ORIGINAL

Google maps for streets and for everything else are probably the best under the sun. Finding the right streets can be stressful, especially when one is in a hurry, and when we count the number of people who are in a hurry, one can guess the number of people who are grateful to Google street maps.

An important feature of Google street maps is the privacy. Many times, one doesn’t use such great tools simply because of the fear of privacy. This tool takes care of all the privacy concerns. One can report inappropriate images and any other matter which may be offensive to sensibilities.

REPHRASED

Google street maps are here

Google street maps are the best thing that could come out of the internet for those of us who struggle with traversing the confusing streets and alley ways. With the ever expanding city scales, maps are becoming harder and harder to follow. So, it’s not surprising to be standing in the middle of an intersection and wondering why it is no more than a blip on the map. Getting out of a jam packed street during the busy schedules, to one that is empty might have previously needed a lot of experience, but not any more. With the introduction of the Google street maps, it is a stress free driving all the way. Initially, people were concerned about the aspect of privacy, but not any more. Of the many privacy features, one feature allows the user to help keep the Google street maps clean by reporting any kind of abuse happening it.

ORIGINAL

In addition to the practical uses, such as for navigation and finding one’s way around the city, Google street maps also act as excellent learning tools for professional cabbies and taxi firms. After all, knowing the city well is the most important trait of a good taxi driver. Here again, the information is up to date. Cities are growing at such an alarming pace that normal maps fail to catch up with the latest. Google street maps, once again, come up trumps. One can get the latest information by the press of a button or shall we say, a single click of the mouse. Sometimes, we are left wondering whether the Google street maps are made available even before the streets are visualized.

REPHRASED

Google maps making the roads friendlier

The biggest plus point of the Google street maps is the fact that it is so user friendly that anybody can use it. Moreover, since most of us need to know our cities better than what we know of it know, the maps become a constant guide at our most confused times. By including every street, old and new alike, it proves to be a boon for the transport and taxi services. Also, since the navigational information is always up to date, a taxi driver never finds himself lost in the big city, even if he is new to the job. Google street maps have the unique advantage over the conventional maps in the sense that they are accessible and accurate in portrayal of the city’s landmarks, roads, and smaller units, making them the first choice for any driver.

ORIGINAL

Google street maps cover the entire world. This means that one need not look for maps when they reach a particular destination. Traditionally, one had to buy maps and wait for the post to deliver them. This took plenty of time and effort. Like everything else the internet has made maps available at our fingertips, thanks to Google street maps. There have been reports that this tool has proved to be invaluable in disaster management, such as the earthquake in Haiti. Satellite imagery gives the right picture saving lives and property.

Google Street maps are one of the many productive tools which have been created by Google. By using technology Google has been able to make lives easier and better for people around the world. It combines line maps and satellite imagery to create a visually appealing and clear picture. The best part is that it is free and can be used by anyone. There is no need to even register with Google to utilize these services. Overall, the maps are a great tool from the stable of Google.

REPHRASED

Google street maps helping the world move on!

Earlier, when somebody arrived at a place of visit, the primary problem that he would face is his lack of knowledge of the city’s bus and subway routes. So, he had to buy whatever map was available to him on the stalls or wait for the ones he had ordered. But now, since the Google street maps has become a world wide phenomena, one click, and the required information shows up on the map. This makes the job of people on holidays and business visits much easier and stress free. In certain places like Haiti, it has even aided in rescue processes by providing fairly up to date satellite images of the country during the earthquakes. A true achiever, the Google street map is Google’s most versatile developments till date, as it can provide both conventional mapping as well as satellite images of a single location.

German Regulators Welcome Street Panorama Privacy Law Draft
German privacy regulators have welcomed a proposal to extend laws protecting Germans’ right to privacy to cover use of their own image and that of their homes in online street panoramas, the Hamburg privacy regulator said Monday.

Read more on PC World via Yahoo! News

Google assessing China’s new rule on web mapping
by Staff Writers Beijing (AFP) June 24, 2010 Google said Thursday it was assessing the impact of a new Chinese rule on web mapping services, which state media said could exclude foreign companies from providing such services in the country.

Read more on SpaceDaily

Google Maps Navigation features traffic view. An on-screen indicator glows green, yellow, or red based on the current traffic conditions along your route. A single touch on the indicator toggles a traffic view that shows the traffic ahead.

how to add a photo to google maps Great for one click marketing of destinations!

It seems every day there’s something in our world of technology that has us going “ah ha.” Take the recent line up of Bell mobility phones and all their features. Impressive at best. But wait – that’s simply nothing compare to the latest feature to grace the market. Are you ready for Google latitude on your Bell phone? 

This new technology is thanks to Google, who just recently launched Latitude, which lets cell phones track the location of those contacts they are close to. The idea is that the technology will help you hook up with others while you are out by keeping track of where they are. 

Google latitude lets you share your location with those you choose to share it with, generally close friends and family, and of course they will be able to do the same thing. For example, ones girlfriend is out shopping wither her Bell cell phone while her boyfriend has arrived at a nearby restaurant and he wants to know where she’s at to see if they can meet for launch. If he has Google Latitude installed on his Bell cellular he will be able to locate her. Now that’s cool! 

Of course there are always privacy issues and Google is actually an excellent player when it comes to privacy so you must sign up for this service if you want your location information to be shared. 

It’s not surprising that Google is the one to come up with such software; after all they are the Gurus in mapping technology right now. This software is a simplified version of theie online Google Maps but with locater technology. 

Google sees this new product of interest to tight groups of friends and family. When someone is close to where you are it lets you send a text or email message. The security and privacy ensures that you always have total control over who you are going to share your location with and you can update and change it as necessary. 

While initially it will be tested on only a small group of phones it is anticipated to be available for use on all Bell mobility cell phones in a very short period of time.

Google Earth is one of those cool little tools that, for many, has no use except for “visiting” places they used to live or have visited before. However this free tool can be immensely helpful when looking for your next home.

Many people have enjoyed looking for their houses and potential houses on Google Maps. Google Earth offers another feature: terrain. For people who don’t want to walk or bike up and down hills to access shops or local amenities, this can be important. For seniors, who may have difficulty negotiating hilly terrain, this can be a necessity.

With a click of a button, Google Earth can allow you a limited 3-D view of the house you are considering. You can then view the relative terrain in the area surrounding the house and of any major thoroughfares. Google Earth can also map the driving distance between your potential residence and favorite destinations.

Another advantage of Google Earth is that it is privy to the same information as Google Maps. If you are looking for certain amenities near the property you are considering, Google Earth will list the ones that it knows of and can be used to search for more.

Currently, the main issue with searching real estate with Google Earth is the limited nature of the listings. It is not designed as a global real estate search engine; every company/individual who wants their listings seen on Google Earth has to create a file with them on it. It is often best to search Google for real estate in the location you desire and then check to see if the company/individual is working with Google Earth.

These files have a .kml extension. KML means “Keyhole Markup Language” after the company Keyhole, Inc. Sometimes you will find .kmz file extensions which are merely .kml extensions that are zipped, due to the heavy information load that a .kml file can carry. You will need an extractor program to release these files.

In order to access these files, you have to download and install the Google Earth. Then, download and open a .kml file. When you’re downloading, a little window should pop up asking if you want to open it with Google Earth. Say yes. If it doesn’t ask you if it can open it with Google Earth, head over to that little box and tell it to use Google Earth.

Once your file is open in the program, check it out. You may have to zoom in to see all the listings (usually in the shape of houses), but once you get the hang of it, Google Earth is really easy to use. Play around with it. See what you can do with the toolbar. If you are interested in a property that you can’t find in a Google Earth file, you can enter in the address and enjoy a cool flying sensation as the globe turns and you whoosh in to hover over your destination.

One thing that I have found with Google Earth is that it is not always the best way to determine property size and the state of the building. Sites that appeared to have a decent sized lot from above turned out to be little postage-stamp places with barely enough room to squeeze through the gate! Google Earth is only the beginning; once you find a home to buy, definitely do the legwork of going to see it or getting someone to take photos that show you the entire property.

In recent years booking holidays / hotels online has become very popular. Such sites as Expedia.com and Lastminute.com have allowed people to find and book their dream holidays through the click of a mouse. Since the launch of Google Maps in 2005 a new trend has arose, involving the way we search and view accommodation online.

Using the Google Map API companies are creating “Google mashups”. This is a web page or application that integrates complementary elements from two or more sources. In short large travel companies, such as the Travel Lodge Company, are integrating their hotel information with Google maps producing an interactive map with markers for each hotel.

This concept gives a whole new way to search for accommodation online. Instead of scrolling through multiple pages of hotels you type in your destination and visually see where they are. Using Google’s satellite technology you can even see bird’s eye photos of your chosen accommodation. Google maps also provide driving directions. This can be extremely helpful when finding your destination.

All these technologies can be combined into one map, although this isn’t always the most efficient way to search for accommodation. Therefore most companies have a directory search alongside a map or provide a small map popup, such as Tripadvisor.co.uk.

It’s hard to tell if this trend will last but it’s not just travel companies using this technology, for example, ononemap.com, this provides information on properties for sale in the UK all on one map! The BBC has a wildlife project (World on the Move) that tracks animals in real time! Other such site as Bookbymap.com are using Google maps to help people book not just hotels but villas, guest houses, B&Bs, apartments, holiday parks, marinas, restaurants, cinemas and cottages.

The Google Maps API is great, but for some things it’s overkill. Enter Google’s static maps, which are also great, but for some applications they might not be enough.

One solution is to use the static maps and then add a bit of panache. Let’s take a typical example where we take a location and in our data find 10 places close to that location. Using static maps we create an URL that has markers for our points and we might set the zoom level using the handy Span attribute.

Unfortunately we cannot interact with the map: if markers overlay each other we cannot tell which is where, we need to provide a key for the markers as they have no tool-tips or events.

By placing divs at the points our markers are displayed we can recover a good deal of our lost ground without needing to use a full map with all its associated overheads, load times and initialization especially. However, to do this we need to know a bit about map projections and a bit about the way Google makes its static maps.

The static maps use a Mercator projection; you can read about the maths here which is probably more than most people want to know. Let’s look at the useful bits for us:

Getting the x-position

Longitude has a nice simple equation

x = y – yo

What does this mean for us? Well if we have a map 200 pixels wide and we know the map’s centre point and the length in pixels of a degree is 2.84 pixels then – say a point 3o to the west (left) is 8.533 pixels left of our centre.

How do we know the width of a degree? Well, the map we have is a small window onto a projection of the whole world. At a Google zoom level of 0 we can see the whole world (or a little more depending on the width of our map, at a width of 256 pixels it fits the world exactly). As we zoom in our window shows us a smaller and smaller part of the whole world, 2zoom to be exact. The pixel width of our whole world grows accordingly so though we see a 256px window at zoom 2 the world is 512px wide, at zoom 3, 1024 pixels and so on.

The world being 360o in the round, at zoom level 3 a degree would be 1024/360 = 2.84 (or 1024/2pi if we want to work in radians).

Phew! Feel like we’re getting somewhere? Now we can correctly position a div from the edge of our static image.

Getting the y-position

Latitude is a little harder to calculate. From our page of maths we’ll take

y = ln( (1+sinO)/(1-sinO)) / 2 (I use this one as it uses basic calculator functions)

If we take our centre then plug its latitude (in radians) into our equation (replace that O after each sin) and multiply by the size of a radian calculation we did for Longitude, then we get where on our virtual map of the world the centre is. Since it is the centre we know it’s at 128px on a map that’s 256px wide.

Now when we plug in the latitudes of our markers we get their y co-ordinates on our virtual map and we can place them on the window onto that world because we know its centre on both the virtual map and our window: Subtract our centre’s virtual y pixel value from our markers virtual y pixel – As if by magic it will give you the value to offset from our images centre.

Something’s missing here…

Now the observant among us will have noticed a bit of skating around some problems. We’ve been using the zoom value but we were hoping to use that nice Span attribute to give us our static map… Also, if instead of having a centre point we want the map to centre on the middle of a set of marker points then though the longitude of the centre will just be (maxLongitude+minLongitude)/2. The centre latitude, however, needs us to do some inverting on our y-position function.

Lets start by handling a set of points. We can easily loop over them to find the max and min latitudes and longitudes of the set.

Getting the centre
To find the longitude centre is easy: sum the max and min longitudes and divide by 2. The centre latitude is harder – put the max and min latitudes through our Mercator equation for latitude that we used last time:

y = ln( (1+sinO)/(1-sinO)) / 2

Add the results together and divide by 2 – then invert the function, which is

Math.Atan(Math.Sinh( RESULT )) – where RESULT is (ln((1+sin(radians(maxLatitude))/(1-radians(maxLatitude))) / 2 + ln((1+sin(radians(minLatitude))/(1-radians(minLatitude)))) /2

We’ll have been working in radians so multiply this result by 180.00 / Math.PI to get the centre Latitude in degrees.

Calculate the zoom level
To find the zoom level necessary to contain our set of points we first calculate the span of degrees of the latitudes and longitudes. Subtract the minimums from the maximums to give us the largest spans by degrees for our latitude and longitude. If we zoom to a set level on a Google map: at any given zoom level anywhere on the earth the difference between the maximum longitude and the minimum longitude remains the same. – If we return to our discussion of zoom levels from last week and work backwards… we can see that once we know a longitude span we can use it to find an appropriate zoom level. The equation ends up being:

log base2 of (180o / longitudeSpano)

That all required that the longitude was the span we were interested in… Now – if we look at a square map on a page, the central x-axis span does not equal the y-axis span (except at the equator) – Longitude is greater. This means that even if the longitude span is greater than the latitude span, if we set our zoom by longitude all our points’ latitude values do not necessarily fit inside our returned map. Luckily, there is a consistent relationship between these spans that depends on latitude – as we get nearer to the equator our latitude spans get closer and closer to our longitude spans (on our handy square map), and by dividing our latitude span by the cos of the centre latitude we’ll get the value of our longitude span. This means we can use the zoom level calculation above – using max( longitude span , adjusted latitude span ) as our value.

As if that all wasn’t enough, the old problem crops up: that the map only fits the world perfectly at zoom level 0 if it is 256 pixels wide. To account for this before we take our log, divide by 256 and multiply by the width of the map in pixels (at 256pixels wide we get back to where we started).

Well that about wraps it up! As promised, it is possible, maybe even advisable to ignore my convoluted explanation and just use some pre-prepared code snippets instead!

MAP_SIZE = 256;

private double atanh(double rad)

{

return Math.Log(((1 + rad) / (1 – rad)), Math.E) / 2;

}

private double getZoom(double span)

{

double zoom = (180.00/span) * (MAP_SIZE/256.00);

zoom = Math.Log(zoom, 2);

return Math.Floor(zoom);

}

yourReturnType createDivs(double m_maxLatitude, double m_minLatitude, double m_maxLongitude , double m_minLongitude, List m_markerIList){

/**

* find our centre – we can reuse some of these variable later

*/

double atanhsinO = atanh(Math.Sin(m_maxLatitude * Math.PI / 180.00));

double atanhsinD = atanh(Math.Sin(m_minLatitude * Math.PI / 180.00));

double atanhCentre = (atanhsinD + atanhsinO) / 2;

double radianOfCentreLatitude = Math.Atan(Math.Sinh(atanhCentre));

double centreLatitude = radianOfCentreLatitude * 180.00 / Math.PI; //turn it to degrees

double centreLongitude = (m_maxLongitude + m_minLongitude) / 2;

// zoom is decided by the max span of longitude and an adjusted latitude span

// the relationship between the latitude span and the longitude span is /cos

double latitudeSpan = m_maxLatitude – m_minLatitude;

latitudeSpan = latitudeSpan / Math.Cos(radianOfCentreLatitude);

double longitudeSpan = m_maxLongitude – m_minLongitude;

double zoom = getZoom(Math.Max(longitudeSpan, latitudeSpan)) + 1;

/**

* create the x,y co-ordinates for the centre as they would appear on a map of the earth

*/

double power = Math.Pow(2.00, zoom);

double realWidth = 256.00 * power;

// ** result 1 – pixel size of a degree **

double oneDegree = realWidth / 360.00;

double radianLength = realWidth / (2.00 * Math.PI);

// ** result 2 ** the centre on our virtual map

double centreY = radianLength * atanhCentre;

/**

* now we go though the providers creating the x,y’s and adjusting them to the virtual frame of our

* map using our centreX,Y values

*/

for (IEnumerator enumerator = m_markerIList.GetEnumerator(); enumerator.MoveNext(); ) // for(Iterator<LaitutudeLongitude> latitudeLongitudeIterator = etc.. for java heads

{

DataRow markerDetails= (DataRow)(enumerator.Current); // LaitutudeLongitude markerDetails = latitudeLongitudeIterator.next(); for java heads, you get the idea

double currentLatitude = double.Parse(markerDetails["Lat"].ToString());

double currentLongitude = double.Parse(markerDetails["Lng"].ToString());

double pixelLongitude = (currentLongitude – centreLongitude) * oneDegree;

double pixelLatitudeRadians = currentLatitude * Math.PI / 180.00;

double localAtanh = atanh(Math.Sin(pixelLatitudeRadians));

double realPixelLatitude = radianLength * localAtanh;

double pixelLatitude = centreY – realPixelLatitude; // convert from our virtual map to the displayed portion

pixelLongitude = pixelLongitude + (MAP_SIZE/2);

pixelLatitude = pixelLatitude + (MAP_SIZE/2);

int roleOverX = (int)(Math.Floor(pixelLongitude)) ;

int roleOverY = (int)(Math.Floor(pixelLatitude));

// now create whatever div you want with the given roleOverX and roleOverY so they overlay the map

// add them to a List or just concatenate a string in this loop and then return .

e.g -

String roleOverDiv = “<div name=’” + markerName + “‘ id=’id” + id + “‘ ” + ROLLOVER_STYLE_STRING + ” left:” + roleOverX + “px; top:” + roleOverY + “px; ‘></div>”;

returnString += roleOverDiv

}

return returnString; //if using the example above

}

Enjoy.

Google Creates New Brand for Display Ad Platforms
The ‘Google Display Network’ was announced in a blog post Friday afternoon.

Read more on ClickZ