Good data drives transit directions

Posted by Joe Hughes, Software Engineer

I'm happy to say that we've just added public transit directions for Perth, Australia, Białystok, Poland, and New Jersey Transit to Google Maps. Australia and Poland now join eight other countries where Google offers trip planning and detailed transit schedules in select cities.

Transperth's Oren Vandersteen announced the Perth launch over at the Google Australia blog, and it was gratifying to hear how simple he found the process:

"To my surprise, I was able to produce a valid Transit Feed for testing that same day! The Google Transit Feed Specification that Google had defined was simple enough that I was able to easily translate our schedule information into the required data feed."

The Google Transit Feed Specification (or GTFS) is one of my projects at Google. It's a community-developed format for sharing the transit information that riders care about. GTFS grew out of our initial work with TriMet and the other early Google Transit partners, and it continues to be developed by a community of transit agency engineers and independent software developers.

The goal of this open format is to make it as easy as possible for transit agencies to publish up-to-date official schedules and route maps in a machine-readable form, so that sites like Google can inform people about the transit options in their area. Many people don't realize how convenient and cost-effective their local transit services can be, and tools like Google Maps transit directions can help people discover how transit could work for them.

The GTFS format is published under the Creative Commons Attribution license, which means that anyone is free to use or extend the format. In fact, an unprecedented number of agencies are now making their transit information—the exact same information that Google Maps uses—available to all developers in this form. I've already seen very creative things built using these public feeds, and I hope that they will continue to enable innovative new transit applications.

For our part, we're still working with lots more agencies to bring even more detailed transit information to you, and we've got several other exciting things up our sleeves for this year - so stay tuned!

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Street View: expanding our horizons

Posted by Bradley Bossard, Software Engineer

Just over a month ago, we brought you a dozen new cities in Street View, and now I'm excited to say we're topping that. We've added imagery for 13 new metropolitan areas - and a national park! We have expanded our coverage in 6 of our existing cities. Among the new areas are:

• Albuquerque, NM
• Anchorage, AK
• Austin, TX
• Cleveland, OH
• Fairbanks, AK
• Little Rock, AR
• Madison, WI
• Nashville, TN
  
• Rockford, IL
• Richmond, VA
• Spokane, WA
• St. Petersburg, FL
• Tampa, FL
• Yosemite National Park, CA

Now you can visit landmarks like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH:


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And did you know that there's a full-scale replica of the Parthenon in Nashville?


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Taking a look at the famous El Capitan in Yosemite National Park can inspire (or intimidate!) you as you prepare for a hike:

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In addition to these 14 new areas, we've expanded our coverage in Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Now you can visit the majestic Redwoods — try panning up to get the full effect:


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Remember, Street View images like the ones above can easily be embedded in websites and blogs, so go ahead and share your favorites. And for the developers out there, Street View is now a part of the Google Maps API!

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A fitting send-off

Posted by Andy Connolly, Visiting Faculty, University of Washington

As Stefan Geens noted on Ogle Earth, the sky can provide real fireworks. In this case, one of the most powerful explosions ever witnessed happened to be timed to provide a wonderful salute to the passing of Arthur C Clarke earlier this month. The gamma ray burst, GRB 080319B, is situated in the middle of the Bootes constellation and is the most luminous burst recorded in the 40 years that satellites have been detecting gamma ray bursts. In fact, it was so intense that the optical component of the explosion was even visible to the naked eye.

Stefan created a KMZ file for GRB 080319B that overlays follow-up images of the sky taken just 20 seconds after the gamma rays were detected. Load the file in Sky in Google Earth and you can compare the before images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which were taken a couple of years ago, with the optical flash from the gamma ray burst to see the dramatic brightening. Stefan crafted these overlays himself, but with a network link, it is possible to stream images and announcements of events in real time and share them with anyone around the world. Alternatively, if you find something interesting in Sky in Google Maps, just click "Link to this page" right above the map and post the link for others to view. Imagine harnessing all of the small telescopes in the world to follow up any unusual event instantaneously by announcing them on Sky — from Earth crossing asteroids to supernovae to gamma ray bursts. That would make the largest astronomical observatory ever seen!

The VOEventNet layer in Sky is a prototype for this sort of service. It uses live feeds from the Gamma-ray Burst Coordination Network to give the burst location and information on the latest detections and from the GRBlog to provide details from follow-up observations. Like all gamma ray bursts, the initial detection of GRB 080319B was reported in VOEventNet. Science never sleeps, so researchers have moved on to the next set of detections, looking for the next observation that will give astronomers insight into the physics that powers these massive explosions in deep space.

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Plant a geotagged tree in Borneo with your name on it!

Posted by Tanya Keen, Google Earth Outreach

According to Google Earth Outreach partners the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), areas the size of six football fields are cut down every two minutes in Borneo's rainforest due to illegal logging. To counteract this, the intrepid folks at WWF have a plant-a-tree campaign where you can donate a small amount for them to plant an actual sapling in the Sebangau National Park in Borneo, Indonesia. Follow the adorable animation at mybabytree.org, select how many trees you want to plant, and in return you'll get a KML file with the location of your tree in Google Earth. You can even choose which of three tree species you would like them to plant.

To learn more about WWF's seven other conservation programs in Borneo, or to see all of their programs worldwide, open the WWF Conservation Projects layer in the Global Awareness folder in Google Earth.

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How do you read a map?

Posted by Jeff Martin, Product Marketing Manager

Well, on a new Penguin Publishing site, you read it like a book. The text of select stories is literally displayed on maps. The site promises "Six authors. Six stories. Six weeks." The first is a short story by Charles Cumming entitled "21 Steps," inspired by the John Buchan novel The 39 Steps. And you can read chapters, snippets, and dialogue on a map of London. The interactive map guides you through the protagonist's travels, revealing the next chapter of the story as you--and she--reach the destination. Visualizing the connection of the story to its physical setting expands the reader's perspective and makes the story more palpably real.

Foreshadowing is a common writer's device. Could it be that this site foreshadows the emergence of a new literary medium? The end of this story is a long way from being written.

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A match made in Washington

Posted by Brittany Bohnet, Google Elections Team

You may have noticed that the Google Maps team is pretty interested in politics. On the flip side, we've discovered a politician who is enthusiastic about maps. Senator Ben Nelson has been creating My Maps to communicate and connect with his Nebraska constituents. He has made maps to share photos, videos, and insight from a trip to Iraq; to showcase attractions in Nebraska; and to highlight the volunteer work that students statewide are doing over spring break. Read more about his innovative use of maps on the Public Policy Blog.

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International radar updates in Google Earth

Posted by Cris Castello, GIS Data Engineer

With spring approaching, weather watchers will surely be looking forward to thunderstorm season and storm chasing, aided by the weather layers that we added to Google Earth a few months back. You may remember that it was only available in the US at the time, but I'm excited to let you know that we've now gone international, as promised! We've again partnered with weather.com to add near real-time radar coverage to Google Earth in the following areas: Europe, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.

To enable radar, simply check the appropriate checkbox in the "Weather" folder:

Happy storm chasing!

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Mapping March Madness

Posted by Adam Hughes, Google Earth Senior Strategist and College Hoops Fan

With all due respect to Santa, March Madness is actually the most wonderful time of the year. Or at least it is to me, and all the college hoops fans out there. To celebrate this most joyous week of basketball nirvana, I've decided to visit the home arenas of the field of 65 in Google Earth and make a KML that maps their locations.

Why, you ask? Well, I had a bunch of questions about the teams and where they were from, and realized that the best way to learn all about them was to look at a map:

1) Where do the University of Texas-Arlington Mavericks play their home games?
2) Of the "Big Five" schools in Philadelphia, where are the three located that made the tourney this year?
3) How close is St. Mary's College to Mount St. Mary's?

We hope visiting the arenas in Google Earth will get you pumped for filling out your bracket.

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Google for non-profits

Posted by Steve Miller, Google Earth Outreach

As a part of our Google Earth Outreach efforts, we speak with a number of organizations about the important role that maps can play in non-profit communication strategies and internal planning. But mapping tools aren't the only way to put Google technology to work for you — over the past year a number of our teams have made their products more relevant and useful for non-profits. You can now find out about all of these offerings in one place on the new Google for Non-Profits site, complete with examples, project ideas, and tips on getting started. To learn more, check out the announcement on the Official Google Blog.

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It's your world. Map it.

Posted by Ramesh Balakrishnan, Software Engineer

We realize that you know your neighborhood best. So to provide the most accurate maps possible, Google Maps is open to user edits. People have moved markers of their homes and businesses all around the U.S. and Australia, making Maps work even better.

And so we thought: Why stop there? Moving placemarks is just scratching the surface. After all, when a new place opens in your neighborhood or an old favorite changes its location, wouldn't be nice to have that change reflected on Maps immediately?

Now in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, you can log into your Google account to edit a place on the map. You can even mark that a business has closed to save someone an extra trip. Of course, we've taken steps to help protect accuracy -- for example, you'll still be able to see the original listing information along with the history of changes made. This video shows you how to get started:

Beyond editing existing information on the map, you can also add new places. If you search for a business, a landmark, or even a point of interest that doesn't already appear on Google Maps, you can add it for the world to see. Within a few seconds, your addition will be searchable by everyone. Missing your neighborhood soccer field? A favorite monument downtown? A newly opened clothing store? It's your world... you know best what needs to be mapped. Here's how:

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March vector updates in Google Earth

Posted by Carmen Erni, GIS Specialist

Are you already planning your summer vacation? The new Google Earth updates can help you map out your plans. We've added roads in 58 countries in Africa, 32 in Asia, and 4 in the Caribbean -- now both Maps and Earth provide the same roads coverage.

We've also launched business listings layers for Brazil and a few cities in Russia to help you find the right restaurant or bank, for example, in case you crave a special type of food or you run out of cash. And traveling through Russia is even easier, thanks to the fact that the balloons have Cyrillic or Latin-transliterated addresses (depending on the language of your desktop), so now you can read and pronounce your hotel's address.

The New Zealand tourism board also provided Google with detailed information on New Zealand airports, so planning a trip to Kiwi Land is easier than ever. You'll find the New Zealand airports layer under the New Zealand Tourism layer group inside the Gallery folder.

And last but not least, virtually fly to your destination and read interesting new Wikipedia articles and look at new Panoramio pictures. You have the choice of over 4 million pictures worldwide, with more added every day.

Have (even more) fun.

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Organizing more than one world's information

Posted by Michael Weiss-Malik, Software Engineer

We like to think big. Vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big (to paraphrase one of my favorite authors). And thanks to the flexibility of Google Maps technology and the world wide web, we’ve been able to work at a universal scale (literally). We first brought you Google Mars and Google Moon. And then last year's release of Sky in Google Earth delivered night sky imagery to the masses via a downloadable application. But we didn’t want web-based users to be left out of that cosmic exploration experience.

And so I'm delighted to announce the launch of the web version of Google Sky, which turns your browser into a virtual telescope that can zoom and pan across the entire cosmos. You now have several ways to easily explore the universe:

• Powerful search that lets you browse tens of thousands of named objects.
• Three optical sky surveys that show you what your naked eye would see if it had a really good zoom lens. Try switching to infrared, microwave, ultraviolet, or x-ray to see the sky in a completely different light. Or blend between these views to create unique visualizations on the fly.
  
• Galleries highlighting the best images from Hubble and many other telescopes.
  
• Current planet positions and constellations.
  
• Overlays of custom KML content. (Simply paste a Sky KML URL into the search box, just like on Google Maps.)
  
• Last but not least, the Earth & Sky podcasts gallery is not to be missed, particularly for those who run a classroom.

All of this is accessible from any web browser, on any operating system, with no extra download required. And since staring up at the cosmos is an experience shared across the globe, we decided to make Google Sky truly worldwide, with 26 localized language editions (this marks our first Maps product to support right-to-left languages). Just visit sky.google.com to get started.

This release wouldn't have been possible without a lot of hard work from many people, including some outside of Google. Check out one team member's unique story on the Official Google Blog.

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The Google Transit Earth Day challenge

Posted by Tom Sly, New Business Development Manager, Google Transit

I recently attended a conference for technical staff in the public transportation industry. I told them about the great progress Google Transit has been able to make in the past year:

• integrating transit information directly into Google Maps by making stations and stops visible and clickable
• promoting transit as an alternative each time we show driving directions in an area where we have transit data
• expanding coverage from nine agencies in the U.S. to more than 30 agencies spanning three continents

But, of course, we don't do this on our own: we rely on transit agencies to share their data with us so that everyone — residents, tourists, and lifetime riders — can benefit from having the information at their fingertips. Taking public transport is a great option for people to reduce their impact on global warming, so I issued a challenge to those at the conference: get your agency up and running on Google Maps in time for April 22, 2008 — better known as Earth Day.

We've already had several agencies get in touch with us, but with over 200 agencies in the U.S. alone, we still have a lot of ground to cover. So now I'd like to extend this challenge to everyone: if your local agency isn't already participating, get in touch with them and let them know that you'd like to see their information on Google Maps.

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Got 3D data?

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

I'm pleased to announce that we've just launched the Google Cities in 3D Program, which invites cities, towns, and other local governments to share their 3D data with the public by adding a model of their city to Google Earth. With this new program we've made it simple for local governments to share their data with us and be included in the 3D Buildings layer of Google Earth.

A 3D model of a city is extremely useful to potential visitors, developers, investors, preservationists, property owners, businesses, public officials, and many other groups. By establishing a 3D representation of a city on Google Earth, local governments can more effectively engage the public and boost tourism by enabling prospective visitors to plan their visit in advance.

Prior to today, local governments could publish 3D building models to Google Earth via the Google 3D Warehouse. This new program expands on that approach and provides a more direct and efficient means of publishing larger datasets to Google Earth.

The Cities in 3D Program represents a continuation of our efforts to engage with content providers, including government agencies, and provide them with tools for making the information they produce more accessible to Internet users. Visit our website to watch a video highlighting the power of 3D!

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Off to the races

Posted by Brittany Bohnet, Google Elections Team

As many poll-watchers know, this year's race for U.S. President is one of the closest in elections history. Today's primary races have the ability to change the course for both the Democratic and the Republican nominees.

To make it easier to track all the action, we've decided to mash up all of the voting information that's out there to create one mapping platform for elections results -- all the way down to the precinct level. Every state's voting data has been integrated into one comprehensive map. Included in the map are results for all states that have already held their elections, as well as information about the primaries to come. To use the map, select a state and view results by party, by candidate, or even by precinct.

Tonight, we will be publishing live results from Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont, complete with total delegate counts by candidate so that you will be first to know the outcome of such important results.

Rather watch the map from your own website? Embed this map into any page on the web and keep tabs on the outcome.

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Finding that free space

Posted by Lei Zhang, Software Engineer

I live in Santa Monica, so I've spent a lot of time driving around parking lots going in circles looking for an available space. If you live in a metropolitan area, you know how hard finding a parking spot can be. Don't you wish you knew which lots had available spaces ahead of time?

Google has just teamed up with Santa Monica's Information Systems Department to provide real-time data from the city's parking lots. Now, before I head out the door I can check the Parking Information Mapplet and know exactly where I can expect to find a space waiting for me. Adding the Mapplet takes just a few clicks. With it enabled, you can find the locations of Santa Monica's city-operated parking lots and get up to the minute information on how many free spaces they have. With this new tool in hand, we hope you'll spend a lot less time in the parking lot!


I also hope that this mapplet will inspire others to think of new and interesting ways to use Mapplets to communicate real-time information.

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