Google Sky & Chromeless Videos
We don't nearly see enough maps created with the amazing Google Sky. Here is my latest effort, and it's pretty impressive, even if I do say so myself.
This Sky Map overlays a number of celestial animations on top of Google Sky. I've used the YouTube API to show the videos in a chromeless player. The effect is pretty cool, creating an almost seamless overlay of the video on the map.
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Google's oblique aerial view imagery has now been added by default to maps created with the Google Maps API. When 45° imagery is available a submenu option is added to the Maps API Satellite button. In three weeks time aerial view, where available, will automatically become the default satellite view, as it is in the main Google Maps website.
You can see the cities where 45° imagery is currently available on this map.
In addition to the new 45° imagery an Overview Map Control is being added to maps created with the Google Maps API v3. This Overview Map Control is the small interactive thumbnail map you can see on the bottom right of Google Maps.
The addition of the Overview Map Control is the latest in some nice subtle changes Google have added to the design of Google Maps created with the API. Recently Google also changed the Google logo in API maps to a white logo instead of the usual multi-coloured logo and the buttons have also been made a lot more attractive.
Via: Google Geo Developers Blog
Gatorade Maps
Here's a nice idea from the sports drink Gatorade. The company have created a useful Google Map to help Brazilian's find their nearest sports facilities.
Using the map it is possible to find the nearest gyms, sports centres, walks and bike routes around a location. You can filter the results by location and by the type of sporting activity you are interested in.
To promote Gatorade the map also displays the nearest retail outlets that sell the sports drink.
Ragtag Map of Wikipedia Articles
The Ragtag blog has created a Google Map of every Wikipedia page tagged with a latitude and longitude. 424,171 articles in Wikipedia have been geotagged. You can see the geographical distribution of the articles in the heat map above.
Ragtag were also able to find 14,238 historical events that were geotagged on Wikipedia. By plotting the events by year and location Ragtag have managed to create a dynamic visualisation that gives a rough idea of the history of the world in 100 seconds.
Japan Quake Map
Paul Nicholls, the developer of the Christchurch Quake Map, has created an animated visualisation of all the Japanese earthquakes since March 11th.
The Google Map shows the magnitude and depth of each recorded quake. The size of the displayed polygons reflects the magnitude of each individual earthquake and its colour reflects the depth.
You can pause and resume the animation. A drop down menu also allows you to select to view the data for a specific day.
Worldwide Penis Size Map
According to this Google Map the men of Congo are the proud owners of the world's largest tadgers. If you want to know which men have the smallest peckers then you need to grab your magnifying glass and visit this user created Target Map.
A choropleth overlay gives you a quick overview of the world's willies. You can also click on individual countries to view the size of Bavarian beefsticks, Canadian cattle prods, Spanish salamis or Russian ramrods.
That's it, I'm out of euphemisms ...
FIND
FIND is the first Google Maps creation tool I've seen that allows the user to customise their created map using the Google Maps API Styled Maps functions.
Using FIND it is possible to add map markers, polylines, polygons, text and data from a number of sources to a Google Map. You can the style your map, changing the colours of all the map features to suit your preferences and then save your map to PDF.
The information that can be added to the map includes data from English and Scottish Heritage, the British Geological Survey, Natural England and the RSPB. Maps can be annotated with shapes, text, symbols and measuring tools and then saved to PDF in a neat print template.
A really nice feature of the tool is the ability to customise a Google Map through the 'Your Google Map' option. This feature utilises the Google Maps API Styled Maps functions. The 'Your Google Map' option allows users to change the colour of every feature on their Google Map to suit their specific requirements and preferences.
Nuclear Power Plants and Earthquakes Map
I've always wondered about the advisability of building nuclear power plants on top of fault lines.This Google Map shows global earthquake activity since 1973 and the locations of nuclear power plants around the world.
The map displays a heat map of 75,000 4.5+ magnitude earthquakes since 1973 based on data from the United States Geological Survey. I'm no expert but the map does make me question even more the advisability of building nuclear power stations in places such as Japan and California.
The Canadian Tourism Commission and their creative agency DDB Canada are using Google Maps Street View in an online advertising campaign. The online ads use Street View to promote Canadian cities and tourist attractions.
You can view an example of one of the ads in this mock-up of The Guardian website. The ad in the example zooms in on Montreal on Google Maps before opening up a fully interactive Street View of Rue Bonsecours.
Each online ad ends by directing users to additional location-specific information on the Keep Exploring campaign site where they can further explore what each destination has to offer.
The campaign is currently running in Germany, France and the UK.
