360 Panoramas of the Brisbane Floods

Panedia - Brisbane Flooding Panoramas

I've been watching the news reports about the current flooding in Australia but nothing I have seen has quite had the emotional impact of this Google Map of 360 degree panoramas shot in Brisbane today.

The map includes 40 interactive panoramas of the flooding in Brisbane that can be viewed directly from the map. The flood has affected more than 25,000 properties in the Brisbane area. Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says it is "the worst natural disaster in our history and possibly in the history of our nation."

These interactive panoramas give a first person view of the floods and are therefore able to convey incredibly effectively the impact that the flooding has had on the city.

Have a look at the panoramas and then donate to the Flood Relief Appeal.

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Australia Flooding Tweets on Google Maps

Tweak the Tweet Queensland Flooding

Tweak the Tweet is a platform that uses Twitter as a two-way communication channel for information during emergencies, crises, and disasters. The platform is using Google Maps to show the latest Tweets about the current flooding crisis in Australia.

There are two Google Maps, Map by Type and Map by Time. Both maps show the latest Tweets that include the hashtag #qldfloods.

Map by Type colour-codes the Tweets by category, including 'photos', 'missing' and 'shelter'. Map by Time categorises the Tweets by how recently they have been posted.

You can donate to the Flood Relief Appeal here.

Hotpot Now on Google Maps

Hotpot

Google's local recommendation engine Hotpot is now more closely tied with Google Maps. If you are a Hotpot user when you visit Google Maps you will see a stream listing the most recent rating and review activity of your Hotpot friends.

With Hotpot, Google are making local search results for places on Google more personal and relevant. When you visit Hotpot you can view nearby places, search for local businesses and restaurants and read reviews.

With Hotpot you can share your favourite places and your ratings with your friends and see the places they’ve recommended. So, for example, if you want to go to a restaurant you can see at a glance which restaurants have been recommended by your friends.

When you now use Google Maps you will be able tell at a glance what places your friends have been visiting and what places that they recommend.

Via: Google LatLong

People Search on Google Maps

Spokeo

Spokeo is a people centred search engine that lets you search for information about people by name and location.

If you enter someone's name into the Spokeo search engine the results are returned on a Google Map. The results are clustered on the map and organised in the map sidebar by state.

If you drill down to view an individual results it is possible to view the individual's address, phone number and estimated house value. Paid subscribers to Spokeo can also view an individual's social network profiles, where available.

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The NYT Examines the Destruction in Haiti

Destruction in Haiti, Then and Now

The New York Times has created an eye-opening interactive feature using aerial photos from GeoEye and Google Maps to show Port-au-Prince before and after the earthquake in Haiti last January.

Using the application is it is possible to view aerial imagery from both before and after the earthquake. The imagery includes shots of the tent cities that were created after the quake as well as highlighting some of the damaged structures in the city.

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Google Maps of the Australian Floods

The tragedy of the flooding in Australia seems to just keep getting worse and worse. Flash floods in the Brisbane area have left nine dead and at least 70 missing nearby.


All Things Spatial map of the Australian floods

Arek, of Australian mapping blog All Things Spatial, has written a great post about how the government is often slow to respond to such crisis with GIS projects.

Because governments are often slow to respond community lead projects in the GIS arena are a great solution. For example, ABC has just released the ABC Qld Flood Crisis Map, built on the Ushahidi platform.


ABC Qld Flood Crisis Map

The map is an attempt to crowdsource reports on the Queensland floods and the recovery operations. The Ushahidi platform is especially useful as it can be configured to send SMS alerts to registered users.

Arek also points to the Australian Early Warning Network that republishes Bureau of Meteorology information and sends emergency alerts to mobile phones, home phones, pagers and via SMS or e-mail. The Australian Early Warning Network is maintained by a private company.

Arek has himself produced a Google Map to show the huge extent of the area affected by the flooding.

You can donate to the Flood Relief Appeal here.

Via: All Things Spatial

How to Find Mambo Juice in LA

Food Truck Maps

Google Maps showing the location of food trucks is definitely a growing trend in the USA, especially in LA. The latest application is Food Truck Maps which is tracking 104 food trucks in Los Angeles.

As well as the Google Map showing the location of the food trucks Food Truck Maps also shows the latest tweets from the trucks. You can search the tweets by category and location.

Also See

• Tweat It - Google Map of food vendors in New York
• truXmap - real-time location map of food trucks in Los Angeles
• Bistro Chaser - tracking food trucks in LA

Google Maps in the News

The Guardian and The New York Times are both regular users of Google Maps. It is interesting how each of these two news organisation take a different approach to their use of the Google Maps API.


New York Times' New York City Homicides Map

Whilst The Times, under the guidance of graphics editor Matthew Bloch, usually produce stunningly designed data visualisations The Guardian tend to produce more simple maps with the emphasise on open data.

Many of The Guardian's Google Maps are released as part of the paper's Data Store. The Data Store is part of The Guardian's mission to "make data truly free". The Guardian's aim is to publish the raw statistics behind the news and make it easy to export the data.


The Guardian's Wikileaks Data Journalism Map

The Guardian therefore often produce Google Maps using Google Fusion Tables. These maps tend therefore to be a simple representation of the data with the emphasise that other developers are free to download the data and create their own visualisations.

Google Map of the Migrating Magnetic Poles

Wandering of the Geomagnetic Poles

The Earth's magnetic poles are known to migrate over time. In fact the North Magnetic Pole has been observed to move up to 40 km in a year.

The National Geophysical Data Center has used Google Maps to trace the movement of the magnetic dip poles from 1590 to 2010. The map is based on four centuries of historical records including ship log data.

Each pole includes a marker to show the position of the dip poles at the turn of each century (1600, 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2000).

Budget Eats Google Map

Britain's Best Budget Restaurants

The Guardian newspaper has created a Google Map of the best budget restaurants in the UK. The map shows the locations of the restaurants featured in the paper's 'Britain's Best Budget Eats' column in the last two years.

It is possible to select a city view from a drop down menu. If you choose a city the map zooms to the correct location and also loads the restaurants in the map sidebar. If you click on a restaurant's marker you can read The Guardian's review and get the restaurant's address.