The application uses data from sites like Flickr and Panoramio to analyse the most photogenic areas. ShotHotspot’s Google Maps allows users to scout for locations around any location worldwide. It is possible to narrow down the area of search by drawing the area you are interested on the map. It is also possible to zoom in on a location and update the results shown by selecting the ‘Search Visible Area’.

You can select any of the hotspots displayed on the map and preview the photo opportunities by viewing photographs of the location taken by other photographers which have been posted to Flickr or Panoramio.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/dHDILy7idXU/find-photogenic-locations-with-google.html

Both scholarships aim to encourage underrepresented students to enter the computing field. The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship honours the memory of Dr. Anita Borg who devoted her life to encouraging the presence of women in computing; we recently announced the U.S. recipients of this scholarship. The Google Europe Scholarship for Students with Disabilities aims to help dismantle barriers for students with disabilities as well as encourage them to excel in their studies and become active role models and leaders in creating technology.

All of the students receiving the scholarships are pursuing degrees in computer science or related fields at universities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This summer, they’ll attend the annual Google EMEA Scholarships Retreat in Zurich, where they’ll have the opportunity to attend tech talks on Google products, participate in developmental sessions, network with Googlers and attend social activities. Notable speakers at the 2013 retreat include Alan Eustace, SVP of Knowledge, Megan Smith, VP of Google [x], and Carolyn Casey, Founder of Kanchi.org.

Applications for the scholarships will be open again in just a few short months. Learn more about how the scholarships impacted the lives of previous recipients:

For more information on all of our scholarships and programs, please visit the Google Students site.

Posted by Efrat Aghassy, EMEA scholarships program manager

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/Tr4K3HHDuQM/google-scholarships-recognize-84.html

If you want to know which cities you can buy an A la Carte Map for then you can check out their ‘Destinations’ map. The map uses Stamen’s watercolor map tiles with the Google Maps API. If you select a city’s marker on the map you can click through to view images from the city’s map and, if you want to own it, you can place your order. 

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/neQGbOqcDz0/a-la-carte-maps.html

The map uses thumbnail photographs of each institution as the map markers. Users can click on the individual photographs to be taken to a dedicated page about the institution, where they can favourite and comment on the selected scientific institution.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/UBDK_4V7ABY/science-institutions-on-google-maps.html

Check out the information windows on this map. If you mouse-over a marker on the map a small window opens, displaying the title of the marker project. If you click on the marker the small window animates into a larger information window, which contains the full details about the project.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/UOoNWuVg7ig/australian-renewable-energy-on-google.html

The map uses Google Maps satellite imagery overlaid with a layer that displays the solar irradiation that falls on each roof in the city. The map takes into account the shape of roofs and even predicts the amount of solar radiation down to every hour of the day.

Users can click on their house on the Google Map and receive an overview of their building’s recommended system. System tabs allow users to view detailed information in four categories: money, investment, technical and environment.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/6XX9n-0iYAQ/the-solar-panel-planning-map.html

Let’s start with the official Citi Bike Stations map.
The Citi Bike Google Map shows the location of all the city’s bike
stations. If you select a station’s map marker you can find out how many
bikes are currently available and how many docking stations are free.

That’s about it for this map, although the map does show planned bike stations, using yellow map markers. So you can at least see if a station is likely to open anywhere near you in the near future. 

The CASA Global Bike Share Map is one of the better bike share maps. The map (using OpenStreetMap map tiles) allows users to mouse-over bike stations and view how many bikes and empty docking spaces are available. The markers are also color-coded to show at a glance which stations are more empty and which are more full.

The Global Bike Share Map includes an interesting feature that allows the user to animate through the last few days of activity at each bike station. It is fascinating to watch the bike station activity pick-up and die down through rush hour periods and through the night.

The Global Bike Share Map has the added bonus that you can view the same visualisations for many other city bike sharing schemes around the world.

The WNYC Bike Share Map doesn’t do anything amazing. You can click on each station’s marker and view how many bikes and how many empty docks are available. However I have to include it here because it uses the Google Maps API new map style – so it does look beautifully clean and fresh.

The Atlantic Wire has a near real-time Google Map that updates with the latest activity at all the city’s bike stations. A few times a minute, the map checks the Citibike database and drops a marker on the map where there has been some activity.

Messages are also added below the map that report which stations have just seen a bike returned or borrowed. 

If you
want to join the biking crowd then you should check out this map of
routes and tips to cycling in New York.

The New York Times’ Your Biking Wisdom in Ten Words
is a handy reader’s guide to biking in the Big Apple. The map includes
readers’ tips on good and bad biking locations and a number of popular
cycling routes, care of Strava users.

If all these Citi Bike maps have got you inspired you should get along to the City Bike Civic Hack Night on Wednesday June 26th. You should also check-out Citi Bike Stats, which has a lot of interesting graphs and charts using data from the Citi Bike scheme. There are no maps but there is a lot of lovely data.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/-mjqpda-buw/mapping-new-yorks-citi-bike-scheme.html

Interestingly each of the Google Maps includes a nice little reminder that maps are always political. The Development Tracker has felt the need to add a disclaimer to all of the Google Maps that reads, “Country borders do not necessarily reflect the UK Government’s official position”.

The Development Tracker also contains a prototype version of an API (application
programming interface) enabling developers to retrieve the data in JSON
format. There are also plans to open source the code for the Development Tracker, so that anyone can freely re-use or even contribute to the code.

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/EJCAk4c-_1k/government-aid-on-google-maps.html

Fast-forward 10 years, and AdSense has become a core part of Google’s advertising business. The AdSense community has grown to include more than 2 million publishers, and last year alone, publishers earned more than $7 billion from AdSense. AdSense is a community that thrives because of all the content creators we are so fortunate to partner with. Their stories inspire us to do our part to make AdSense great.

On this occasion, it’s especially inspiring to hear the stories of partners who have been with us since the very beginning—like a retiree in New Zealand who was able to pursue her dream of writing about her garden, a tech support expert in Colorado who can spend more time with his kids, and a theme park reviewer who now sends employees around the world to test and review rides—all thanks to money earned from AdSense.

As part of our 10th anniversary celebration, we hope you’ll tune into our live Hangout on Air today at 10 a.m. PDT (5 p.m. GMT) on the AdSense Google+ page. I look forward to joining several of our partners to share stories from the early days of AdSense, talk about how we’ve all grown since then, and discuss the future for publishers and online advertising. And if you want even more 10th anniversary celebration, just visit our AdSense 10th anniversary page at any time.

Posted by Susan Wojcicki, SVP, Ads and Commerce

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/IrPNt0KYOdA/celebrating-10-years-of-shared-success.html

In addition to Best Buy and Amazon.com, we’re excited to welcome several new retailers to the family. Starting today, Walmart will be making the newest Acer Chromebook, which has a 16GB Solid State Drive (SSD), available in approximately 2,800 stores across the U.S., for just $199. Look for Chromebooks coming to the laptop sections of a Walmart near you this summer.

And beginning this weekend, Staples will bring a mix of Chromebooks from Acer, HP and Samsung to every store in the U.S.—more than 1,500 in total. You can also purchase via Staples online, while businesses can purchase through the Staples Advantage B2B program. In the coming months select Office Depot, OfficeMax, and regional chains Fry’s and TigerDirect locations will begin selling Chromebooks.

In the 10 other markets worldwide where Chromebooks are sold, availability in national retailers continues to expand. In addition to Dixons in the UK, now 116 Tesco stores are selling Chromebooks, as well as all Mediamarket and Saturn stores in the Netherlands, FNAC stores in France and Elgiganten stores in Sweden. In Australia, all JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman stores will be carrying Chromebooks for their customers as well. We’re working hard to bring Chromebooks to even more countries later this year.

Chromebooks make great computers for everyone in the family—and now you shouldn’t have to look very far to find one. Happy summer!

Posted by David Shapiro, Director of Chromebook Marketing

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/-A2H9jTjE7U/chromebooks-coming-to-more-stores-near.html