Great Mapplets can come from anyone, anywhere. Expedia.com.au recently launched a Mapplet to help you find and compare hotels and attractions for destinations across the world. Read more about the Mapplet on our Google Australia Blog and learn how you can easily plan your next trip. Maybe I'll see you in Australia soon!
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Great Mapplets can come from anyone, anywhere. Expedia.com.au recently launched a Mapplet to help you find and compare hotels and attractions for destinations across the world. Read more about the Mapplet on our Google Australia Blog and learn how you can easily plan your next trip. Maybe I'll see you in Australia soon!
Street View lets you virtually behold amazing sights like Yosemite's El Capitan and The World's Largest Rocking Chair without ever leaving your computer. But if you're like me, occasionally you need to go somewhere in real life. And it's not always easy to find your way around an unfamiliar place. To help with this, we've been hard at work integrating Street View into the driving directions feature of Google Maps so that now you can preview your route before hitting the road.
Look for the camera icons next to your directions — the camera means that Street View is available at the intersection:
Click the camera icon and you'll be transported to that intersection, with a giant arrow showing you what to do:
You can follow the arrows to explore along your route, previewing things like landmarks, speed limits, and road conditions. Take a look at this video to see it in action and hear about other helpful uses of Street View's integration with driving directions:Monday, 28 April 2008
Reno, Nevada has been shaking things up the past few weeks with a series of frequent earthquakes. The Reno Gazette-Journal has been keeping tabs on the activity with a My Map they've put on their website. Looking at this map is pretty interesting, because the pattern of the earthquakes looks like it's following a faultline. I've also been keeping an eye on the action with the USGS real-time earthquakes Mapplet and Google Earth layer. Now let's just hope I don't see any activity in the Bay Area popping up!
Thursday, 24 April 2008
My Maps has proven to be a popular way for news sites to show their viewers where the news is happening as it is happening, since a map can easily be embedded in a website and edited as news develops. Recently, we heard from a producer at CBS in Chicago, who has created a My Map with information to help keep residents informed about the spate of shootings that have taken place in the city recently.
Some other recent news stories with embedded maps that caught my eye include a map about the Pope's visit to New York in Newsday, locations of US food banks for a PBS story on hunger in America, and the carbon footprint of the Olympic torch for a Slate story.
The notion of feeling connected to a place, even one thousands of miles away, is one of the things I love best about Google Earth. Places that were once mysterious and inaccessible are now being made accessible for anyone to virtually visit.
Our planet has many stories to tell, and bringing storytellers together via Google Earth can help us to feel connected to a remote place. The International Center for Integrated Mountain Development have put their knowledge and understanding of the Himalaya region into a KML (a Hima-layer, if you will!) to create an enchanting tour of the Mount Everest landscape, sharing their stories with us.
This spring, the Eco Everest Expedition team will ascend Mount Everest and in tandem with moments of challenges, triumph and experiences that will never be forgotten, members will conduct scientific experiments to study the impact of climate change on glacial features within the expedition extent. In exploring this KML, which is featured on the Google Earth Outreach Showcase, you will discover videos, photographs, modeling and up to the date "Dispatches" as they happen so you too can feel a part of the expedition - all from the comfort and oxygen-rich environment of your own home!
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
(Cross-posted at Official Google Blog)
As you know, the Democratic primary is coming down to the wire, and American voters are following each set of state results more closely than ever before.
We wondered what would make the difference in the tight Pennsylvania primary—and what those results might indicate about the rest of the primary process and the general election. So we turned to numbers-cruncher Jim Barnes from the National Journal and asked him to weigh in on different sets of demographic data. Jim helped us set up an embeddable Google Map comparing different essential factors for the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania.
As you’re watching the results from this race on April 22, there are five things to look for—and they have interesting implications for the general election in November:
Age. Barack Obama has generally drawn more support from younger voters while Hillary Clinton’s base has come from older voters. With 15.2 percent of its overall population aged 65 or older, Pennsylvania has the third biggest population of seniors in the country after Florida and West Virginia. The candidate who does a better job turning out this core age group could take a big step towards winning the primary. Take a look at the percentages of registered Democrats by age bracket.
Democratic primary in the 2002 gubernatorial race. In 2002, then-Pennsylvania State Auditor General Bob Casey Jr. lost the Democratic gubernatorial primary to then-Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell, who went on to capture the statehouse. Casey carried 57 of the state’s 67 counties in that primary, but Rendell won the contest because of his strength in the southeastern part of the state, specifically the four suburban and exurban counties outside of Philadelphia—Bucks, Delaware, Chester and Montgomery—where he carried more that 80 percent of the vote. In the Democratic presidential race, Rendell has endorsed Clinton, and Casey is backing Obama. Whether Rendell can help Clinton hold down Obama’s margins in the Philadelphia area, where he is still popular, or Casey can give Obama a boost among his political base in western, central and northeastern Pennsylvania could be pivotal in this primary’s outcome. Here are county-by-county results for the 2002 Democratic primary for governor.
Geography and growth. Based on the results seven weeks ago for the primary next door in Ohio, Clinton should be favored in the Keystone State, but Pennsylvania is more diverse state in terms of its patterns of growth. It has rural and metropolitan areas that are losing population, and fast-growing exurbs. For Obama to do well, he must win not only in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but also in some of the faster-growing parts of the state. Track the rate of population growth in Pennsylvania counties from 2000-2007.
Race. Obama has had some difficulty winning a significant share of support from white voters in most of the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, but at the same time he has dominated Clinton in regard to the African-American vote in these contests. Here is the racial breakdown of Pennsylvania's 67 counties.
Religion. Obama and Clinton recently participated in a forum on issues of faith that was held at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. So far in this primary season, Sen. Obama has done well among Democratic primary voters who identify as Protestants and other denominations, but lagged among Catholics. Review the data on religious adherence by county.
As technology continues to be an influential part of this race for President, we hope you can use this map to gain a better understanding about which factors are causing Pennsylvania citizens to cast their vote. Try using the data to make your own predictions for the Pennsylvania outcome, then check if you're right by following live results tonight on Google Maps.
A few months ago, we issued a challenge to public transit agencies: get your routes into Google Maps in time for Earth Day. The response has been incredible, and now that Earth Day has arrived, we've got some great news to share: we have nine new agencies across the country participating in Google Transit!
We're excited to welcome the following agencies:
Living in San Francisco, I'm especially excited about the addition of Muni to the lineup of participating Bay Area transit agencies, which also includes BART, Caltrain, and VTA. It's now easier than ever to plan trips across the region using multiple local transit agencies -- I can head from the de Young Museum in San Francisco over to the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, easily making connections across agencies. No car needed!
Our goal is to be able to offer transit directions as an alternative to driving directions wherever possible. If your local transit agency isn't already participating, do your part for Earth Day by getting in touch with them and telling them you'd like to see them on Google Maps!
We're excited to welcome the following agencies:
- San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
- Regional Transportation District (Denver/Boulder, CO)
- Kansas City Area Transportation Authority
- Milwaukee County Transit System
- Macatawa Area Express (Holland, MI)
- Ann Arbor Transportation Authority
- Rhode Island Public Transit Authority
- MetroWest Regional Transit Authority (Framingham, MA)
- Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority
Living in San Francisco, I'm especially excited about the addition of Muni to the lineup of participating Bay Area transit agencies, which also includes BART, Caltrain, and VTA. It's now easier than ever to plan trips across the region using multiple local transit agencies -- I can head from the de Young Museum in San Francisco over to the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, easily making connections across agencies. No car needed!
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