Ucrime.com Google Maps Mashup Provides Campus Crime Info
Universities and colleges all over were interested in reporting on the launch of Ucrime.com recently, a Google Maps mashup (from the same folks who created Spotcrime.com). It maps out campus crime incidents for slightly over 200 universities.
Crimes at Texas A&M U (click to enlarge)
One of the very earliest Google Maps mashup applications was another site which also pinpointed crime data with its real-world locations: ChicagoCrime.org, created by Adrian Holovaty. Graphically displaying crime info and statistic info onto map locations is one of the more compelling applications for online maps, IMHO.
Possible Related Posts
No related posts
Posted by Chris of Chris on 10/01/2008
Permalink | 
Email This Post
| 
Print
| Trackback | Comments (1) | Comments RSS
Filed under: MapsGoogle-Maps, Mashups, Ucrime.com
Town Creates Smiley Face in Google Maps
Saw this interesting thing on Slashdot today:
Apparently this Russian town got a crowd of people to don yellow slickers and stand in a large smiley face pattern so that Google Earth and Google Maps could capture them in their next update.
Trick is, the Google Map screen-grab appears to be a very obvious hoax by a blogger dubbed “Heiner Wolf“. According to these photos, people really did turn out to form the smiley face — I would guess as part of a radio station promotion. But this blogger transposed the people onto the Google Maps image of the area. Lame!
There are plenty of instances of messages appearing in Google Maps pics, if you want to see real ones: examples of roof ads, cool things in Google Maps, marriage proposals, and the infamous Swastika Building.
Possible Related Posts
No related posts
Posted by Chris of Chris on 09/25/2008
Permalink | Email This Post
| Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Google, Mapsaerial-images, Google-Maps, hoaxes, Satellite-Images
Google Street View Icon In Party Clothes
The Google Street View dude icon is suddenly sporting a party hat and balloons:
Assumably the special icon is celebrating Google’s 10th Birthday, though there’s no mention of it on the Google Lat Long Blog.
Possible Related Posts
No related posts
Posted by Chris of Chris on 09/23/2008
Permalink | Email This Post
| Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Google, MapsGoogle, Google-Maps, Street View
Google Adds Data to Georgia Maps?
Google announced additional map data for Georgia today on the Lat Long Blog, along with a few other countries.
This announcement comes on the heels of explanations a few weeks ago about why Google Maps was missing data for the Georgian Republic. A number of sources on the internet had claimed that Google had yanked map data for Georgia in order to not be facilitating the war that sparked in the region with Russia. Google stated that this was untrue — that the region had never had detailed roads displayed because they didn’t have a good source of information for the area yet. (I was one of the people duped by the spurious claims — surprising, since it’s patently apparent that the Russian military would ALREADY have good maps of their region!)
However, even though it’s great that Google is beefing up their map data, I have to say that publicising it and releasing it as they have done seems terribly precipitate. If you look at the screengrab above, you’ll see that the map data they added is just city name labels — no streets or roads connecting them up — and not even dots or outlines to show where the cities are actually located!
Possible Related Posts
No related posts
Posted by Chris of Chris on 09/04/2008
Permalink | Email This Post
| Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Google, MapsGeorgia, Google-Maps
Text In Street View Could Be Used For Quality Improvement
Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped observes that Google could potentially use OCR (optical character recognition) to attempt to derive text from signage and such within Google Street View images in order to create further enhancements.
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Street View, Los Angeles.
However, I see a much more immediately valuable use that could be put to text scanned from the images — quality improvement of address pinpointing functionality.
Possible Related Posts
No related posts
Posted by Chris of Chris on 08/05/2008
Permalink | Email This Post
| Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Google, Maps, Research and DevelopmentGoogle Street View, Google-Maps, Mapping
Marriage Proposals Via Google Maps
What is it with Google Maps that seems to inspire people to propose marriage?
(Click to enlarge - Marry Me Leslie)
Googler Michael Weiss-Malik, a member of the Google Geo Team, planned ahead and stood at the side of the road when the Google Street View pictures were being updated in a drive-by photo shoot. (Read Michael’s explanation of what he did and why.) Google has been aggressively expanding Street View images this summer.
Michael isn’t the first to have a marriage proposal appear in Google Maps. Here’s a few more we’ve collected in the past:
Possible Related Posts
No related posts
Posted by Chris of Chris on 08/05/2008
Permalink | Email This Post
| Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Google, MapsGoogle-Maps, marriage-proposals, Roofvertising
Google Street View Attacked As Potential Tool For Child Predators
The Stop Child Predators organization has launched a campaign specifically targeting Google’s Street View as a tool that potentially enables predators to stalk and kidnap children more effectively.
Kids playing at a park in Google Street View
A video on the site presents Stacie Runemap, Executive Director of the organization, outlining how Street View shows pictures of neighborhoods, homes, playgrounds, schools and pics of kids. She further describes how Google Maps can be used to plot distances from your doorstep to bus stops and schools, suggesting that child predators could use the service to plan attacks or kidnappings. The site elsewhere describes how to request that Google remove photos from Street View.
Possible Related Posts
No related posts
Posted by Chris of Chris on 07/23/2008
Permalink | Email This Post
| Print
| Trackback | Comments (5) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Google, Maps, SecurityChild Protection, Google Street View, Google-Maps, Internet Privacy, Internet Security, privacy
Google Maps Introduces User Review Snippets in Listings
The Google Lat Long Blog announced today that they’ve introduced little snippets of a user review with each business listing for which they have reviews data:
To me, this seems like a bit of an experimental feature, since I tend to want to see a sampling of multiple reviews to try to get a balanced picture of what to expect from a business. Of course, one can click through and view multiple reviews, but why would I only want to see one sample — is there something being done to try to select the most-typical review for the business, or are they only selecting random ones?
Possible Related Posts
No related posts
Posted by Chris of Chris on 06/10/2008
Permalink | Email This Post
| Print
| Trackback | Comments (1) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Google, Local Search, Mapsdirectories, Google-Maps, User Reviews
Town Forces Google To Remove Pics From Street View
North Oaks, a small town in Minnesota, demanded that Google remove pictures of the town from Street View service.
The town apparently has a strong desire to remain private, and since most streets in it are privately owned, they threatened Google with trespassing citations if the pics weren’t removed.
I’m surprised they would attempt to use a trespassing citation for this, since it seems a little bit odd to have open streets for people to drive along, ungated, even with the “No Trespassing” signs. I would think a more viable claim would be copyright infringement since the town might claim that buildings or streets were marked as private, or if they charge some sort of entry fee for vehicles passing through. A similar claim is apparently possible if one takes photos of buildings/places for which admission fees are charged to see/enter — reselling such photos or making money off of them in some way is apparently actionable under copyright law.
Privacy groups have complained about Google Street View since it was introduced, and Google recently responded by initiating the use of software which blurs individuals’ faces in the streetview pics.
Possible Related Posts
No related posts
Posted by Chris of Chris on 06/02/2008
Permalink | Email This Post
| Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Google, Mapscopyright infringement, Google, Google Street View, privacy issues
Interesting Sights To See In Google Street View
Be sure to check out my collection of cool sights in Street View over at Search Engine Land today.
While the piece is strictly fluffy, it does cover a wide range of pictures that illustrate why people are concerned about privacy with the utility along with why it’s cool and fun to have.
Here’s my favorite pic from the set - a photo that captured a bit of skywriting:
Possible Related Posts
No related posts
Posted by Chris of Chris on 05/29/2008
Permalink | Email This Post
| Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Google, Mapscandid photos, Google, Google Street View, internet photography
