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Spanish Google Maps Mashups Round-up

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:30:04 +0000

Guifi.net

Guifi.net is a free telecommunications network in Spain. The network is composed of peer-to-peer connections. Guifi.net have used Google Maps to show the extent of the network.The map shows all the nodes on the network and the connections between the nodes.

Yata!

Yata! is a mobile based social network for sharing upcoming sporting events, shops with promotions, upcoming concerts or anything else you want to share. The application, for Vodafone, uses Google Maps to show the user submitted places around your current location.

A system of positive and negative votes is used to crowdsource the best user submitted locations. The home page of Yata! even includes a Google Map so you can explore the social network from your desktop.

Mapa Furgoperfecto

Furgovw is a website catering to the needs of Volkswagen camper van owners looking for places that they can park overnight. The site is a collection of user submitted suggestions for great spots where you can pull up and sleep when your are out touring in your van.

The site uses Google Maps to show the locations of parking locations. The map is not restricted to Spain and covers most of Europe and even parts of north Africa.

Previously Featured Spanish Google Maps

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From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/0y6s0-Ylr5A/spanish-google-maps-mashups-round-up.html

Over the Rainbow with Google Maps

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:28:00 +0000

OMG Rainbows!

♪♫ Google Map’s the only thing / To take you over the rainbow to the land where cartography is King. ♪♫

I love discovering new uses for Google Maps and I’m pretty sure that this is the very first rainbow predicator to feature on Google Maps Mania.

The map uses the regularly updated National Weather Service radar mosaic to find where rain is falling and combines that with current solar elevation and azimuth to show areas that have a high potential for rainbows. The areas that have a potential for rainbows are shown in red on the map.

You can quickly zoom into an area marked in red or you can use the search engine to look for rainbows near your current location. And who doesn’t want to search for rainbows?

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From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/AbPx1HyrDpE/over-rainbow-with-google-maps.html

Sharing Locations with Google Maps

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:02:00 +0000

WhereMark

WhereMark is another start-up trying to break into the Location Based Services market. Using the site’s website, or the iPhone application, users can share and find find local points of interest. Essentially the site enables you to save and share your favourite locations with Google Maps.

To save a WhereMark you need to double click on the map. When you do so an information window opens that allows you to share information about the location. The information window for each saved location includes tabs to view a Street View and get driving directions. From the map sidebar you can choose to view all ‘public’ WhereMarks or only those submitted by you.

The site includes the option to connect with Facebook and share your WhereMarks with your Facebook friends.

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From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/XBZWLQiKufQ/sharing-locations-with-google-maps.html

Back to the future: two years of Google Chrome

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:20:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Chrome Blog)

Watching the 1985 classic Back to the Future last night, I was struck by how much things can change with time. The main character Marty McFly travels 30 years back in time, only to find that his house hadn’t been built yet, skateboards hadn’t been invented and nobody had ever heard rock ‘n roll.

Looking back today on Chrome’s second anniversary, it’s amazing to see how much has changed in just a short time. In August 2008, JavaScript was 10 times slower, HTML5 support wasn’t yet an essential feature in modern browsers, and the idea of a sandboxed, multi-process browser was only a research project. All browsers have come a long way in the last two years and the web has become much more fun and useful.

Happy 2nd birthday, Google Chrome!
(Illustration: Mike Lemanski, click image to expand)

Since Chrome’s first beta launch for Windows, we’ve brought our Mac and Linux versions up to speed, and continued to make the browser faster, simpler, and safer across all three platforms. We’ve also introduced a boatload of features, including a more customizable New Tab page, browser themes, side-by-side view, password manager, better privacy controls, built-in Adobe Flash Player, Autofill, automatic translation, HTML5 capabilities and synchronization of various settings such as bookmarks, themes, extensions and browser preferences—just to name a few. Finally, there are now more than 6,000 extensions in our gallery to enhance your browsing experience.

Behind the scenes, we continue to extend the security features that help you browse the web more safely. This includes Chrome’s Safe Browsing technology—which serves as a warning system if you’re about to visit a site suspected of phishing or hosting malware; Chrome’s auto-update mechanism—which helps ensure that the browser is always up-to-date with the latest security updates; and the browser’s “sandbox”—an added layer of protection which prevents malicious code on an exploited website from infecting your computer.

The old Chrome: our very first beta!

Chrome now: Our brand new release today

Today, we’re releasing a new stable version of Chrome that is even faster and more streamlined. Chrome is now three times faster than it was two years ago on JavaScript performance. We’ve also been working on simplifying the “chrome” of Chrome. As you can see, we took the already minimalist user interface and stripped it down a bit more to make it easier to use. We combined Chrome’s two menus into one, revisited the location of the buttons, cleaned up the treatment of the URL and the Omnibox, and adjusted the color scheme of the browser to be easier on the eyes.

Sliding back into Doc Brown’s DeLorean and setting the dial ahead by a few months, we have more in store for Chrome. As always, we’re hard at work on making Chrome even faster, and working on ways to improve graphics performance in the browser through hardware acceleration. With the Chrome Web Store, we hope to make it much easier to find and use great applications on the web. We also ratcheted up the pace of our releases so that we can get new features and improvements to everyone more quickly.

If you haven’t tried Chrome recently, we invite you to download our new stable version today at google.com/chrome. For those of you who have been using Chrome, thanks for a great second year! We hope that Chrome has made your life on the web even better, and look forward to the next year.

Life on the web, in the browser.
(Illustration: Jack Hudson, click image to expand)

Posted by Brian Rakowski, Product Manager

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/gYYq2QsCfRE/back-to-future-two-years-of-google.html

Missing Persons on Google Maps

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:49:00 +0000

Live Police Appeals Map

UK website the Missing List has created a Google Map to display information about missing people in the UK. The data for the map comes from appeals made by the police for information about missing people.

If you click on a map marker you can view photos and a brief description. You can click through to read further details. You can also refine the results shown on the map by month and year.

The Missing List has also created a Police Appeals Google Map. The map displays appeals made by the police concerning recent criminal offences in the UK. Again you can refine the map by month and year. You can also refine the results by type of crime.

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From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/3Om-1in4Gno/missing-persons-on-google-maps.html

Google Maps Means Business

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:46:00 +0000

Google today announced the release of sponsored map icons in the United States. It is an extension of a pilot project that started in Australia earlier this year. Currently business icons appear in grey on Google Maps. Now business owners can add their own icons to Google Maps, replacing the grey icons with their company logos.

Google says that sponsored map icons are being offered as “a limited beta to companies in the U.S. with multiple locations and a well-known brand. Google also point out that participation in this beta does not affect visibility on the map. The new feature is only available to businesses that already appear on the map, and whose default icons can be swapped out for their logo.”

The icons will also be visible on Google Maps for Mobile starting sometime later this week.

Via: Google LatLong

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From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/YnZjyqamypU/google-maps-means-business.html

Model the world with Google SketchUp 8

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

It’s been 10 years since the first version of Google SketchUp was released, and there are more people modeling in SketchUp now that we ever could have imagined—over a million of you a week, in fact. That’s a pretty humbling number of 3D model makers.

People around the world are modeling everything—from a new design for their kitchen to entire cities in Google Earth. For our small part in this global phenomenon, I’m proud to announce that SketchUp 8, the next major version of our 3D modeling tool, is available for download today. We’ve added significant new geo-modeling capabilities that leverage Google’s vast collection of geo-spatial data to make it quicker, easier and more fun than ever to build models of the world around us.

Head on over to our website for the whole story, or just grab yourself a new build and get back to modeling.

Posted by Posted by John Bacus, Product Manager

From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/dXTLKTK5h6c/model-world-with-google-sketchup-8.html

Explore Europe with Eurostar & Google Maps

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:30:05 +0000

Europe by Eurostar

Eurostar, the high speed rail link that connects the UK to mainland Europe, have created a new website to highlight some of the great cities that you can visit by train and to provide tips on what you can see and do when you get there.

The site’s home page features a Google Map, which allows you to navigate to all of the featured cities. This works fine, as long as you know the location of your European cities. If you don’t you can always zoom in. Some marker tool-tips however would greatly enhance navigation. It would be nice if you could just mouse-over a map marker to see which city it redirects to.

The city pages each come with their own Google Map. The maps feature colour-coded map markers to show points of interest in the city. The categories include Art & Culture, Food & Drink, Music & Nightlife, Fashion & Beauty and Events.

Some cities at the moment are a little lacking in points of interest. Eurostar do say that they would love you to tell them about your own discoveries, so I’m guessing that they are planning to populate the maps with user generated tips and advice.

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From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/0f5YfBXYAYg/explore-europe-with-eurostar-google.html

Google Maps for California

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:29:00 +0000

Apps for Californians

The state of California has partnered with Microsoft, Google and Programmable Web to run an apps contest. The state wants you to develop apps that will enhance the state government’s transparency and services.

Back in July Google Maps Mania looked at some of the early entries that were using Google Maps. A number of other Google Maps mashups have since been entered.

Explore California

Explore California uses Google Maps to help present demographic data for Californian counties.

If you click on any of the counties on the map you can view population, income, unemployment and other data trends for the county. The application shows the trends for the chosen datasets in graph form over a number of years.

It is possible to select any combination of data sets by clicking the check boxes under the graph. Selecting a combination of data sets allows the user to compare and contrast the patterns of growth and decline in various categories and the relationships between them.

Social Map of California Schools and Universities

This application shows online social activity around universities and colleges in California. The application uses Google Maps to show the locations of schools and universities and shows the number of check-ins around each campus.

ZonabiltySF
This application shows San Francisco zoning ordinance information on Google Maps.

If you use the application to search for a San Francisco address you can view an interactive zoning map that provides information about the zoning code.

Just click on a shaded area on the map to get the zoning details for that block.

To view all the applications submitted to the competition visit Apps for Californians or Programmable Web

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From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/v_c5MezG2RA/google-maps-for-california.html

UK Geology on Google Maps

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:29:00 +0000

The British Geological Survey have a number of examples of Google Maps created with OpenGeoscience. OpenGeoscience is data that the society has made available free-of-charge for non-commercial private study, research and educational activities.

Google Maps with WMS

This Google Map is an example of how to use a simple overlay of the society’s geological Web Map Service. The map uses 1:625 000 scale data.

ArcGIS Server Extension for Google Maps

This Google Map is a demonstration of how geology map services can be used in web applications developed using the ArcGIS Server JavaScript extension for the Google Maps API. The map essentially presents the same data as the first example but includes a slider control so that you can adjust the transparency of the overlay.

Bracknell District Caving Club
This Google Map combines BGS geology with cave information in the Mendips area. It is possible to view the location of caves on the map and select from a number of BGS overlays to show the make-up of the bedrock and deposits.

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From: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleMapsMania/~3/rilmgXxJUJw/uk-geology-on-google-maps.html