Voice Search in Russian, Polish, Czech and Turkish

Over the past few weeks we have launched Voice Search in four new languages: Russian, Polish, Czech and Turkish. Now, users in the Russian Federation, Poland, the Czech Republic and Turkey can simply say, in their own language, what it is that they are looking for. Try speaking queries like “концерты Юлии Савичевой” (tour dates for Yulia Svicheva), “przepis na pierogi” (recipes for pierogi), “obrázky Hradčan” (pictures of the Prague castle), or “istanbul hava durumu” (weather in Istanbul). Note that you will need to change your language setting on your phone and can’t speak all these languages into the app without changing your language setting first.

Voice Search is often preloaded on new Android devices. In that case, all that the user has to do is press and hold the search button and then start speaking. Some Android (2.0 or higher) phone users can download the Voice Search application from Android Market. On iPhone and other smartphones, Voice Search is a feature of Google Mobile App and is downloadable via m.google.com

French Demonstrations on Google Maps

360 Cities

A member of 360 Cities has posted a number of interactive panoramas of the demonstrations against the pension reforms in France.

You may have seen on the news this week that France has been hit by a number of strikes and demonstrations by workers angry at the government's attempt to raise the pension age from 60 to 62. These panoramas capture the demonstrations in Quimper in north-west France.

No one does demonstrations quite as well as the French. So if you want to experience a bit of virtual Gallic rebellion then check out these panoramas:

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New KMLs for Panoramio photos in Google Earth

Panoramio has just updated their network link KMLs that are used in Google Earth to make them faster and more useful. Not only is the link faster, but "The algorithm that is responsible for distribution and taking care of thumbnail overlaps has been improved as well and that is the reason you will now have a feeling of density that did not exist before, together with a better discoverability of the photos in the layer."

As you can see in the photo below, the new versions of the KML files show a lot more photos than before:

As they mention in their blog entry about this update, here is how you can download the various KML files:

1. Popular photos in Google Earth: http://www.panoramio.com/map/
(click on the link in the lower-left corner of the Site)
2. Popular photos in Google Earth (Including photos not selected for the Panoramio layer in Google Earth): http://www.panoramio.com/map/
(you need to select the box before downloading the file from the lower-left corner of the Site)
3. Recent Panoramio uploaded photos: http://www.panoramio.com/map/
(select the recent tab and then click on the link in the lower-left corner of the Site)
4. Photos from a specific tag: http://www.panoramio.com/tags
5. Your Photos: Go to your page http://www.panoramio.com/user/user_ID and click on the link that says "in Google Earth"

We've talked about Panoramio quite a lot over the past few years, and they get better with each update.

Have you uploaded many photos to them? Will you be adding more now that this feature has become even more useful?

Banned Books on Google Maps

Banned Books Map

This has to be one of the saddest maps I've seen in a while.

This week is Banned Books Week. Sponsored by the American Library Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and several other groups, Banned Books Week has been documenting the more than 1,000 books that have been banned at U.S. schools and libraries since it was first launched in 1982.

The map shows the locations of where books have been banned in the United States. Reading the books that have been banned, the ridiculous reasons for their banning and some of the disciplinary action faced by teachers and librarians for simply doing their jobs you can't help but weep for the small minded mentalities of some Americans and the lack of backbone shown by some of those in charge of our libraries and schools.

Sorry - rant over. The map itself is a very simple Google My Map but it works fairly well in showing the geographical distribution of books being banned.

Helping Schools with Google Maps

Fuel Your School

In California Chevron recently ran a Fuel Your School promotion. For every 8-gallon or more fill-up at a local Chevron station Chevron donated $1 to help support public education. The promotion was designed to help provide local public schools with supplies that teachers need for their classroom projects.

Chevron have now created a Google Map to highlight how and where Chevron donations are helping to fund classroom projects.

Using the map you can select to view the results for any city from a drop-down menu. Markers are then placed on the map to highlight the schools in the city that have been helped. If you click on a map marker you can read about how the school has benefited from Chevron's programme.