Google serves up the Google Earth Plug-in

The folks at Google have made a huge leap today, enabling developers to not only embed maps (via the maps API) into your website but now you can extend teh functionality of Google Earth to the web... sweet! This from the Google Lat/Long blog... "Today, I'm happy to announce the release of the new Google Earth Browser Plug-in, which brings the full power of Google Earth to the web, embeddable within your own web site. Driven by an extensive JavaScript API, you can control the camera; create lines, markers, and polygons; import 3D models from the web and overlay them anywhere on the planet. In fact, you can even overlay your content over different planets, stars, and galaxies by toggling Sky mode, letting you build 3D Google Sky mashups." The Google Earth Browser Plugin is now live at http://code.google.com/apis/earth.

GeoBC gateway to B.C's information via Google Earth

I was interested to notice that GeoBC is a sponsor of this year's GeoWeb conference. Even though I'm from BC (since departed) I wasn't familiar with the name. GeoBC is the Province's gateway to integrated Crown land and resource management data and information services. I can't recall what the BC Geo portal was knows as before this (it seems to change names quite often, as do the Ministries). Interesting to notice that Google Earth is very prominent and the service provides many KMLs to users, including the following layers: webmap services (streams, lakes, roads, contours, etc...), parks, and a tour of a peak on Vancouver Island. Check it out at http://geobc.gov.bc.ca/
Note: Data and information for the traditional GIS types is available HERE

Google Maps Directions Gets help with addition of Street Views

Are you a Google Maps directions fan? I know I couldn't get to and from our ball tournaments every week-end without them! Well now, users of this service will notice that Street View is integrated with directions. At each turning point in your list of directions you can now view a street view image of the intersection (if available). A nice touch to a very useful service. I know I could have used this a couple of weeks ago when I had written directions but had some confusion at an off-ramp. To use this feature simply ask for directions from Google Maps and click the little camera icon beside each drive segment.

DotHomes real estate map mashup incorporates Google Maps and Street View

DotHomes is yet another real estate mashup, however, this app (which I wasn't familiar with) has really harnessed the potential of the Google Maps API. It also answers the question, "What is Google going to do with all that street view imagery gathered from residential areas"? The app is simple but VERY effective for those searching for real estate. Simply search an area of interest, then when a hit comes up you toggle and view detailed info on individual listings bu clicking the familiar Google map bubble icons - I think a custom icon (like a little house) would make the app look much more professional. But here's what gets cool, users can click the "street" view option and get a view of the property as if they were standing outside, heck, you can even "walk" down the street! USers can also upload video of a property directly to the service! What a fine job on this one. Finally, the search service enables users to search using a slightly different criteria than most real estate portals as users can enter a simple string like "Denver, Co 4 bedroom under $350K" - See http://www.dothomes.com

Jaiku moving to Google App Engine

This interesting update comes via the Jaiku blog... Today we’re taking off our welding goggles to announce Jaiku will be one of the first apps to run on the new Google App Engine. See also www.jaiku.com

Pennsylvania Couple Sues Sues Google For Showing House On Street View - are you worried?

Google's Street View imagery (you know, the cool high-res 360 degree data collected by vehicles using Immersive Media technology) is still causing trouble... no doubt as the company now starts driving through residential areas gathering imagery the problems and complaints will continue. Now a couple in Pennsylvania is suing the company for showing their home to the world. According to this article the couple feels their privacy has been invaded. I'm not sure if they realize that the imagery isn't constantly updated and they aren't on a webcam! I just recent;y noticed that my town has been driven by the company and street view is now available on my street... big deal though! I asked myself, what's the big deal, what would people want with the imagery any way? For someone shopping for real estate this is going to be huge - no doubt real estate mashups will drool over this new imagery. But what else will people use the data for? Apparently unknown to the couple, Google does provide a request form to have your imagery removed. The couple should go and check out Zillow.com as they use Microsoft's imagery to display high-res oliques of pretty much any neighborhood... perhaps their lawyer should contact them as well! What about you? Are you concerned about having your house available to the world to see via street view?

nautical charts overlaid on Google maps

This is cool from NOAA... view raster nautical charts overlaid on Google maps... nice! See http://demo.geogarage.com/noaa/

Mashup tool - WebFOCUS for Google Maps

A new mashup developer tool for the enterprise... Information Builders today announced the release of WebFOCUS for Google Maps, the first rapid mashup application in the business intelligence market. WebFOCUS can drive what is displayed on a map, use location indicators to visually convey operational trends, and navigate the map from a related report to zoom in and out of critical areas. Users can leverage Google Maps to pre-filter and drill down to WebFOCUS reports containing all the details on one or more locations of interest. See http://www.informationbuilders.com/

Google mobile - reminder

A reminder about Google services for your mobile... Get Search, Maps, Gmail and more, designed especially for your mobile. See http://www.google.com/mobile/

London Profiler themes maps with freeware GMap (Google map) Creator

This interesting story comes out of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London courtesy of the BBC. Using a freeware app know as the Google Map Creator, a team of clever geographers has developed the the London Profiler website. According to the team, here you can visualise your neighbourhood's profile using different area classifications through the Google Map interface. All the themes have been created with GMap Creator. Think amazing, thematic mapping served up via google maps. About the application...
The Google Map Creator is a freeware application designed to make thematic mapping using Google Maps simpler. The application takes a shapefile containing geographic areas linked with attributes and automatically generates a working Google Maps website from the data. It does this by pre-creating all the necessary files and saving them into a directory. Publishing the map on the web is then just a matter of copying files onto a web server, allowing Google Maps to be used with the majority of ISPs. See http://www.londonprofiler.org/

City of Nanaimo, BC data via Google Earth KML

The city of Nanaimo BC, Canada has been very proactive in working with Google Earth and making their data holdings available to users of "Earth". See the following page for some of the data they have made available - see http://earth.nanaimo.ca/data.html

OutAlot local search Google mashup

Heads up, another cool, local search utility has hit the web - enter OutAlot. This clever Google map mashup is currently only providing information in New York (hopefully more places will be added soon). Use the app to search and locate food, movies, bars in the big apple. To test it I search for Food, then I was provided a lengthy list of food types (Indian, Italian, Dim sum etc...). I enter Indian and a lengthy list of relevant hits are displayed in a table and on the map. Click the icon and get more details of the selection. Users are invited to join so they can add places, comments, Bookmark favorite places, and add reviews... very nice. Kudos to the team for producing a very professional local search/mashup application.

FYI, Outalot is also available via most popular mobile devices (even iPhone, Nokia smartphones, etc...) simply point your mobile browser to outalot.com or wap.outalot.com. This cool local search utility comes to us from Seed Wireless, a startup company founded in 2007 and based in Brooklyn, NY.

See http://www.outalot.com

Lat Long Blog describes Google Sky update

The Google team has unveiled an update to Google sky with loads of goodies... notably (to me any way) the sky as seen by astronomers in the 17th century including overlays of Constellation maps from the David Rumsey collection and the U.S. Naval Library. And the big news in this update has got to be the availability of Sky, Moon and Mars imagery in the Google Maps API. This allows any developer to build interesting applications and websites using Sky imagery, and extend the Sky experience to any place on the web. Some early examples of these applications include the Cosmic Visibility page and even an iPod touch hack. WOW!

Search for Ron Boychuck using Google earth - SAR Observers Always Needed

You may have heard about InternetSAR when Steve Fossett disappeared... the resource helps to organize volunteers in an effort to sift through imagery using Google Earth in hopes of locating some clues that will help locate missing aircraft. In addition to still searching for Fossett InternetSAR has helped coordinate search efforts for missing Vancouver Island-based pilot Ron Boychuck. Here's how it works:

You must have Google Earth installed on your computer. After registering for free with InternetSAR.org, you'll be provided with an overlay -- basically a satellite picture of the area that was taken shortly after the suspected crash. Using your pan and zoom tools on Google Earth, you scan the terrain for anything that might be a plane, debris, or even severed treetops. If you spot something, with a click of a button you can compare what you've seen with a nearly identical picture of the area taken BEFORE the crash. If the post-crash picture is clearly different, you can report it to InternetSAR.org immediately. See http://internetsar.org

FrontDoor real estate Mashup from HGTV powered by Google Maps

Another fine real estate mashup is now available from the people at HGTV - enter Frontdoor.com (great name!) The site is well designed and provides a great mashup of real estate listings which is easy to navigate and has a great foundation created thanks to the use of the Google maps API to power the site's interactive mapping... once again a nice simple, functional resource that's easy to navigate and appears to do what you would expect... nice job! See http://www.frontdoor.com/