The wonderful world of Where 2.0

Posted by Jess Lee, Product Manager, Google Maps

The Where 2.0 conference was a blast. Here are the 3 coolest things I saw at Where 2.0 that didn't already get a whole ton of media coverage.

1) Platforms by Project Aphrodite -- They're platform shoes with GPS and video screens embedded in the heels. Includes a panic button that makes loud noise and a way to call 911. They're meant to protect sex workers from violence.




2) PigeonBlog -- An art project and grassroots scientific data gathering initiatve that uses homing pigeons equipped with air quality sensors to track pollution levels. You can track the pigeons' flights on a map. Did you know that pigeons can only carry 8% of their own weight?




3) Plundr -- A location-based pirate game played by people walking around the streets using a Nintendo DS or laptop. I'm really excited about the future of location-aware games on mobile devices. Imagine playing real-life World of Warcraft, where you go to specific real-world locations to complete quests and get points, similar to a scavenger hunt. Imagine all those pasty, unathletic WoW nerds (like me) going outside in the sunshine and getting some exercise!




See you at next year's Where 2.0!

Read More

Google to Purchase Panoramio

Posted by Brandon Badger, Product Manager

Great news for Google Earth sightseers: Google has agreed to purchase Panoramio, a website that links millions of photos with the exact location where they were taken. Read more about it on the Official Google Blog.

Read More

Introducing... Street View!

Posted by Stephen Chau, Product Manager

Here on the Google Maps team we constantly strive to make high-quality imagery of the world available to our users. Why? We know that providing rich, detailed maps better enables you to understand the world's geographic information.

Along those lines, I'm proud to announce that today we are launching a new feature that will further enhance your ability to understand the world through images -- Google Maps Street View. With Street View, you can virtually explore city neighborhoods by viewing and navigating within 360-degree scenes of street-level imagery. It feels as if you're walking down the street!

Here's a video showing Street View in action.

We're launching with imagery in San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Miami, and Denver. Expect many more city rollout announcements on Google Lat Long in the near future.

I hope you will try out Street View and let us know what you think. For starters, check out one of my favorite panoramas. Happy travels!

Read More

Mashup of Mashups

Posted by Thai Tran, Product Manager

In the two years since we originally released the Google Maps API, we have been continually impressed by all the innovative and interesting new applications that developers have built on top of our maps. One day we were looking at two of the original Google Maps mashups, HousingMaps.com and ChicagoCrime.org, and we realized it would be even more useful if they could be combined because most people wouldn't want to live near high crime areas. We also noticed that most of you were not aware that these great sites even existed.

These two realizations led us to create Mapplets, which are mini-applications that any developer can build on top of the Google Maps site -- essentially, these are embeddable mashups. You can then choose which of these Mapplets you want to see overlaid on the same map and combine them with the built-in features of Google Maps, like driving directions and business search. This lets you create your own mashups from the content that's most relevant to you. It also gives publishers a new channel to reach the millions of Google Maps users who are looking for their content.

We've released a special Developer Preview version of Google Maps that supports Mapplets at: http://maps.google.com/preview.

Mapplets are created from the mashup of the Google Gadgets API with the Google Maps API, so anyone who is already familiar with these can quickly create a Mapplet. For more information, please see this demo and the Mapplets developer documentation. We can't wait to see what new mashups our developer community will dream up and what old mashups will be reinvigorated by new exposure.

Read More

Transit Directions in San Diego and Reno

Posted by Joe Hughes, Software Engineer

We're happy to announce that we've just added schedules for San Diego, California's MTS and Reno, Nevada's RTC RIDE to Google Transit. Now we can help you figure out how to get from the airport to a conference in San Diego's Horton Plaza, or from lovely Balboa Park to picturesque cliffside dining in La Jolla's restaurant row. In Reno, if Oppio Park is too crowded, you can head across town to Idlewild Park. Or, if you happen to be at the mall, but would rather be at the craps table, we can show you that it's a quick ride to the casinos next to the train station.

We're working to bring you more transit data from around the world, so stay tuned!

Read More

The road not taken...

Posted by Barry Brumitt, Software Engineer

Do you prefer to avoid driving on major highways? Do you ride a scooter that can't travel at highway speeds? Or do you simply prefer to take the road less traveled? If so, Google Maps driving directions now has an "Avoid Highways" option for you.


When you click the the "Avoid Highways" checkbox, the route instantly updates to one that tries very hard to stay off of interstates, motorways, and other major roadways. This may give you a much longer path, but one that you may find more suitable. If it isn't what you want, you can uncheck the box and quickly revert to the normal route to help plan your trip.

A good example of such a route can be found here, from Seattle to Google's office in Kirkland. The route skips the I-90 and WA-520 floating bridges across Lake Washington, taking the scenic route around the lake through Juanita instead.

If you really have the time to take a different road through the yellow wood, you'll be glad to know the Avoid Highways option even works over long distances: an account of your backwoods journey from Vancouver, BC to Key West, FL would make a great My Map!

Read More

1-800-GOOG-411: Freedom With Speech

Posted by Arnaud Sahuguet, Product Manager

In case you hadn't heard, our mission at Google is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. The good thing about mission statements is that you can refer to them and decide where you need to go next. We've gotten a good start on our mission already... provided you have access to a computer with an internet connection, or a phone with SMS and some very nimble fingers.

But in order to start to reach some folks that don't have an internet connection and aren't SMS savvy, we started a new experimental service a few weeks ago. It's called Google Voice Local Search and can be accessed by calling 1-800-GOOG-411. Google Voice Local Search is a new way to access business information available in Google Maps. Just call our toll-free number, answer a few questions, and get to the information you need. If there's more than one answer, you can navigate among the results. Once you get to the result you like, you can either be connected (free of charge) directly to the number, ask for a text message with the number and address, or ask for more details. The text message even has a link to Google Maps so you can display it on your phone. At the moment this service is only available in English for US businesses.

User feedback will be critical in the development of this service, so we are looking forward to your comments and suggestions via email labs+goog411@google.com or on our Google Voice Local Search groups page.

Read More