Friday Fun with Google Maps

Russia's Ruined Navy

After the collapse of the USSR, military budgets were slashed and much of the Russian navy was mothballed or scuttled. Rod Edwards has put together this haunting collection of Google Maps satellite images that capture the ruined remains of the Soviet navy.

Google Earth Bike

If you want to lose weight after the holidays you could do worse than plugging your bike into Google Earth. Instrucatables has details explaining how you can make your own Google Earth exercise cycling machine.

OSM / Cloudmade
This is a blog about Google Maps (the clue is in the title). However for Christmas I was lucky enough to be given a one time only exception pass. Which means that I'm allowed to post these three gorgeous Cloudmade / OSM maps (but shush don't tell Google):

Ratio Finder

Wee Places has produced this gorgeous map that shows locations in San Francisco with higher than average check-ins by males and females with Foursquare.

The Envisioning Development Toolkit

This map shows the income demographics and rents in neighborhoods in New York.

@oobr's London Bike Flows

This stunning visualisation of London's Bike Hire scheme displays a time-line of traffic flow at different times of the day and on different days.

Street View Happy New Year Card

Bonne Annee 2011

Digitas France have created an interactive Happy New Year greetings card with Google Maps Street View.

Using the new Custom Street View Panoramas function of the Google Maps API v3 Digitas France have added their own 3d panoramas to Street View to create a Happy New Year greeting.

The application inserts signs into the custom panoramas to give you clues as to the direction you should take. Follow the clues correctly and you will arrive at the Digitas France greeting pictured above. Digitas France even seem to have created an English language version.

Surprisingly Custom Street View Panoramas haven't proved as popular as I thought they would. Kerken Kijken met Street View is a great example of what can be created with custom Street Views. Kerken Kijken have created seamless links to their own panoramic images of the interiors of churches in a map of Utrecht.

Bye Bye SlashGISRS.org

Our site was initially launched as "SlashGISRS.org" back in 2005. A year later we moved to Slashgeo.org. If you've been with us since the beginning and you haven't updated your bookmarks, now is the time to do it since we will not be renewing SlashGISRS.org and it will expire in the coming weeks. Thank you for your comprehension!

New York Times' Mapping America

The O'Reilly Radar offers an article on the New York Times' Mapping America website.

From the official NYT Mapping America site: "Browse local data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, based on samples from 2005 to 2009. Because these figures are based on samples, they are subject to a margin of error, particularly in places with a low population, and are best regarded as estimates."

The conclusion from the O'Reilly article: "By creating a tool that is easy to use, and that is true to the original data, the New York Times opened up a new range of possibilities. The census data is a cornerstone of social statistics and studies, but without proper tools it is difficult for most people to comprehend. This example taps into the power of visualization: it makes complex information simpler to understand."