View Facebook Checkins with Google Maps

CheckinSpy

CheckinSpy lets you view your friends Facebook check-ins on Google Maps.

The application allows Facebook users to view their own check-ins and those made by their Facebook friends directly on a Google Map. You can select to view your own check-ins from the menu bar at the top of the map. Alternatively you can view all your friends or select an individual friend's check-ins.

All recent check-ins are displayed on the map with orange map markers. If you click on the marker you can view the date of the check-in and view the location with Street View.

Simulate Forest Fires with Google Maps

ForeFire

The French national research agency CNRS have used Google Maps to create an impressive forest fire simulator.

Using the simulator it is possible to select a location on the map as the centre of the fire simulation. Before running the simulator you can also adjust the wind speed and direction. The simulation itself takes lots of data into account, including fuel, roads and elevation.

Currently the data is only available for Corsica so the simulator will only work properly on this Mediterranean island.

Via: Google Earth Blog

Fixing incorrect information in Google Earth

We get a lot of emails from users that would like to report incorrect information. Perhaps a misspelled road name, incorrect building name, etc.

Fortunately, Google makes it very easy to report problems like that. You can read all of your options on this help page, but in most cases you'll simply want to use the "Report a Problem"link in Google Maps. The item will usually be corrected in Google Maps within a month, and then corrected in Google Earth at some point after that.

Here's a brief video showing how it works:

Have you ever reported a problem using this tool? I've submitted a handful from my town, and all were resolved within a few weeks.