polygons on the map.

Via: Edge Type

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Two Million Markers on One Google Map

2009-07-18T12:26:00.003-05:00

Million Marker Map

The Million Marker Map uses 'Spatial DataBox' (SDB) to show over two million map markers on one Google Map.

The Spatial Databox can serve map pins at a rate of up to 10,000 per second. FindByClick.com is another example of a Google Maps mashup built on top of the Spatial DataBox. FindByClick is a community mapping site that lets users tag and share their favourite places.

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Where Americans Are Living Well Map

2009-07-18T04:38:00.003-05:00

Forbes American Lifestyle Map

Where do people earn the most money? Which states have the most educated citizens? This Forbes Google Maps mashup compares population, education, business and lifestyle data for the whole of the USA.

Forbes teamed with ZoomProspector to produce this Google Maps heat map. Each data set is available from a drop-down menu at the top of the map and a key at the bottom of the map explains the relevance of the colours used.

If you are looking to move home any time soon you could use this map alongside the CNN Money Best Places to Live 2009 Map to find the most desirable location to live.

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Tour de France Live Tracking Map - Updated

2009-07-17T11:58:00.000-05:00

Versus Tour de France Live Tracker

I would have reviewed this Tour de France live tracking map earlier but whenever I try to view the page all I get is an apology telling me that it is unavailable in my region. However I have now managed to get a screenshot of the map in action.

The screenshot seems to show live action from the race (which is presumably why the map is not available in the UK). I'm not sure why Versus can't show me the live tracking Google Map and the elevation chart, but if you live in the US you should check it out. I bet it's really good, sigh.

Ubilabs Tour De France Live Tracker

Ubilabs have provided live tracking maps of the race leaders in the Tour de France for the last few years and they are back again this year with an improved map. This year, as well as showing positions of the race leaders, the Google Map displays real time tweets about the race.

It is possible to view the routes for any of the race's stages from a drop down menu. Each stage route contains map markers showing start and finish lines and the mountain and sprint stages.

Bikemap.net
This Google Maps mashup has route maps for all the stages in the Tour de France. The map includes a 'full-screen' button, which can be used to enlarge the map.

The individual maps for each stage are accompanied with an altitude graph, which can show the altitude at any point on the stage route. The map also comes with an 'embed this map' option, so it is possible to feature the map on your own website or blog.

Accompanying each stage map are details about the length, the surface, the inclination and the vertical climb of the stage. The maps also come with a 'more' button. Clicking on this allows the map user to view Wikipedia articles, Panoramio photos and weather along the route.

Via: Mapperz

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US Google Maps Mashup Round-Up (7/09)

2009-07-17T05:07:00.007-05:00

Newspaper Circulation Statistics

Mediaspace Solutions have produced this Google Maps mashup to display the daily circulation figures of US newspapers. For each newspaper it is possible to get the daily and Sunday circulation figures. Each information window also shows the number of unique visitors, daily visitors and page views of each newspaper's website.

It is possible to search the map by city, newspaper name or newspaper group.

Create Your Own Store Locator

This amazing Google Maps creation tool allows any store or business to create their own store locator map, complete with driving directions. The created maps allow users to find the closest store locations by simply entering their ZIP Code. The Store Locator will return the nearest locations on a customisable Google Map.

Maine Lobster Shacks
Brewster House, a Bed and Breakfast in Maine, has produced this Google Maps mashup of Lobster Shacks in the State. The map is an embedded Google My Map and a great example of how small businesses can use My Maps to provide added value to their customers.

Addizon Zoning Map

This zoning and ordinances map for Addison, Texas allows the user to check zoning ordinances in the town all the way back to 1966. It is also possible to turn on coloured zoning overlays.

ZoomProspector
Every business needs to decide where to locate. ZoomProspector finds the right location to enable companies to grow and succeed. At the heart of the ZoomProspector interface is a Google Map mashup.

Here is an introductory video:

Healthy Pet Mobile Vet Service
This Google Map uses coloured polygon overlays to show the cost of a vet call out. The site covers Frederick, Montgomery, Howard, & Carroll Counties, Maryland and has limited coverage in Washington, Baltimore, & Anne Arundel Counties, Maryland.

It is possible to search the map by address and the coloured overlays represent the different costs of vet call out.

Via: Mapperz

Dadillio
Dadillio is a classified ads website that uses the Google Maps API to show the location of garage sales, antique markets and other events advertised on the site.

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Friday Fun on Google Maps

2009-07-17T01:31:00.006-05:00

mapBattle

How much do you know about the world? Play these Google Maps based games to find out.

The games come in a number of categories, divided into America, Asia and Europe. You can play find the country type games or find the city type games. Alternatively you can create your own game and challenge the world.

Most importantly each game has a high score table so you can see just how good or bad your knowledge of the world really is.

Turning a Fiat into a Google Street View Car
This video shows a Fiat being fitted with Google's Street View cameras in order to photograph the streets of Brazil.

Via: Street View Gallery

Coronation Street Street View
In the UK the Street View car has been visiting Coronation Street. Coronation Street is a British television soap opera that has been running for nearly 50 years and regularly tops the television ratings.

Mmm... Google Map Marker Cakes
These cakes were baked especially for the launch of Google Favorite Places.

On the subject of Favorite Places the Google Maps team in Japan put together this awesome promotion video for the new Google Maps promotion. The video uses tilt-shift photography to give the illusion of a 'miniature Tokyo'.

Another Augmented Reality Video
I love this video showing an augmented reality view of a transport system map.

Map/Territory from timo on Vimeo.

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Google Maps on the Moon

2009-07-16T11:53:00.006-05:00

Forty Years ago today the Apollo 11 mission to the moon was launched. It seems an appropriate time then to have a quick look at some of the mashups created with Google Moon.

QuoVadis Live!

To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the first moon landing QuoVadis Live! have added a 'moon' control to the bottom right of all their Google Maps. The button allows the map user to see the current latitude and longitude on Google Moon.

Clicking on the button changes the Google Maps view to the same latitude and longitude (in the selenographic coordinates system) for the moon.

HeyWhatsThat Moon Phases

The excellent HeyWhatsThat Cosmic Visibility map has an option to view the moon's phases. The map shows the current view (updated every minute) and it is also possible to change the time and date.

Apollo Moon Landings

Here's one of my own maps, created many moons ago. This map shows YouTube videos of Apollo moon landings geo-tagged at the landing sites of each mission.

Moon Songs Request

On the subject of the Apollo 11 mission, I've had a request from Soren Johannessen of Microformats.dk for suggestions of songs that the Apollo crew might have had on their i-Pods (alternative reality permitting).

If you know of any suitable moon / space related songs leave a comment on Soren's blog. If he gets enough suggestions he is going to create a Google Maps mashup featuring the songs.

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US Wireless and Broadband Coverage Map

2009-07-16T08:10:00.004-05:00

Cricket Wireless

Cricket Wireless have used Google Maps to produce a coverage map for the US. Using the map it is possible to quickly see in which states Cricket have coverage.

The coverage map shows the scope of the calling areas. If you click on a state the map zooms in and shows the quality of coverage in that state. It is also possible to search the map by address and zipcode.

As well as checking Cricket's wireless coverage it is possible to check in which areas Cricket have 3G Broadband coverage and which areas will have coverage in the future.

Via: Mapperz

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Viewing Census Data on Google Maps

2009-07-16T05:04:00.001-05:00

Cynergy Systems Map

The Cynergy Systems Map is a Google Maps based interface for viewing census data sets. The map allows you to view the census data for any zipcode in the US.

The available data sets are; age distribution, ethnic distribution, population statistics, household statistics, housing units and vacancy rates. For each data set it is possible to view the raw data and a chart view.

To search for census data for a particular area just enter the zipcode into the search box above the map.

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Favorite Places Real World Markers

2009-07-16T01:56:00.012-05:00

As part of Google's launch of Favorite Places 30 life size map markers have been placed at various locations around San Francisco.

See this post to learn more about Favorite Places.

Each of the map markers comes with a plaque, giving details about who chose the location as one of their favorite places.

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Local Search on Google Maps

2009-07-16T01:13:00.004-05:00

Scoot

Scoot is a local business finder for the UK. As well as returning names and addresses of businesses many of the results include opening times, payment methods, website links, photos, coupons and videos. All the results are also shown on a Google Map.

Each result for a search is displayed with a number of tabs. The 'map' tab loads a Google Map with a marker showing the businesses location. In the map view it is also possible to add a starting location and get driving directions to the business.

Via: Mapperz

Google Maps v3 Demo Gallery

Yesterday Google added a very nice demo of a mashup of the Google Maps v3 API with the Google AJAX Local Search API.

Using the demo map developers should easily be able to build their very own local search map.

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Google Maps Favorite Places

2009-07-15T15:29:00.007-05:00

Favorite Places

Do you want to know where Tony Hawks like to go heli-skiing, or where Jean-Michel Cousteau likes to dive? If so then this new collection of Google My Maps is for you.

Today Google released a collection of favourite places around the world chosen by local celebrity experts. The Favorite Places site features a Google Map with locations chosen by each of the celebrities. Using the map it is possible to find out where the celebrities like to go, and why, from their own perspectives.

Clicking on a celebrity loads their collection of locations onto the map. It is also possible to search by location. For example, if you click on New York, all the New York favourite places from all the celebrities are loaded onto the map.

Searching by location also loads a new collection of local experts into the map sidebar. The map is therefore a great way to explore cities around the world with the advice of people who know about the city and are experts in their field.

Here's the official introductory video:

Some of the map markers appearing in the Favorite Places map are also appearing in the real world. In San Francisco a few large map markers have appeared at various locations in the city with plaques naming who chose that location as one of their favorite places on Google Maps.

Flickr user Jeremy Franklin took these photos of the marker and plaque at the Blue Bottle Cafe in San Francisco.

The plaque says 'Alice Waters has chosen the Blue Bottle Cafe as one her favorite places in San Francisco. Visit google.com/favoriteplaces to see more. Google maps Summer 2009.'

Via: Google LatLong

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Croatia Culture Guide on Google Maps

2009-07-15T09:49:00.004-05:00

Kulturni Vodic

This Google Maps mashup is a guide to events happening in Croatia this summer.

Each major town in the country has it's own map marker. Clicking on the marker reveals the listed events in chronological order. The towns are all listed in the map sidebar and are organised by region using an accordion menu.

Previous Croatian Google Maps Mashups

Croatian Gastro Map - guide to Croatian restaurants
CROATIA: Interactive Croatia Travel Guide

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Real Estate Search on Google Maps

2009-07-15T05:50:00.006-05:00

IDX Solutions

The dsSearchAgent is a real estate product built on Google Maps that any agent or broker can place on their website.

This real estate search engine is very powerful and allows users to define a huge number of factors. As well as the normal real estate search options of location, price and numbers of bedrooms / bathrooms, the dsSearchAgent lets the user define the lot size, days listed, year of build and a lot more.

The Spanish Property Directory

Property Net Spain is a search engine that can help you hunt down property for sale or rent in Spain.

From the front page you can type a partial or full town name in the search box - typing "marb" for example should give you a couple of results, including Marbella. Once you select your desired location you are taken to the property listings, which includes a Google Map view.

You can do the usual filtering tricks by setting multiple property types, price range, min/max bedrooms and bathrooms etc. One cool feature is that if you can't find what you want, instead of starting a new search, you can simply drag the map around and the property list updates as you move the map.

Movoto Real Estate

Movoto is a US real estate search facility. The site uses Google Maps to display the location of properties and to help display neighborhood information.

The property view allows the house hunter to define location, price range and number of baths / bedrooms. Movoto also has comprehensive neighbourhood information which lets you view a whole range of demographic, crime and property statistics about an area before you buy.

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Finding Espresso on Google Maps

2009-07-15T05:03:00.003-05:00

Espresso Finder

This mashup of the Google Maps API and the Shizzow API can help you find the best espresso anywhere in the US. For each town listed the Espresso Finder shows a Google Map of all the places tagged coffee in Shizzow.

The front page of Espresso Finder contains a list of cities. Each city listed has its own Google Map. It is possible to add a location to any of the maps by adding a place to Shizzow and tagging it #espresso.

CoffeeSeeker

Google Maps mashups that help you find the nearest place to buy coffee are always popular. CoffeeSeeker maps all coffee shops within five miles of a search location.

One nice feature of the map is that the coffee shops are marked on the map with coffee cups bearing the logo of the mapped shop. Registered users can add their favourite coffee shops to the map, they can rate coffee shops and or add comments.

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Showing Poll Results on Google Maps

2009-07-15T01:37:00.000-05:00

OKCupid

It isn't often that we get to feature the Google Chart API on Google Maps Mania but OKCupid, the online dating website, has been using the API to present the results of a number of polls taken by their members. The results are mainly presented with the map chart type and plot the results of some interesting questions.

Some of the questions were responded to by over a half a million people across the USA, which is quite a substantial sample. However, it is important to remember that the sample is of one website's users so can not be assumed to be representative of the general population.

Most of the questions asked are in the form of ethical choices, for example, 'Are some human life's worth more than others'? The results are presented state by state and do show some interesting divergences by geographical location.

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Fête Nationale on Google Maps

2009-07-14T07:30:00.007-05:00

Today is Fête Nationale (Bastille Day) in France. To help celebrate this French national holiday here is a small French Google Maps mashup round-up.

Carte Interactive Du Roannais Touristique

The official tourism office of the Roannais region of France has produced a Google Map to help visitors find places to stay, visit and eat on their visit to the area.

The map markers are divided into three categories, 'heritage and discovery', 'restaurants' and 'accommodation'. Each category also has a number of sub-categories, for example under accommodation it is possible to select to view markers for 'hotels', 'camping' or 'gites' etc.

Each marker contains a link to a separate web page with more details about that location.

Cart@Jobs
French job vacancy website Jobetic are giving prominent position to a Google Map mashup showing the location of current vacancies. Each job is shown on the map with a marker and all jobs are displayed in the map sidebar.

Each information window contains a link to further details about the vacancy. The map also has a feature to allow anyone to embed the map in their own website.

SL Territories

SL Territories is a Google My Map, by the blog metalab3d, linking to the virtual equivalent locations in Second Life. So, for example, if you click on Casablanca in the My Map you are presented with a teleport link that will take you to Casablanca in Second Life.

As well as the teleport link many of the map markers also contain a link to a YouTube video showing the location in Second Life.

If this little aperitif has whetted your appetite you should now move onto Le Plat Principal.

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Street View Trike Winners

2009-07-14T05:48:00.004-05:00

In the UK, Google partnered with VisitBritain to hold a public vote for where Britain's would like the Street View trike to visit this summer.

35,000 votes were cast and the six winners are the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, the Angel of the North, Loch Ness, Stonehenge, the Eden Project and Warwick Castle. Visit Britain also chose Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland as a 'wildcard' winner.

Street View imagery of these sites should appear in Google Maps later this year.

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Google Maps in Your Posterous

2009-07-14T03:44:00.003-05:00

Posterous

Posterous is a very innovative platform for publishing to the web via e-mail. To use the site you just e-mail your stuff to post@posterous.com and it immediately appears on your very own blog and on your other social networks. Posterous works with photos, videos and now with Google Maps.

Embedding a Google Map in a post is very easy. All you have to do is copy and paste the map link from Google Maps and drop it on its own line into your email. An interactive map will then appear in your post.

Posterous can also use the location data in photos you post. Posterous looks up the geocoordinates encoded in your photo and displays the name of the place with a link that expands into a map.

Via: Mashable

Google Map of the Best Places to Live

2009-07-14T01:25:00.001-05:00

CNN Money Best Places to Live 2009

According to CNN the best place to live in America is Louisville, Colorado. CNN particularly likes Louisville's dry, clear weather, low crime rate, good health care and low taxes. CNN have compiled a comparison table of the top ten cities, so you can check the facts out for yourself. It is also possible to view a list of the top 100 in order of ranking.

What we really want, however, is a map view! Luckily there are quite a few of them. CNN have produced a Google Map of the top ten cities, a map of the top 100 and maps for each of the states.

Maps are a great way for CNN to visually present this data. Using the maps the site's readers are quickly able to see where the cities are located and which cities are closest to where they live. I just feel CNN have missed a trick by not using numbered map markers so that we can see the ranking of the cities directly on the map.

Update

You have to love the internet. Ask for something and it is done. No, CNN haven't updated their maps but Mibazaar has used the same data to create his own map mashup of the best places to live. And guess what, he has numbered the markers to reflect the ranking order of cities.

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The Harvard Crimson on Google Maps

2009-07-13T14:59:00.004-05:00

Summer Postcards 2009

Harvard's daily college newspaper 'The Harvard Crimson' has produced a Google Map to display reports from the paper's writers and photographers, whilst on their summer travels.

Reports are shown on the map with red and green markers. The green markers show new contributions and the red markers indicate past contributions from the paper's reporters. Each marker contains a short summary and a link to the main story on The Harvard Crimson's online edition.

Summer Postcards was created using the Map Channels map creation tool.

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Augmented Reality Round-Up

2009-07-13T08:39:00.006-05:00

Augmented Reality is a technology that blends computer data with real-time footage. I won't bother with a fuller description, if you don't know what AR is yet you can just watch any of the videos below.

We first reviewed an Augmented Reality application on Google Maps Mania early last year but with the recent release of Layar it seems that Augmented Reality is finally beginning to gain some momentum in the market place.

So it's time for a round-up:

Enkin.net
Enkin was the first augmented reality application (that I know of) to use the GPS and orientation sensors of a mobile phone to present an augmented view of the world through the phone's screen.

In essence Enkin seems to take place-marks that were created in Google Maps and overlay them on the view of the same location. The application was demoed (in the video below) early last year but unfortunately it seems that the product hasn't made it to the market.

Enkin from Enkin on Vimeo.

ARSights
ARSights is a cool tool that will allow users to visualize Google Earth 3D models using augmented reality. The site uses the Google Earth Browser plug-in to allow users to search for and download Google Earth 3D models.

Once you have downloaded a model all you need to do is run the ARSights application, set up your webcam and go. You will then be able to create awesome augmented reality videos like this:

Wikitude - AR Travel Guide
Wikitude, a mobile travel guide for Android phones based on location-based Wikipedia content, allows users to view 350,000 world-wide points of interest on a mobile phone. The application has been offering an augmented reality cam view since last year. Here's the video:

Layar Augmented Reality Application
Layar claim to be the world's first augmented reality browser (a claim that Wikitude might debate). Layar is available for the Android in the Netherlands. The company say they will also launch in Germany, the UK and the United States this year. For now you can check out the video,

TwitARound
What do you get if you combine the hottest website with the hottest new tech? The answer is TwitARound. TwitARound is an augmented reality Twitter viewer on the iPhone 3GS. It shows live tweets around your location on the iPhone's screen. You can see where the tweet comes from and how far away it is.

Nearest Tube AR
The latest AR application for the iPhone is this nearest tube finder for London. Using the application it is possible to see the nearest tube stations to your location, what direction they are in and how far away they are.

Hat-tip: I think I probably saw all of these AR applications reviewed first on the excellent Digital Urban.

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Watch Where You Spray Google Map

2009-07-13T08:03:00.002-05:00

Driftwatch

Driftwatch is a Google Maps mashup of sensitive areas that Indiana farmers can use to check before spraying pesticides. The map displays pesticide sensitive sites in Indiana, such as beehives, certified organic fields, fruits, fish farms, grapes, floriculture or greenhouse production, or crops like pumpkins, melons, tomatoes and vegetables.

Farm owners who have pesticide sensitive crops can register their own crop fields by registering with Driftwatch. Adding a sensitive site to Drifwatch is very easy, it just involves drawing a polyline around the boundary of the area. Currently more than 500 Indiana pesticide sensitive crops sites are registered with Driftwatch.

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Google Maps Tool

2009-07-13T05:28:00.006-05:00

Zorum MapTool2

MapTool2 from Zorum solutions is a Google Maps mashup that lets you check the elevation of any location in the world. The tool also features a number of other useful features.

The 'area' tool lets you draw a polygon on the map to measure the area of any defined location.

The 'draw polyline' tool allows the user to measure the distance between any two points. There is an option to get an elevation profile for all the vertices on a drawn line. There are also a number of other features, such as the option to get an elevation profile for a given location.

Via: Free Geography Tools & Mapperz