Wednesday, September 30. 2009

Volunteers Use Google Maps to Track Philippine Flooding

The map, created and maintained by volunteers highlights the situation after Typhoon Ondoy (international name: Ketsana) dumped a month’s worth of rain in a day this past Saturday. I'm pleased to report that all the points I checked did have a filled in source field.

- Manilla Bulletin

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google at 06:36 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, September 23. 2009

A Geo-Aware CAD Package - From Google

I don't follow SketchUp much but Ralph Grabowski pulled out two features in the new version (7.1) that are pretty geoaware:

# Get Photo Texture accesses Google Maps Street View images.
# Nearby Models uses a geo-location snapshot to search 3D Warehouse for nearby buildings.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google at 06:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Sunday, September 20. 2009

LA Times Sources Latest Google Map!

I don't know if my continued whining about a lack of source information on Rong-Gong Lin II's Google Maps on the LA Times website had any bearing, but the latest one, of water main breaks includes this:

Sources: Times reporting, KTLA, Los Angeles Department of Water & Power.
Graphics reporting by Rong-Gong Lin II and Jessica Garrison

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google at 20:05 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, September 16. 2009

Google Offering Platform Services to Schools and now Government

You may not have noticed but Google's doing very well switching educational institutions to its platform offering, called Google Apps for Education (mail, content sharing, etc.). There's even a "marketing" site complete with a map of schools using the tools.

Yesterday Google's announced a plan to "sell" those same services to government via a new product (ok it's just packaging as is the above offering) called Google Public Sector. Top on the list of apps: Google Maps and Earth.

- Google Blog Post
- Mashable

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, Education, Google Earth at 06:11 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Monday, September 14. 2009

Which Google Map of Insect Spraying Works for you?

ABC-7 is encouraging those in areas being sprayed for insects in Lee and Collier County areas to be aware of where its happening and if needed avoid them. I checked out the maps and found both those from Lee (directions here, link to map) and Collier (actual link to map) are built on Google Maps. These are very different implementations - one requiring lots of input and the other none at all.

It's also interesting that these apps are hosted by "external providers," not the counties themselves.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google at 06:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, September 8. 2009

TechCrunch Explores Online Maps Response to Bay Bridge Closure

TechCrunch give Google the win - it rerouted and said why. Yahoo rerouted by didn't say why. Bing didn't by default know of the closure.

I live in Boston and the closure - and its extension - has been the on the national news all weekend. It also got lots of play on San Fran based Buzz Out Loud on Friday.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, Microsoft, Yahoo at 06:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |