Tag: MAPPING

quickmaps is a cool new Google Maps-based web service (or mashup, if you prefer) that lets you get really creative with your Google Maps. Quickmaps gives you a bunch of tools, including a couple dozen markers, line and doodle tools for drawing, and text labels that you can place anywhere on a Google map. Drawing is done with the mouse, and markers and text labels are conveniently drag-and-drop. ...

Previously KML files were exclusively the domain of Google Earth, but a part of the Google Earth 4 announcement the other day that I missed was that Google Maps now supports KML files, too. KML, in case you're not up on your acronyms, is an XML format that lets you add data to Google Earth, e.g. locations, annotations, pictures, etc. To pull a KML file into Google Maps, just enter its URL in the ...

Despite being mostly a Windows boy myself, I'm really glad to see Google moving some of its apps to other platforms. Today Google announced the availability of Google Earth 4 Beta, which is a free download not just for Windows, but also for Mac OS X (yes, it's a universal binary) and Linux. Aside from going multi-platform, Google Earth 4 sports a new, sleeker interface, support for textured ...

Fresh Logic Studios has stepped out of left field with Atlas, a flashy (or should I say Ajaxy?) new mapping service. Basically what Fresh Logic has done is grab the maps from Windows Live Local and slap a slick new interface on it. Atlas is very attractive and has a tabbed interface that devotes a ton of real estate to the map itself while keeping other functions hidden until you need them. This ...

Yesterday Microsoft rolled out a new version of Windows Live Local that includes quite a few new features. The most major improvements are real-time traffic information for major metropolitan areas via Traffic.com, Windows Life Messenger integration which allows several people to interact with the same map in real time, and "Collections," which let you add "pushpins" to mark locations, e.g. ...

I would call iPod Directions a cool Yahoo! Maps/iPod mash-up, but it's not really a mash-up at all. It's a web service that fetches directions from Yahoo! Maps and gives them to you as a ZIP file full of images to drop into your iTunes photo folder. It's both simple and ingenius, because all it does is grab the images and text directly from Yahoo! Maps' turn-by-turn directions, convert the text ...

Okay, the title of this post is a complete lie—you can't get Google Maps in a terminal, at least not yet, but ASCII Maps is a fun Google Maps hack that kinda feels like it. ASCII Maps replaces Google Maps' map and satellite imagery with colorful ASCII versions. Scrolling around is agonizingly slow on my machine and it's liable to hurt your eyes after not much use, but it has most of Google ...

Google Maps has received a significant update in the form of much more road and street map coverage for Europe. The coverage is far from total, with some regions getting comprehensive street maps and others getting only major roads or less, and many areas still lack address search or door-to-door driving directions, but it's a vast improvement for European users. Google Maps Mania predicts, and I ...

A lot flew beneath my radar last week, including, unfortunately, a great post by TechCrunch's Frank Gruber called Comparing the Mapping Services, in which he compares, with some nice screenshots and tables, the big five online map services: Ask.com, Google, Yahoo!, Windows Live, and MapQuest. Gruber praises all of the services, but in the end he says (spoiler alert!), "Overall, Yahoo Maps was ...

Yahoo! continues its slow creep up on Google in the web services department with a significant upgrade to Yahoo! Maps. The major change in the new release is global satellite imagery with, of course, an emphasis on U.S. cities. They've also added medium-resolution maps for cities around the world, and developers will be pleased to know they've released Version 3 of the Yahoo! Maps API to take ...

Yesterday Google expanded AdSense advertising in a direction long expected by many: Google Local. Now for certain searches you may see unfamiliar icons on your maps which, when clicked on, will display paid advertisements for Barnes & Noble or Ralph Lauren, for example. You can see an example here. According to CNet the ads will only show up on Google.com, and not in mash-ups created by third ...

Following in Google and Yahoo!'s wake, venerable mapping site (and fellow AOL company) MapQuest has released an open API that third-party developers can use to integrate mappingservices into their own web sites. The new "OpenAPI" supports most of what Google and Yahoo!'s APIs do, like push-pin markers and pop-up info boxes, with the addition of route-planning that competing APIs lack. ...

Sometime in the last week or so Ask.com launched a brand new map and driving direction service that definitely takes more than one cue from Google Maps. In fact, its basic functionality works pretty much exactly like Google Maps'. You can click and drag the map and zoom just like with Google Maps and it has street, satellite, and hybrid ("mixed") views like you're accustomed to. Once you ...

Microsoft has unveilled a technology preview of a new part of its web-based Windows Live Local called Virtual Earth, which includes not only a satellite view like we're used to but also street-level photographs. It's a bit like A9's Block View, but has views in four directions instead of two, and it has a wild driving mode that lets you cruise around the streets like you're actually there. Sort ...

Have you ever argued with your family over where best to have your reunion? Now you resolve it the scientifically accurate (and geeky) way with the Google Earth Center of Gravity Calculator. It's a web service to which you upload a Google Earth .kml file describing all of your family members' locations and get back their center of gravity, i.e. the place most central to everybody. Of course, you ...