Live Maps to Incorporate Birds Eye Into 3D Maps

At Searchification a couple of weeks back, the new features coming in Live Search Maps were shown for the first time to some press and bloggers in anticipation of the release. The bits are finally aligned and in the hands of our ops team for deployment this week. I'll have full coverage here as soon as the release is publicly accessible, so check back in a few days for that. for a peek at what's coming, I'll tell you about my favorite new feature - Birds Eye navigation in 3D. Why it's my favorite is hard to say; it might be because it appeals equally to both sides of my brain. on one hand it is a great bit of engineering excellence and on the other it is a work of interactive art that's just plain fun to use. For background, its important to understand the challenges of visualizing our Birds eye imagery in a seamless mosaic the way we are all used to looking at satellite imagery that looks straight down at earth. Since all of the images are shot from the same point of view, it's relatively easy to stitch them together in a convincing tapestry. There's still challenges like doing good color balancing across images and rectifying so that buildings in tall cities don't appear to butt heads, but these are pretty well understood problems. Birds eye images are a different story. because of the way they are captured, there is no easy way to stitch them at their edges without introducing nasty distortions. The result is that Birds eye imagery is viewed as discrete 'scenes' instead of 1 giant tapestry. when you navigate to the edge of the current scene, the most appropriate next scene is dynamically determined, then displayed. Since Birds eye imagery is captured from 4 angles, we have North, South, East and west views of each point on earth adding another dimension of complexity to navigation.

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Amazing Google Maps Closeups

A Google Maps trick allows people to zoom-in on locations much more closely. The screenshot on the right shows a zoom-in on a camel. You can see that same location here on Google Maps and if you move the map around you will find more camels and people. Google Blogoscoped explains how the super zoom-in works.

1. Select a location and switch to satellite view
2. Zoom in as far as you can, and click "link to this page" at the top right
3. Now replace the "z" parameter in the URL with a higher value, e.g. 20, 22, or 23, and wait. Some locations will now show more detailed imagery

The trick doesn't work everywhere but people have already found close zoom-ins of people at the beach. These super satellite closeups make create privacy issues if they are over people's private homes.

Posted on March 8, 2007
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Search Online Map Mashups with Mapshark

Mapshark is a search engine designed to let people search great online map websites (mashups). The site includes mashups for online map tools like Google Maps, Yahoo Maps and MSN Earth. Currently, Mapshark searches online maps in over 600 websites. Mapshark creator Andrew Mitton from Anchorage, Alaska credits sites like Google Maps Mania and ProgrammableWeb for helping him find great online map mashups. (via Google Blogoscoped)

Posted on January 18, 2007
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Microsoft Debuts Celeb Favorites

The Washington Post reports that Microsoft has launched CelebFavorites.com. The website shows the favorite places of celebrities using Windows Live Local.

If you've ever wondered where tennis star Anna Kournikova likes to get a pedicure when she's in Miami or asked yourself where New York Yankee Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez goes for Italian food in Manhattan, Microsoft has those answers.

The company yesterday launched a promotional Web site ( http://www.celebfavorites.com ) featuring Windows Live Local with an overlay of the favorite restaurants, bakeries, hotels, dance clubs and more from a handful of celebrities' hometowns. The map features "pinpoints" of those locations.

Click on the map for actress Eva Longoria, for example, and you'll see that she loves dining at Mi Tierra Cafe and Bakery, a 24-hour restaurant in San Antonio, and shopping at the River Center Mall.

For now, only a handful of celebrities are featured on the site but Angela Morrow, product manager for Windows Live Local, said the company is in negotiations with several more celebrities and plans to keep the site up for the next month or two to gauge its success in driving traffic to Windows Live Local, a rival to Google Maps.

The idea of the site is similar to the Gawker's recently launched Gawker Stalker, which lets people submit celebrity spottings. However, Microsoft's site just provides information about celebrity hangouts and homes -- it doesn't allow submissions about recent celebrity sightings. Actor George Clooney once suggested flooding Gawker Stalker with fake celebrity sightings to render it useless.

Posted on May 9, 2006
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Zillow Offers Real Estate Data Galore

Zillow is a new website that combines extensive real estate data with mashups of Google Maps. Users can search for an address or zip code and browse homes using satellite maps provided by Google. The graphic on the right shows a Zillow search in the 90210 zip code in Beverly Hill, Ca. The dollar amounts for each of the homes are listed and clicking on them brings up additional data about each home including home facts like year built, number of rooms, sq ft. as well as a chart that shows how the home's value has changed over the past ten years. Zillow does not charge fees to access the information. More information about Zillow can be found here and here.

Posted on February 22, 2006
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Rooftop Ads Target Users of Mapping Tools

A post on MIT's Advertising Lab blog discusses how people are finding ads on rooftops that can be seen with satellites and maping tools like Google Maps -- like this strategically placed Target ad.

Advertisers are slowly discovering the potential of Google Maps, and some, like the Target store above (more at Google Sightseeing), are even enjoying some unexpected windfall. Poynter Online talks about realtors tapping into satellite imaging tools. Google Maps Mania is running a log on map hacks, some of them by businesses. Scavengeroogle is an armchair scavenger hunt based on the service - you too can have people looking for your brand landmark (like, again, the Target stores).

The future of advertising may be very different as advertisers try to reach web surfers in new and interesting ways. (Via Adrants and Boing Boing)

Posted on January 19, 2006
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Amazon Expands A9 Map Service

A9 has improved its mapping technology called A9 Maps. The service combines maps and driving directions from Mapquest with A9's BlockView feature. BlockView images show photographs of streets and buildings so A9 users can get a better idea of what a restaurant or service looks like. A9 users can also move up and down streets with BlockView as they use the right and left arrows to view photographs of different buildings.

Posted on November 21, 2005
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Personalize Maps With Wayfaring

Wayfaring is a website that allows you to create maps based on Google Maps that are personalized with your own favorite places. You can also look at maps others have created. For example, there is a San Francisco Golfers Map as well as personal maps like Will's map of places where he likes to drink beer and a UCLA student's map of her classes. When you create a map you can place notes and tags on the map and then share it with others when you are done. This page contains a list of some of Wayfayer's features.

Posted on November 16, 2005
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New Yahoo Maps Beta Available

Yahoo has a beta version available for the next upgrade to Yahoo Maps. The new version includes more draggable and zoomable features including a box, called an overview map, that contains a smaller version of the map that can be used to quickly zoom in and out. Yahoo announced the beta in a post on the Yahoo! Search blog. Here are some of the features they noted.

Multi-point driving directions. Get yourself from point A to B and on to C all in one map.

Integrated Yahoo! Local. Includes our local search, a browseable interface, easy access to business ratings, reviews, and events.

The new overview map (in the upper-right hand corner) helps you get your bearings. The little grey box representing your big map is even drag-able. Use it to move around rapidly without losing context.

The beta launch also includes some new APIs for mapping mash-up enthusiasts. These are also described in the blog post mentioned above.

Posted on November 14, 2005
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Placeopedia Matches Wikipedia Articles With Places

Placeopedia is a service that connects Wikipedia articles with places by pinpointing their locations on a Google Maps overlay. Surfers can search for a specific location or press the random button to be taken to a random place. There is also an option to add a new location to Placeopedia. (Via B2Day)

Posted on October 9, 2005
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MSN Launches Virtual Earth

Microsoft has launched MSN Virtual Earth a detailed online satellite mapping service. Like Google Maps, Virtual Earth provides both road maps and aerial photos of the destination being viewed. You can also scroll along the map which is very helpful for someone trying to figure out directions. A "scratch pad" is provided that helps you store some of your previous searches. The service also includes the Virtual Earth URL application programming interface (API) so you can add Virtual Earth maps and local search results to your Web applications.

Posted on July 26, 2005
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Blog Covers Google Maps Hacks

A new blog called Google Maps Mania has launched to covering to growing trend of hacking Google maps. Many websites are taking advantage of Google Maps API to launch new services that help people locate everything from cheap gas prices to place to eat. Recent Google Maps Mania posts include websites using Google Maps for locating rock concerts, finding sex offenders and tracking Hurricane Dennis in the Gulf of Mexico. (Via Search Engine Herald)

Posted on July 8, 2005
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Google Launches Google Earth

Search Engine Watch reports that Google has launched its Google Earth search tool. Google Earth combines local search tools with maps and satellite images.

Google Earth is a standalone application that's essentially an enhanced and upgraded version of its Keyhole 3D satellite imagery product. As Google has done with several of its past acquisitions, the company has also made the application free to all users, dropping its annual subscription fee for the basic version. Google Earth Plus with additional features will cost $20 per year.

Google Earth is a desktop application that needs to be downloaded from the Google website or order to work. Google says it works on both PCs and MACs, but that older machines, or a notebook computer that does not have 3D graphics capabilities, may not be able to run the application. Here is some information about just how detailed the 3D mapping tool is from Google Earth's faq:

Are there cities covered in detail worldwide? Or just in the US?

The whole world is covered with medium resolution imagery and terrain data. This resolution allows you to see major geographic features and man-made development such as towns, but not detail of individual buildings. Additional high-resolution imagery which reveals detail for individual buildings is available for most of the major cities in the US, Western Europe, Canada, and the UK. 3D buildings are represented in 38 US cities (the major urban areas). Detailed road maps are available for the US, Canada, the UK, and Western Europe. And Google Local search is available for the US, Canada, and the UK.

Posted on June 29, 2005
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Google Hackers Find Multiple Uses for Google Maps

Google hackers is a name for people that use search results from Google's various services to create interesting new web features. There are even books out on the subject like Google Hacks. CNN has an Associated Press article about some people who have been manipulating data from Google Maps. They include Adrian Holovaty who used it to create a map of crimes in Chicago. A website called Floridasexualpredators.com combines Google Maps with data about local sex offenders. Cheap Gas grabs data from gasbuddy.com and Google Maps to show cheap gas prices nationwide. And Housingmaps.com combines Google Map data with listings from Craiglist to offer information about home prices and locations.

Posted on June 10, 2005
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Google Plans 3D City Maps

Siliconvalleywatcher.com reports that Google Maps plans to go 3D by using trucks equipped with photographic equipment. The project will include major US cities beginning with San Francisco:

Google plans to use trucks equipped with lasers and digital photographic equipment to create a realistic 3D online version of San Francisco, and eventually other major US cities.

The move would trump Amazon's A9 service, which offers two-dimensional photos of buildings on US city streets.

The trucks would drive along every San Francisco street using the lasers to measure the dimensions of buildings, to create a 3D framework onto which digital photos can be mapped. This would complement the mostly top-down view of San Francisco available through Google's Keyhole satellite photo application.

The online mapping services battle expanded last week when Microsoft announced plans to launch an online satellite mapping service called MSN Virtual Earth later this summer.

Posted on June 9, 2005
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MSN To Launch Virtual Earth This Summer

Microsoft has announced plans to launch MSN Virtual Earth this summer, an online satellite mapping tool that will compete with Google Maps. Search Engine Watch reports that MSN Virtual Earth will offer the following features:

Satellite images with 45-degree-angle views of buildings and neighborhoods

Satellite images with street map overlays

Ability to add local data layers, such as showing local businesses or restaurants

Posted on June 5, 2005
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Blog Uses Google Maps to See the World

A recently launched blog called Google Sightseeing looks at tourist spots and interesting locations using Google Maps' new satellite tool. Google Sightseeing is brought to you by Alex, James and Olly. As the tagline on Google Sightseeing says, "Why bother seeing the World for Real?" Some of recent discoveries on Google Sightseeing include Mall of America, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and Churchill Downs. You can also find specific locations Google Sightseeing has visited using the All Posts by Locality index.

Posted on May 14, 2005
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Google Adds Satellite Map Feature

Google has expanded its Google Maps service to include satellite images. People using the map search tool can now also zoom in on locations with satellite images from Keyhole Corp., a company Google acquired last year. News.com describes how the service works: "The new satellite feature allows consumers to get an aerial photo snapshot of the location for which they are searching. People can enter an address and click on the 'Satellite' link to view an area, zoom in or see neighboring locations by moving the cursor."

Posted on April 8, 2005
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Google Launches Google Maps

Google has launced Google Maps, an innovative online map service that includes draggable maps and a slider that lets you zoom in and out. When you are getting direction Google Maps provides a floating bubble with a magnified view of the area mentioned in the directions. And it is also searchable. If you type in "pizza in pittsburgh" Google Maps will show you pizza restaurants in Pittsburgh, PA. Google Maps is currently in Beta mode.

Posted on February 10, 2005
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Amazon Launches Street View Yellow Pages

A9.com, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. , has launched A9.com Yellow Pages, a new service that helps users find and discover local businesses in a new way. The technology A9.com invented shows a street view of businesses and their surroundings. Websurfers can see real footage of the business and streets. For example, you can see a photograph of the Domino's or Pizza Hut you are about to order from.

Posted on February 1, 2005
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