Where 2 Next?

You may not have heard of brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen, but if you're reading this blog there's every likelihood you've used one of their inventions, because the idea for Google Maps came out of their Sydney start-up Where 2 Technologies.  Google bought them up in 2004 and as they say the rest is history.  Or geography in this case. 

They're Danish, not Australian, but by basing their team in Sydney, the Pearcey Foundation say they've put Sydney on the Google Map.  Or to quote them: “Lars and Jens's development of Google Maps has positioned Australia as a global leader in online services. It resulted in Google establishing a significant research and development team in Sydney and the creation of many high tech jobs."

Which is why they've awarded them the 2010 NSW ICT Entrepreneur of the Year award.  Kudos and a cash grant.  Which they might not be as happy about as they should be, as the brothers famously credit their dire straits at the bust web bubble of 2000 as a key driver to create and pitch their mapping idea. 

Shameless Aussies

Have a look at what's written on top of the Opera House on Google Maps. 

If the anti-war protesters knew how easy it was to get their message up there they might have saved themselves some gaol time.
This was spotted when admiring the newly added Earth button, which allows Google Maps users to check out some of the 3D buildings you can see in Google Earth.  

Maybe one day this will be how we look at properties for the first time? 

Thanks to Google Maps Mania for the heads up about the new functionality and for the list of buildings worth exploring in Earth format. 

What are those Google Maps Australia people up to now?

Somewhere in the outback the Google Street Car gets bogged then towed...

For April Fools Day they claimed they were going to "OCCA-up" their directions, offering Australian translations like 'Chucka U-ey' for directing drivers to execute a U-Turn, and 'You're not within Cooee', to let drives know that they're no where near their destination. But what have Google Maps Aus really been up to recently aside from being 'bogged'-another term from their OCCA Aus translation.

The results on the poll for which off road locations the Google trike should hit and map are in: and from more than 3,000 destinations the winning eight have been selected. So you can look forward to taking virtual tours of:

* Parliament House and War Memorial, ACT
* Valley of the Giants and Tree Top Walk, WA
* Mount Lofty Botanic Garden, SA
* Lord Howe Island, NSW
* Melbourne CBD laneways, VIC
* Port Arthur, TAS
* Simpson Gap Bicycle Path, Alice Springs, NT
* Hamilton Island QLD

Not sure if they'll be allowed to cycle though Parliament House – although the marble floor of the main hall would be pretty cycle friendly – but there are a couple there that will be really enticing, and a great way to see destinations you might not normally get to visit.

I'm slightly disappointed that my suggestion of the Bondi to Brote walk didn't get in...

House Hunting for a Vitamin D fix

I fell in love with my current flat instantaneously because when I first saw it it was drenched in gorgeous sunlight.  The bay windows that take up almost a whole wall seemed to encourage the light to bend around corners (I now realise that this was a man made effect created by well placing mirrors, but it's still a daily pleasure.).  I've always been the same, I got if off my Mum: one of the main things we look for when moving is where the light is coming from and how much of it there is.  But what if you find a great little property but it's an overcast day when you go to have a look at it?

Some genius has come up with an app that can solve even this problem.  It's called SunCalc, and it shows you the sun movement on any given day for any position on the map. It is my new favourite thing.

The three lines on the map show where the sun will be at sunrise (yellow), sunset (red) and at the time you specify on the time line at the top of the screen (orange).  The big yellow arc shows the variation of the sun's trajectories throughout the year.

So you can make sure you're moving into somewhere that will provide you with enough mood enhancing vitamin D to get you through winter.  It even works in the UK...  Even though it feels like the sun sometimes doesn't...  You could also use this app to help you arrange your mirrors in the right places.

Google & Icons

With SO many posts on this blog lauding the value of pinning things to maps it's interesting to note that Google Australia has changed the way some of its map pins look: some of them now look like the icons for the stores they're marking.

The Official Google Australia blog talks about it from the perspective of ease of use: once you scroll down far enough the logos of participating businesses will appear as their map pin, so maps “more closely depict online what the offline world looks like, so next time you're trying to find your way on the map you can navigate more easily using these icons as landmarks.”.

This new display could definitely prove useful to people who navigate by shops or cafes - but only if the landmark businesses are major players, as this new option will only be useful for businesses with easily recognisable logos, who are also likely to be the only ones interested in paying for it.  The businesses who do pay for this service will also be able to provide more information when their icon is clicked on, but Google says the logo pins will only be used in ways that improve the user experience - so that means you won't see shopping malls confusingly crowded with logo pins.

Google Australia started adding charcoal rectangle pins and labels for places of interest and businesses they term prominent in August last year – which is really useful when it comes to locating a shop or restaurant you're looking for, as well as for general navigation - but there's a cloud of both of positive and negative chatter about the value of the logo icons for users, with negative viewpoints coming from Australians who like to protect their local businesses.

So far icons for the NAB, BankWest, Chemist Warehouse, JB HiFi and real estate agent LJ Hooker can be spotted on the map of the Sydney CBD – but the golden arches are noticeably absent.

Google Maps Australia is the guinea pig for this trial logo display so it will be interesting to see what their maps start to look like once more businesses get involved.

Cool Google Tools for Aus

Being a really big country with a lot of sea between it and Google's main headquarters can mean that new Google Map and Street View functions take a while to roll into Australia.  But there are a couple of new elements for Australian mappers to interact with.  The first one is the Building Maker tool, which has included Melbourne in the list of 70-odd cities that can take virtual building work.  Construction in Building Maker is done in block form, so you arrange correctly shaped blocks into place on the aerial images after choosing your building site - not sure if you can build your own house, or even make virtual home improvements: most people seem to have opted to rebuild interesting public buildings.

I hate to hear about Australian cliches proving to be all too true, but one of the first structures to go up in Melbourne was the footbridge over the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit.  If you look at it in Street View you're looking from underneath the bridge so you have to virtually back up to compare the Building Maker footbridge with the actual footbridge.

Which brings us nicely to the next bit of Google Aus news – they've brought a Street View trike over – which is a creature half bike and half traffic camera on wheels – which they use to get Street View imagery from places those little cars can't go: trails in National Parks, beaches, bike tracks, that sort of thing.

They launched it at Taronga, which would have been my number one recommendation for its use – can't wait to paw over Taronga Street View – but they're asking for people to recommend other off-road Street View fodder.  You can vote for the recommendation you'd most like to see mapped here.  The track along the coast between Bronte and Bondi got my vote.

How the web has helped in Haiti

On September 11 2001 when the twin towers fell people were glued to their television screens or radios following events as they unfolded, but 8 years on when the earthquake struck Haiti people found there were there other ways of keeping abreast of the news.  It didn't take long for Google to release a KML of their latest Haitian imagery which could be viewed on Google Earth, giving people a birds eye view of the destruction.

Here are before-and-after screenshots of the Presidential Palace and an area of Port-au-Prince:      

  

OpenStreet Map sprang into action as well, with mappers on the ground and remote mappers working off the latest CIA maps and GeoEye imagery showing the latest building collapses toiling towards creating an up to date GPS layout.  This was of huge assistance to emergency workers who would have taken a lot longer to reach victims using their pre quake GPS downloads.

The rest of the world could then monitor emergency situations on the Crisis Map of Haiti, a mash up of reported emergencies that people could report by text, phone call, twitter, Facebook, live streams and information reports – these emergencies have been anything from missing people reports, to fires, contaminated water supplies, aftershocks or collapsing buildings, to personal calls for help from families in their homes running low on food and clean water.  Most of the mapping is happening in America and Europe, but it's been happening in real time none the less.

Almost a month on from the quake the internet is still coming up with fresh ways for people to stay tuned with what's happening in Haiti, but also to lend a hand.  It may not be the most obvious mash up, but Gruvr has added a Haitian Benefit Concert Finder to their concert listing site, which maps your nearest fund raising concerts – they say that there are about 30 events being added a day.

The Full Wiki: A Big Mash Up

There are so many different combinations of data to mash together that it makes sense that some of the really big ones might not be the most obvious choices.  Like Wikipedia for example.  It's already got geocoded destination links and numerous maps, but imagine all the possible things that could happen if it got a good mashing with Google Maps?  In the case of the full wiki you'd get a reference site where a map is displayed alongside the reference text, and each location mentioned in the text is marked with a map pin.

It's a genius site for looking at pages like the First voyage of James Cook 'cause not only can you see the pins marking his route, but you can also scroll over the pins to skip to the bit you're interested in.

Pages for The Ashes and The Sydney to Hobart are less interesting, but the stories of the ill-fated Burke and Wills Expedition and the exploits of Ned Kelly gain a lot from being mapped out.