Exploring with Videos & Google Maps

VMAP

Exploring the world on Google Maps and being able to watch a video of the locations you discover is endlessly fascinating. One of the problems, however, of using the YouTube API to create a video map is that many of the geotagged videos on YouTube are of very poor quality. 

VMAP have decided therefore to crowdsource video selection for their map of videos about places. Registered users of VMAP help organise the video collection by adding videos to the map, adding tags to existing videos, and voting on the ones that deserve better visibility. This ensures that the videos are representative of their location and of good quality.

Users of the map can browse the videos by location and by category. It is also possible to view the most recently added videos.

It's Match Day on Google Maps

Google last week released some new Street View imagery captured by the Street View trike. Google Sightseeing have discovered that the trike visited the City of Manchester Stadium, home of English Premier League club Manchester City, on a match day.

The images seem to have been captured during the warm up for a game between Manchester City and local rivals Manchester United.


Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney.


Manchester City's Italian manager Roberto Mancini, with his back to the camera and sporting his Man City blue & white scarf.

Electric Vehicles App with Google Maps

Electric Vehicles App with Google Maps

Monday, March 07, 2011

PlugShare

I guess one of the biggest problems for an owner of an electric car is where to plug it in. PlugShare is an iPhone application for electric vehicles that can help drivers find places to charge their batteries.

The application uses Google Maps to show the nearby paid charging stations and also locations where you can recharge for free. The application itself is free from the App Store and looks like a must have app for any owners of electric vehicles.

Via: Techcrunch

View Cell Phone Coverage on Google Maps

OpenSignalMaps

OpenSignalMaps is a great source for data about cell phone towers, cell phone signal strength readings, and Wi-Fi access points around the world. OpenSignalsMaps uses Google Maps to allow you to view the mobile signal strength for any location and view the locations of nearby towers for your carrier.

Using the map you can search by location and view a heat map of the signal strength for each of the carriers available in your area. You can select to view the data of individual carriers and quickly see how their local coverage compares. It is also possible to view the cell tower locations for each of your local mobile phone service providers.

The data for the map is collected from users of the OpenSignalsMaps Android application. Data from the downloaded apps is stripped of any identifying information.

Root Metrics

Root Metrics allows you to compare the signal strength of different mobile phone carriers at different locations in the United States. You can search a Google Map by zip code or address to find the strength of coverage at any location.

The Root Metrics Google Map allows you to compare the signal strength of different mobile phone carriers. The map shows you each carrier's aggregate grade and the carrier's voice and data strength.

The Root Metrics iPhone app allows you to view the data from your mobile phone. Users of the app also contribute to the accuracy of the data shown. Data from downloaded apps is collected anonymously to track each carrier's performance.

French Open Data on Google Maps

État Civil Paris

Paris has created an open data portal called ParisData. Bluenove and Mapize have created a Google Maps mashup of the data for births, marriages and deaths in the 20 districts of the French capital for the years 2004 to 2009.

Using the map it is possible to view the number of births, marriages and deaths in each of Paris' districts. Visualising the data geographically presents some interesting results. For example, the number of deaths in the 15th arrondissement is far larger than in other districts.

Via: GeoinWeb

SIC

SIC is a Google Maps interface to explore open data from the French city of Rennes. Using SIC it is possible to select and view local points of interest on a map.

The application uses an interface optimised to be accessible from mobile phones. From the menu you can select from a number of points of interest, such as public buildings, parks, sports facilities and bike stands. It is also possible to view the points of interest by neighbourhood.

Crisis Mapping the Libyan Civil War

Libya Crisis Map

The UN OCHA’s Information Management unit in Geneva has asked the CrisisMappers Standby Task Force to provide a live map of reports of the current crisis in Libya generated from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and mainstream media sources.

The CrisisMappers Standby Task Force was established in response to the Haiti earthquake. The Task Force partners include CrisisMappers, CrisisCommons, Humanity Road, ICT4Peace, Open Street Map and MapAction.

The Libya Crisis Map uses the Ushahidi crowdsourced crisis reporting system to map the latest news from Libya, as gleaned from social media and traditional news sources. The map has also pulled in the data collected by Arasmus, who has been using Google My Maps to map Twitter reports from Libya.

If you want to learn more about CrisisMappers the Standby Task Force blog is very informative.

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The Sunday Best of Google Maps

Geographical applications and smartphones are a match made in heaven. It is no surprise then that this week's round-up of the best Google Maps mashups to feature on Google Maps Mania includes three smartphone apps.

First off, however, here's one for the desktop,

Wounded Rhymes

I think someone has passed a law that says when a singer or band release a new album they must promote it with Google Maps Street View.

Lykke Li is the latest singer to release a Street View app to help promote her new album. In this app you have to follow the directions to hear the next song on the album. Very clever!

Crowdbeacon

Crowdbeacon is a desktop and iPhone app that lets you ask location based questions of the crowd. For example, you could ask if there is anywhere to get good sushi nearby and get near real-time results.

Geoloqi

Geoloqi is an iPhone app with some great location sharing features. The features of Geoloqi include automatic Foursquare checkins and private real-time GPS tracking.

Perhaps Geoloqi's killer app is Geonotes. These let you add reminders at specific locations. For example, remind yourself to pick up milk and get the reminder when you pass the store.

Broadcastr

Broadcastr has created iPhone and Android applications that allow users to record geotagged audio stories. The recorded stories can then be browsed on a Google Map on the Broadcastr website.

Coupons on Google Maps

Daily deal websites are very hot right now. Recently Google failed in its attempts to buy Groupon. However Bing has successfully launched a big partnership with long Google Maps Mania favourite Dealmap.



Dealmap uses Google Maps to display all the best local deals, coupons and special offers. You can search the map by location and refine the results by a number of categories, including restaurants, shopping, hotels etc.

Bing's partnership with Dealmap means that you will now see deals on the homepage of m.bing.com. Using the DealMap database you will see daily deals and offers geared towards your location.

Dealmap has certainly been very successful. ProgrammableWeb report that Dealmap currently has "85 million monthly visitors, 36 commercial distribution partners ... and more than 280 developers using its API." It also says that "more than 11 million API queries per day (are) being handled by the DealExchange platform."

Dealmap is not the only daily deal website to be using Google Maps. 8couponsalso uses Google Maps to help you find all the deals from your neighborhood restaurants, bars, salons, and stores.



Using 8coupons you can search for deals by location and by type of deal. Like Dealmap, 8coupons also provides a developer API that allows other map developers to tap into its coupon and deals database.

MetroSeeq also helps you visually locate coupons gift certificates, deals, promotions and discounts on a Google Map. The site works in every city in the U.S.. MetroSeeq includes an interesting crowdsoucing feature that allows users to add deals.

Couponmap also lets you search over 370,000 coupons by city, state or zipcode on a Google Map. 

The Couponmap widget also allows you to add a deals map to your own website by cutting and pasting a short piece of code.

The Environmental Impact of Gas Extraction

Fractracker DataTool

Fractracker is a web-based data tool for tracking and visualizing data related to gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale region in the north-eastern U.S.. Using the tool it is possible to upload and visualise a number of data sets related to the Marcellus Shale region and the extraction of gas. Fractracker says to think of it as the 'Google Maps for gas extraction impacts'.

Using Fractracker it is possible to visualise the uploaded data sets on top of Google Maps. Fractraker is a great resource and tool for anyone interested in the environmental impact of gas extraction. The site already has a huge number of Google Map visualisations of the uploaded data. Here are just a couple:

Snapshot of Shale Plays in the U.S.
Shale Plays are geographic areas which have been targeted for exploration due to favorable geoseismic survey results for oil or gas. This Google Map shows the areas currently seen as Shale Plays in the United States.

Thickness of the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania

A Google Map showing the thickness of the Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania. The dataset shows the thickness in feet of the Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania based on data released by Piotrowski and Harper, 1979.

Friday Fun with Google Maps

Goldman Sachs Gets Reviewed

Some Google Maps reviews are more accurate than others.

Looking Into The Past Pictures

Historypin may have mastered the art of placing historical pictures on top of Google Maps Street View. Buzz Feed however have devised a more low-tech method of comparing historical photographs with the modern day.

This one has nothing to do with maps but I love these 75 shots of old photos manually placed over the same view today.

Isokron

Isokron are creating some great public transportation visualisations with Open Street Map. The video above shows the travel times in the French city of Rennes. It shows the travel times from the town hall in Rennes (using the subway and the bus) and how they evolve during a typical Monday.

If you want to see similar visualisations using Google Maps check out the magnificent Mapnificent

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