Google Maps Mania

The Google Maps of the Week

2013-05-19T06:20:00.000-05:00

What with Google I/O and the launch of the new look Google Maps, it has been a reasonably quiet week for reviews of new Google Maps apps. At Google Maps Mania our attention has been drawn away by the live streams from I/O and playing with the new look Google Maps.

However, some great maps did get featured this week.

One map that grabbed my attention this week was from Rough Guide. One feature of the Rough Guide site that I really like is how you can drill down from general reviews of countries, to reviews of individual towns and cities and then search for great individual locations to visit within those towns and cities.

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 city from the menu then a general introduction to your chosen destination is given beneath the map and all the Rough Guide recommended places to visit are displayed on the map.

Another interesting map that came to our attention this week was España en llamas (Spain in Flames), 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 filter the data displayed on the map. The filter controls allow the user to filter the results displayed on the map by cause of fire, fires that caused deaths, by location and by the size of the fire.

A time-line tool beneath the map also allows the user to explore each of the filtered results by year. One neat feature of this map is the use of relatively sized map markers to show the size of each individual fire.

The Hand Drawn Maps of the Week

2013-05-18T08:53:00.000-05:00

This week saw the 70th anniversary of the World War II Dambuster raids. On 16–17 May 1943 an attack on German dams, carried out by Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron, subsequently known as the "Dambusters", used a specially developed "bouncing bomb" invented and developed by Barnes Wallis.

The BBC has put together an interactive map that retraces the mission. The interactive uses a hand-drawn map from the official June 1943 British Air Ministry report on the Dambusters raid. The map shows the routes taken by the planes, the location of the planes that crashed and the location of the German dams.

The MapBox Blog has this week been showing off the power of their MapBox Streets with vector tiles.

Using vector tiles ensures the speed and scalability of MapBox maps. It also allows for some amazing styling of the map tiles. Using MapBox anyone can make "a totally custom branded map, of the entire globe, that is lighting fast on every device."

The blog post includes a number of beautiful examples of styled maps. I think my favourite is the hand-drawn map style (shown in the screenshot above).

Luftwaffe Aerial Imagery on Google Maps

2013-05-18T06:46:00.001-05:00

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 taken in the 1930's
Neighborhood Change in Connecticut - aerial photos from 1934
Catbus - 1947 aerial imagery of Montreal
Old Maps of Moscow - a large collection of historical maps & aerial imagery from the 1940's

Other Collections of Aerial Imagery

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland has one of the world's largest collections of historical aerial photographs.

The WWII Aerial Photos and Maps website has a large collection of Aerial photos taken during the Second World War.

Google Maps - New Maps for Old

2013-05-17T11:24:00.000-05:00

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 base map and map controls:

No shadows for markers
Markers are slightly bigger
Simplified InfoWindow
Smaller MapType toggle
Smaller Google logo (bottom left)
Smaller TOS bar (bottom right)
Tweaked zoom slider
Saturated map color
State borders show up in higher zoom level
Buildings show up in higher zoom level
Icons for all POI places in a small circle
Major streets in cities are desaturated
New font (Roboto) used in InfoWindow
New colors for directions (route & markers)
Some area labels are light grey

Mapperz has also been playing with the new design. He created this JSFiddle page so you can play around with the code yourself and check out how things look with the new Google Maps design.

Modern Life is Rubbish

2013-05-17T09:23:00.001-05:00

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 the full sepia effect unless you view the album in Chrome.

If that inspires you to take an even deeper look into the past then why not have a peak at There and Then as well. There and Then is a collection of historic vintage movies superimposed on top of the same view as seen now in Google Maps Street View.

Franco's Prisoner Work Battalions

2013-05-17T04:57:00.001-05:00

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 on a map marker the information window provides details on the type of work the prisoners were forced to undertake, the number of prison staff and the dates of each forced labour project.

The map is in the Basque language.

Hands on with the New Google Maps

2013-05-16T19:45:00.004-05:00

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 maps are a bit of a sideshow when it comes to online maps.

But what a sideshow it is! Google Maps now has real-time cloud overlays and, if you zoom out, it also has real-time sun, moon and star imagery! As I almost said before, colour me f**cking amazed.

This imagery is of course stunning and will be important to a significant number of Google Maps users - but for most users it will still remain a sideshow. The majority of Google Maps users, in their day-to-day use of Google Maps, will be far more interested in the basics of finding locations, finding local businesses and getting directions.

Well you know I am biased but there is simply no competition. Google's huge, no really - unbelievably huge - data of local businesses, public transit and nearly everyone's individual search patterns means that no other map provider can come close to offering anything close to the new Google Maps.

Open Street Maps may have far better map data in many parts of the world, Waze may be able to provide far better direction data in many locations, and numerous sites might be able to offer you better local business reviews. However no other online map provider can give you anywhere near the whole package that is the new Google Maps. It simply delivers in nearly every department you want from an online map!

Of course this review is just scratching at the surface. One of the big selling points of the new Google Maps is that every user gets their own map. Google Maps now responds to every user's favourite locations, search patterns and the behaviour of their friends on Google+. I have a feeling that this is going to freak out a few tech-savy users. However most users are simply just not going to notice that their map is tailored to their needs and the technophiles are probably going to love it anyway.

Well I'm biased, I am a technophile, and I do love it!

Nature Rocks on Google Maps

2013-05-16T11:55:00.001-05:00

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 filter the results by distance and by the type of nature space that you are looking for.

Each displayed location contains an address, a website link and a link to the location's Google+ page.

Mapping Live Edits to Wikipedia

2013-05-16T09:14:00.002-05:00

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 map reminds me of WikipediaVision, a Google Map of real-time map edits to Wikipedia.

The map displays an information window for each edit, with the title of the article, the summary of the edit (if a summary was given), a link to the changes that were made to the article and the time the edit happened.

Mapping Wikipedia is a project from TraceMedia and the Oxford Internet Institute.

Using the Google Maps API Mapping Wikipedia allows you to view the geography of all geotagged Wikipedia articles in a number of different languages. It can also create maps based on the word count of articles, the date created, number of authors, and number of images.

If you are interested about how the map was created TraceMedia has provided an outline of the tools used in building the application.

A Decade of Fires on Google Maps

2013-05-16T04:26:00.000-05:00

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 cause of fire, fires that caused deaths, by location and by the size of the fire.

A time-line tool beneath the map also allows the user to explore each of the filtered results by year.

Get the New Look Google Maps in Your Maps

2013-05-15T15:53:00.000-05:00

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 well as the new map tiles you will also get the new default map marker from the new Google Maps and a new information window style (both have no shadows).

You can view the new base maps in a Google Maps API map on More Than A Map.

The New Google Maps

2013-05-15T14:06:00.000-05:00

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 to it being taken from the presentation on the huge screens at Google I/O).

The whole look of the new Google Maps is designed to provide an individual map for every individual user. For example, places that you visit often will show up on your map. If you regularly visit a particular restaurant then that restaurant will be a place-mark on your map. You might also see similar restaurants on your map and other restaurants that have been recommended by your friends.

The new map also features some amazing transitions from the map into Street View. The photo tour feature also seems to be improved, with amazingly smooth transitions between user photos taken around the same location.

There are also some great improvements to directions in the new Google Maps. I posted about some of them earlier today but one stand-out feature is the ability to view detailed schedules for individual transit stations.

The new Google Maps looks to be such a radical step forward that I wonder if we might hear news of v4 of the Google Maps API later today.

Learn more here

Google Maps at Google I/O

2013-05-15T12:21:00.001-05:00

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 hour

2. Geofencing

Geofences allow your apps to detect when users enter or exit defined zones on a map. The Geofencing API will allow up to 100 geofences per app.

3. Activity Recognition

The Activity Recognition API uses the phone's accelerometer to automatically detect whether users are walking, driving or cycling. I assume developers will use this in activity tracking apps, for example to track bike rides and provide user statistics on average speed, distance travelled etc.

Virtual Reality Street View

2013-05-15T05:30:00.000-05:00

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 game players a truly immersive experience. So, if you are one of the few people who actually own your own virtual reality headset, you can now explore Google Maps Street View with the Oculus Google Street Viewer.

The rest of us will just have to squint our eyes and pretend.

Hat-tip: Google Street View World

More on the New Google Maps Design

2013-05-15T03:47:00.001-05:00

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, "One search makes all the information you need available at a glance - read up on your destination, see ratings and reviews, and sometimes even take a peak inside."

As you can see from the screenshot above the new Google Maps seems to fill the whole browser window, with the search box overlaid on the map rather than placed above the map. The results of this search, for 'museums near Paris' also uses what look like genre specific map markers to display the results on the map rather than the iconic large red Google Maps marker.

The search box also gives you the option to view the 'top reviews' and hints at the almost inevitable tie-in with Google+, giving you the option to view results from 'Your Circles'.

Flight Search and Directions

A screenshot also shows that Flight Search is being added to the directions options. Google's underused separate Flight Search service therefore will now be incorporated into the new Google Maps and will make available one more option for users when looking for directions.

Google Maps users will now be able to ask for driving, transit, flight, walking and biking directions.

Another screenshot in the sign-up page suggests that users will also be able to view a combination of the different directions options on the same map. So, for example, users will be able to view driving and public transit directions for the same route on the same map and will be able to compare the journey times for each mode of transport.

Maps that Get Better

Finally, another image promises that Google Maps will adapt to individual users, "As you search the map, star places you like and leave reviews, the map starts to adapt and can suggest things, like restaurants you might enjoy or the quickest way home. In other words the more you use the new Google Maps, the more helpful it becomes".

Find Cheap Parking with Google Maps

2013-05-14T12:01:00.004-05:00

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).

If you select an individual parking lot on the map you can view detailed hourly rates and the hours of operation.

The Down Survey of Ireland on Google Maps

2013-05-14T09:02:00.001-05:00

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 in over 300 years, digitised them and made them available as a public online resource. The Down Survey of Ireland website allows you to browse all the available maps by county, barony and parish. Each map can then be viewed in detail using the map viewer's zoom and panning tools.

The Down Survey of Ireland website also includes a map of the 1641 Depositions. Following the Irish Rebellion of 1641 a collection of accounts by Protestant victims of the rebellion was assembled between 1642 and 1655. You can view the locations of the depositions on a Google Map, which includes options to view the depositions on top of map overlays of the 1670 Down Survey maps or an 1890 Ordnance Survey map.

Google Maps at Google I/O

2013-05-14T07:20:00.000-05:00

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 for 9am tomorrow. It is hard to see how Google will better last years skydiving, mountain biking and abseiling demo of Google Glass. I suspect however that Google Glass will feature heavily again in this year's keynote.

The very first Google Maps session looks to be the one to watch to find out what's new in Google Maps and the maps API.

Here are the Google Maps sessions that will be streamed live (all times are PDT (GMT-7) ):

May 15th

12.45pm Google Maps: Into the Future

In this session, the Product Management Director of Google Maps teams with the Product Manager for the Google Maps API and the lead Developer Advocate to walk you into the future of Google Maps.

4.40pm Making Location Meaningful with the Google Maps APIs

This session will explore using aspects of location to present a richer experience for users.

5.30pm The Other Mobile Mapping Platform: Getting Your Maps into iOS

The Google Maps SDK for iOS. This session will explore different ways for you to integrate your data with a Google Maps experience.

May 16th

12.45pm All the Ships in the World: Visualizing Data with Google Cloud and Maps

Tens of thousands of ships report their position at least once every 5 minutes, 24 hours a day. Visualizing that quantity of data and serving it out to large numbers of people takes lots of power both in the browser and on the server. This session will explore the use of Maps, App Engine, Go, Compute Engine, BigQuery, Cloud Storage, and WebGL to do massive data visualization.

The Google Maps Guides to the World

2013-05-14T05:20:00.003-05:00

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 city from the menu then a general introduction to your chosen destination is given beneath the map and all the Rough Guide recommended places to visit are displayed on the map.

Spiegel Online has also released a travel guide to the world. The Google Maps based guide is a mixture of Spiegel travel reports, travel writer's travel tips and Spiegel readers' travel tips.

Die Welt Entdecken (Explore the World) allows the user to search a Google Map by location and to filter the travel suggestions shown on the map. The filters include these different types of travel tips and advice and also categories, such as food & drink, where to sleep and places to visit.

Die Welt Entdecken is in German.

Stunt Planes on Street View

2013-05-13T20:17:00.001-05:00

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 make the aircraft perform a stunt when it reaches a defined spot on the Street View. If you pass the first mission you will progress to undertake ever more challenging missions.

Hat-tip: Google Street View World

Testing Website Speeds with Google Maps

2013-05-13T14:48:00.000-05:00

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 website at different locations across the world.

From the same developer as the Worldwide Website Speed Test comes the Zip Code Catcher, a great Google Maps based application for finding and downloading all the zip codes for a specific area.

The map includes two drawing tools. A circle tool allows the user to quickly define a radius around the desired location. However, if you need to define an area more precisely, a polygon tool allows you to plot out an area more accurately.

Once you have defined the desired area on the map you just need to click the download button and you can download a CSV of all the zip codes in your selected area. The downloaded spreadsheet includes all the zip codes and the city, state, latitude and longitude, the population and even the distance from the center of your selected area for each zip code.

The Euro-Pop Map

2013-05-13T11:47:00.001-05:00

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 some truly awful songs. My favourite is the Maltese entry. The ukulele doesn't feature enough in pop songs these days! And the song contains what has to be the best line from this year's entries,

"His name is Jeremy and he works in IT".

All kidding aside - I actually quite like this one.

Holy Bat Map, Batman!

2013-05-13T09:12:00.000-05:00

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 been recommended by Bat Conservation Trust staff and local bat groups as good places to visit f you want to see bats in the wild.

Photos from the ISS Mapped

2013-05-13T07:32:00.000-05:00

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 - and of course someone has.

Our World from the ISS is an ESRI map of photos, taken from the ISS posted by @Cmdr_Hadfield and @AstroMarshburn on Twitter. If you click on the markers you can view a thumbnail of the posted image. If you click on the thumbnail the photo will open in a new browser window.

In truth I'm only posting this map today as an excuse to include what must be the greatest music video of all time. So just in case you are the one person left on Earth who hasn't yet seen Cmdr Hadfield's amazing version of David Bowie's Space Oddity - here it is:

Now and Then on Google Maps

2013-05-13T05:17:00.000-05:00

The Center for Urban History of East Central Europe has created two interesting Google Maps exploring the history of Lviv, Ukraine.

The Lviv Interactive Map shows the locations of buildings, events and people who have been important in the history of the city. The locations are sorted by category and subcategories. For example, the history category of markers includes the sub-categories of Fin-de-siècle City, the Holocaust in Lviv, Jewish city, Postsocialist city, Sacred city, Secession City and Socialist City.

The Plan of Lemberg / Lviv uses the Google Maps API to display an 1863 map of the city, the 'Plan von Lemberg'.

Using the familiar Google Maps navigation tools users can zoom in on details of the map. Quick links to zoom in on important locations on the map are displayed in the map sidebar.