Google Maps Archive

If you are like me, you love trains and subways.  So it was with great excitement that I learned about a new feature on Google Maps that allows you to take a virtual tour or trip from your chair.

Imagine taking a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad in Russia. The full trip is over 5,600 miles and crosses over 7 timezones! That’s the equivalent mileage of flying from NYC to San Francisco and back! And the weather in Siberia is crazy – my friend Svetlana, who lives in the region, is always telling me stories of temps that reach -40F without the wind chill. Currently the weather is forecasted for a high of -25F and a low of -52F. A show on TV last year documented how they built the Trans-Siberian railroad — just an amazing human feat to create the system.

The Google Maps virtual journey from Moscow-Vladivostok takes you through 12 regions and 87 cities. The virtual journey is a partnerhip between Google and the Russian Railways. The trip (see screenshot below) allows you to imagine  yourself on the train looking out the window. You can look at books, listen to the fake train sounds or change the music to a local Russian radio station and a variety of other sounds as well.  I wish they would have recorded the actual train sounds. You can even listen to a recording of War and Peace. The YouTube video allows you to see the video and the Google Maps map below the video lets you see your progress on the trip. There are several camera positions throughout the trip so you can see photos from the location.

Continue reading “Take a Virtual Journey on the Trans-Siberian Railroad” »

Have you ever been in your bathroom and wondered to yourself, “hmm, when I flush this toilet, where does everything go?” Well if the answer is YES, then there’s now a map for that. NYC-based Habitat Map has put together a variety of maps including the “Where does my toilet flush to” Google Maps mashup. Looks like I am serviced by the Bower Bay sewageshed.

Habitat Maps notes regarding the Toilet Flush map, “Every day, nine million New Yorkers discharge 1.5 billion gallons of liquid waste into their sewer system. Underground and out of sight their urine, feces, and food scraps combine with litter and pollution from the street. This nasty brew then navigates 6,000 miles of pipe…”

Habitat Map has created other interesting maps including Barge NYC Garbage and Solar Powered NYC. 

I’ve been a big fan of QR codes from the beginning. Years ago my goal was to get the barcodes added to the Sunday coupon advertisements so that a customer could clip the coupon but could also get more information about the products using a barcode scanner.

About two years ago, Google discussed QR codes at the Advertising Club meetup in NYC. Shortly thereafter Google announced the Google Print Ads program which included QR codes. Earlier this year Google discontinued the Print Ads product.

If you are new to QR codes, check out our look at how the Japanese use the barcodes today. And also have a look at why I believe QR codes will be big business in the U.S. I wrote this article almost two years ago — I guess finally Google is reading this blog because today they have announced the launch of “Favorite Places” within their local product offering.

Google is sending out 100,000 stickers to the most often searched local businesses across the U.S. These stickers will include a QR code that can be scanned with a mobile phone. After scanning the QR code, information about the local establishment including hours of operation, menus, reviews, payment methods, etc. will be sent directly to the phone.

Users will be able to “star” their favorite places after scanning the codes and will also be allowed to write reviews.

With more of the new mobile devices having the QR code software pre-installed, I am sure this program will take off for Google. I wonder what will happen to Microsoft Tag and if Yelp (or the new local location services) will make a play in this area.

And just wait until all of us humans walk around with QR tatoos so that an interested mate can scan our code on our arm and learn all about us :)

Last year Google got cozy with the MTA with the launch of transit directions inside of Google Maps. Today the Google Maps team has announced the launch of a new layer on Google Maps that displays all of the NYC subway routes directly on the map. There have been many mashups that created something similar in the past but now the subway lines are displayed directly on the map. So far I haven’t been able to find any errors in the lines and/or stations. I am sure my fellow railfans will find any errors this weekend.

The new subway map lines also work on the mobile version of Google Maps. Google notes that they provide transit directions for 436 transit agencies around the world.

While the subway lines on the map are nice, nothing beats the Swiss Rail mashup that shows the trains in real-time and they actually move on the map!

Last week Brooklyn resident Jonathan Soma launched a new Google Maps mashup named TripTrop. You enter an address into TripTrop and it displays a map showing you how far to any other location. It appears to work with subways and walking distances. Currently TripTrop only works in NYC although Soma notes that he will expand to other cities if there’s enough interest.

Flavorwire has an interview with Soma where he discusses where the TripTrop idea came from, how he decided on a name and how he calculates the time between stations. Soma notes that he used Amazon EC2 processing to determine over 120,000 points and the actual final overlays are stored on Amazon S3.

I did some basic tests and the results seem pretty darn close to 100% accurate. Of course the map results don’t take into account sick passengers, stalled trains, bad signals, etc.  TripTrop looks like it could be a very useful service.

It seems the biggest health currently is the outbreak of Swine Flu. Twitter user Matty McClain seems to have the best tracker for links of reported cases and general Swine Flu news.

Google user Niman with a listed occupation of biomedical research has created a Google Maps mashup that shows all of the locations where a Swine Flu case has been reported. I can’t embed the map so click the link above to view the entire current map.
Continue reading “Track the Swine Flu Outbreak on Google Maps” »

I spent most of this afternoon at the Google East HQ at the Google Maps and Earth Hackathon. I am very glad I attended as I entered with basically zero knowledge about how to write code for Google Maps and now I know enough to get started. About 40 people attended the hackathon and surprisingly only about 50% had Macs – was nice to see.

I sat next to a few NY Times employees who appear to have a great handle on coding for Maps and Earth. I left my card with them and hope to get a video interview to learn more about how they are utilizing the technology at the Times. My advice is even if you aren’t a developer, check out the hackathon events just to see what the latest uses are for the various Google tools.

Googlers Roman, Mano and Osama were on hand to help with questions. Each provided an overview at the beginning of the session which included a few pretty interesting examples:

• Yelp uses a static Google Map on review pages but if you interact with the map, it immediately loads the full, dynamic rich experience. This helps Yelp keep the initial page load as light as possible but offering the full functionality when needed.
• Trulia uses the standard Google Maps API but overlays their own tools around the map to make it more personalized.
• Gaiagi Driver – basically the site combines Maps and Earth and allows you to "drive" a route after you enter a set of addresses. 

After the intial demos, the Google team was around answering questions. Each of the Googlers spent over 15 minutes with me talking about different examples and showing me various code snippets. Google even offered a fancy spread of food for everyone.

I talked with some of the attendees about why Google Maps continues to increase their share against Mapquest. My belief is that it’s events like the Hackathon today that shows the reason. Google made their Maps tool open to allow people to build upon it. It’s not just a simple map/driving directions tool — when you see what people build upon it, you know it’s way more than that. Sure Mapquest will continue to add new features — but will it be enough to keep the service top of mind, even for the less than average Internet users like my mother? More on this topic soon.