Friday Fun with Google Maps

Holy Bat Pools Batman

It seems Batman has been travelling the globe. Gizmodo recently found this large bat signal on Google Maps,



And IO9 has found Batman's Japanese Batcave in Okinawa.



Gawker Finds God

Not to be outdone by Gizmodo and I09, Gawker has discovered God floating above a lake in Quarten, Switzerland on Google Maps Street View.

Street View Driver Risks Imprisonment

In Ireland the Google Street View driver has bravely risked imprisonment by ignoring this no photography sign.

Via: Street View Funny

Google Maps Reflection

Pamela Fox of Google has created this rather nice reflection effect for Google Maps.

China's "Google Earth killer" launches

China's State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping today released their long-anticipated web-based mapping tool, Map World (天地图), Reuters reports. it's located athttp://www.tianditu.cn/ and you can give it a go right now; it's in Chinese only but the controls are intuitive enough.

Just some very brief observations, as I have a flight to catch:

• The 2D mapping tool, which lets you toggle between maps and satellite imagery, is available both for Mac and Windows browsers, and requires no additional plugins. Mapping tiles loaded quite responsively for me.
• Imagery of Shanghai Expo 2010 and Beijing's Tiananmen Square is more recent than Google's imagery. Imagery of Kashgar is older than Google's imagery.
• Unlike in Google Maps, Map World's projection squashes imagery and maps in the north-south direction. The Forbidden City is distinctly more square, and round buildings in Shanghai Expo are portrayed as oval.
• The 3D viewing tool requires you to download and run "GeoGloberuntime.exe" as a web plug-in, so obviously it is a Windows only tool. Once installed, it promptly crashed my copy of Internet Explorer 9 upon use, so I can't report back more right now. I couldn't find any mention of a GeoGlobe runtime online, so I'm not sure if this is from a third-party vendor or home-grown. (In any case, beware installing software from a Chinese government agency website).
• The maximum resolution for imagery in China (the only place I went looking) is lower than in Google Earth. I briefly went searching for censored content: Near the "secret" underground submarine base in Shandong province, tiles above a certain resolution simply don't load for me. I can't yet tell if this is the standard way of censoring Map World.
• The 2D web mapping tool comes with area and distance calculators, as well as a feature editor. These are accessible via the links along the tool bar running above the map.

Overall, Map World feels quite robust, far more so than the France's GeoPortail and India's Bhuvan at launch. If you do get the 3D plugin to work over the weekend, please let me know.

China's "Google Earth killer" launches

China's State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping today released their long-anticipated web-based mapping tool, Map World (天地图), Reuters reports. it's located athttp://www.tianditu.cn/ and you can give it a go right now; it's in Chinese only but the controls are intuitive enough.

Just some very brief observations, as I have a flight to catch:

• The 2D mapping tool, which lets you toggle between maps and satellite imagery, is available both for Mac and Windows browsers, and requires no additional plugins. Mapping tiles loaded quite responsively for me.
• Imagery of Shanghai Expo 2010 and Beijing's Tiananmen Square is more recent than Google's imagery. Imagery of Kashgar is older than Google's imagery.
• Unlike in Google Maps, Map World's projection squashes imagery and maps in the north-south direction. The Forbidden City is distinctly more square, and round buildings in Shanghai Expo are portrayed as oval.
• The 3D viewing tool requires you to download and run "GeoGloberuntime.exe" as a web plug-in, so obviously it is a Windows only tool. Once installed, it promptly crashed my copy of Internet Explorer 9 upon use, so I can't report back more right now. I couldn't find any mention of a GeoGlobe runtime online, so I'm not sure if this is from a third-party vendor or home-grown. (In any case, beware installing software from a Chinese government agency website).
• The maximum resolution for imagery in China (the only place I went looking) is lower than in Google Earth. I briefly went searching for censored content: Near the "secret" underground submarine base in Shandong province, tiles above a certain resolution simply don't load for me. I can't yet tell if this is the standard way of censoring Map World.
• The 2D web mapping tool comes with area and distance calculators, as well as a feature editor. These are accessible via the links along the tool bar running above the map.

Overall, Map World feels quite robust, far more so than the France's GeoPortail and India's Bhuvan at launch. If you do get the 3D plugin to work over the weekend, please let me know.

Google releases a lot more 65 year-old historical imagery

We're big fans of Google Earth's "historical imagery" tool. We gave another overview of it last month, then followed up a few days later with a list of eight things you might use it for.

Google doesn't often announce releases of historical imagery, with the the most recent being more than eight months ago. However, Google has just pushed out historical imagery that covers nearly all of London from 1945!

This update includes a ton of great imagery. Another example they provide is of London's Heathrow Airport, 1945 and today:

What other great things can you find in that old imagery?

Take a Walk - Clover Campaign

With over 25,000 walking routes throughout the UK. Short to long walks are available ranging from 0.1 to 30 miles.



After entering your rough walk preferred location and the distance you are wanting to walk.
Some preset maps are also available.


You chosen route is overlaid on a Google map and mileage markers are represented.
Routes can be printed or emailed/tweeted for later use or sharing.

Clover is behind the campaign with the routes provided byhttp://www.mapmywalk.com/

Find a Route with Clover
http://www.cloverfamily.co.uk/find-a-walk/