Nokia 3D Maps Includes “Legitimate Utility”

Vlad Savov, at The Verge, argues the latest update of Nokia 3D Maps is not just pretty, but useful.

Nokia's web-based Maps 3D client has grown exponentially more useful today with the introduction of new search, directions, and social sharing options. You can now explore any of 25 cities around the world by items of interest, check out reviews of local businesses where available, and obtain walking or driving directions to any destination within the city limits. Routes can then be shared on Facebook, Twitter, or via the conveniently provided shortened URL, and the same can also be done with any locations on the map. The whole experience is accompanied by grand, sweeping animations that zoom you in and out of locations. Maps 3D was always a very pretty exhibition of the world's most popular cities, but now that it's added legitimate utility to its arsenal, we're only left to wonder when we'll see it as a native app on our Windows Phones.

- The Verge

MapGL and other Google Geo News

Last week Google announced an update to Google Maps that makes it more 3D without a plug-in. The tech behind it is called WebGL and Google's implementation for Maps is called MapsGL. WebGL is supported by four of the five top browsers (versions of Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera are in, Internet Explorer is out). Using WebGL reveals 3D buildings on the otherwise 2D maps of Google Maps, shadows based on time of day and some more elegant transitions from one view to another.

So, what is WebGL? "WebGL is a new technology that brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser without additional installed software." It's software that takes advantage of a the hardware's GPU, so you need both the a compatible browser and the right hardware to test it out. (I wrote about GPUs in Directions Magazine.) The library is managed by the Khronos (corrected TWICE per comments, was "Chronos," then Kronos but now correct!) Group (a standards organization) was released as version 1.0 this past March.

- Google Blog

Danny Sullivan reports that the new Siri voice automation on the new iPhone 4s disappoints in the Google Maps department. He could not, with voice, get to the details of a query as he would have liked.

- Search Engine Land

Google Maps breathren, other Google efforts, have been "fired" as of last week. The announcement prepares for the demise of Google Code Search, Google Buzz and Buzz API, iGoogle (I use that!), Jaiku and the University Research Program for Google Search.

- Crazy Engineers

Creating a map on Google Maps allowed the language technology group to add places and points of interests and even upload videos providing information on that location in Cherokee. Cherokee is one of the many languages that Google supports.