Slashdot Mirror
Google Launches Mapping Service
Alex Reynolds writes "The beta version of Google Maps is now online, offering an alternative to Mapquest with what some might describe as a very much improved user interface, offering a cleaner layout, drop shadows, clickable waypoints and keyboard controls that allow you to move and zoom the map. For IE and Firefox/Mozilla at this point (no Safari or Opera support, as yet)."
GoogleMaps + AdSense + Google Local = Massive profits for Google and a fantastic customer experience.
I knew the folks at Google were smart, but...
I'm a big tall mofo.
They seem to have the directions to take on Microsoft
What about the rest of the planet?
Will have to stick with MapQuest until Google finds out that the rest of the world exists though...
I gave it a run.....Definitely better than mapquest....Map moves smoothly, instead of having to click and wait for a reload. Nicer interface....
But how does it work?
-thewldisntenuff
My MythTV HowTo
Drop shadows eh? Wow, marvellous.
Any word on if / when this service will include non-US maps?
A preview of the world map after Bush his second term is over :)
But I tried searching for my hometown, and it didn't even reply! I had to search for New York and scroll to the right a little bit. But I really like the size of the map and the "fast scroll" it has... It's definitely faster than Mapquest, and works great with a good broadband connection.
This may be the most impressive web application I have ever seen. It performs like a local application, incredibly fast and smooth, but it's all coming over the internet and displaying in my web browser. I can browse around the country like I was playing with a photograph! The lack of Safari support is too bad, but they say it's coming soon.
No, I have nothing constructive to add, just... wow!
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Google is going to become the next Microsoft.
One of these days (if they haven't already) they'll roll out "GOffice" and "GMoney" and "GOS"
All you'll need is a 'puter, get a GOS CD and broadband connection... good to go.
You can actually drag the map with your mouse to move the part that's being displayed. Way cool!
As said before, yes, it only seems to work in IE/Firefox (which is a shame). But, it is still easily the best map experience I have ever had. Being able to just type parts of an address into a bar instead of seperate boxes is disorganized, but quick and easy. And the balloon popup for current location is useful. The vector graphics are great, and scale to monitor resolution. I just wish NAVTEQ would add topographic information (for that matter, why does NAVTEQ do everyone's maps?). The zoom scale is much better than others, since it is live and smooth scaling. However, overall, the system doesn't seem like it would transfer to print well. I suppose the only way to find out is to try it.
WASTE - The Secure P2P
This is US isolationism taken to extremes! OK, they do allow Canada to exist.
nice job on the interface google
Finally an online mapping application that gives us a BIG window...if they could get good vector based printing to work, they could do away with those multi-cd desktop mapping apps.
SPAM
Very nice interface, and certainly less cluttered than maps.yahoo.com or mapquest.
But best of all -- my new subdivision is on the map whereas it's absent on all the other free map services that the pizza guy, furniture stores, and other delivery folks keep trying to use because they've never heard of my street before.
Google's "DO NO EVIL" company value really shows in this excellent service.
The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. -- Calvin & Hobbes
Again! no, really - it's 16 years since the communist era officially ended in this part of Europe, and you still can't get good standard mapping software :(
:(
no TomTom for us, either
-- echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln256%Pln256/snlbx]sb3135071790101768
just 1 (small) errora ps.goog le.com/
;)
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://m
and it has a doctype
IE on Macintosh isn't supported either.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
Not a single province listed, but that's okay, 3/4 of the population lives in or around those 9 cities. As the feds have been saying for years, "fuck the provinces".
my journal: scripts for leaching porn baked fresh daily
But will there be live traffic updates like Y! Maps is supposed to soon have?
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
to how much data they can hold on a few thousand servers. They have street level resoluton across the entire US, which is probably a terabyte, or several, of data. And high speed access to that data.
Best Slashdot Co
map24.com is Europe-only. However it seems to be much faster then the US-only maps.google.com.
Jesus! They have drop shadows! Sign me up#@!
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Once again it seems that our brothers in the US of A have forgotten that they are not the only country in the world...
Admittedly it is in Beta, here's hoping for maybe a bit of Europe and Africa. Who knows, maybe one day they'll discover Asia! Let us not forget Australia and Greenland?! And I'm sure the penguins in Antarctica would appreciate being able to find a Pizza Hut. Oh yes, and the big green continent known as South America.
Medraut
This looks very much like maps24.com... their application was java-based, and this appears to be browser-based / scripted.
Maps24.com won a Webby in 2004.
The click and drag for map movement rocks.
Your browser is not supported by Google Maps just yet. We currently support the following browsers:
IE 5.5+ (download: Windows)
Firefox 0.8+ (download: Windows Mac Linux)
Netscape 7.1+ (download: Windows Mac Linux)
Mozilla 1.4+ (download: Windows Mac Linux)
We are working on supporting Safari. Regardless of your browser type, you must have JavaScript enabled to use Google Maps.
We recommend you download one of the browsers above, or you can try to load Google Maps in your current browser.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Being a Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD user, I want for decent trip planning solutions - unfortunately, I haven't found any.
Adding waypoint support to web-based trip planning software has been high on my list for all of the available services, so I was excited to see this listed for maps.google.com.
Unfortunately, I can't find how to do this even after perusing their help.
Has anyone figured out how?
Thanks!
Including dragging the map and being responsive.
:)
http://www.mappy.com
O yes, it's Europe only. Must be why this is spectacular news for our American friends...
Or, for that matter, map24. Think they've got the most impressive interface i've seen yet.
Shorest Distance.
Avoid Highways
Use Highways
Fastest Time
Least number of turns (most direct route).
Avoid Cities
As well the ability to change your route on the map. Say you know that you cant take this road because of traffic today so you need an alternate route.
I think those would be useful features for any map program. At best I have only seen some of them parttilly implemented.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If you want to see open web mapping standards in action (and maps of the whole world) try here or look at some of NASA's data here
Ian
maps.google.com
Here's the kicker;
* They used DHTML and Javascript
* They did _not_ use Flash
Go take a look and consider that...
* No need to use the on-screen arrows to move around
* Left click and hold can be used to drag the map
* The arrow keys and other keys on your keyboard also work (PgUp, PgDn, +, -, ...)
While the useful part of the map is limited to the 50 US States, Puerto Rico, and the populated areas of Canada, it does not have local boarders (drag from Alaska or Hawaii to Florida or the Canadian wilderness if you want). Zoom all the way in before you think they left something out. It looks to be complete.
* The vector-generated maps are very readable when printed
* It uses Google's Local search; if you haven't tried that, give it a whirl (example: Choose a location on the main page, click Local when the location appears, and punch in "pizza" or "atms". Not perfect; "beer" and "pub" don't work so well, though oddly "brew" returns some good results. :( )'
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
1. only one continent
2. Canada is empty (OK, not too far off)
3. The center of the world is Coffeyville, Kansas
4. Nice choice of map - see the distortion at the top. That's one thing you should be able to avoid online.
Good thing it's a beta, then...
Go west and you'll just find the pacific.
Go east and you'll just find the atlantic.
The US _is_ the center of the universe. Bush was right all along.
http://www.lizardisland.net.au/education/visitors. htm
I really like the tile approach google is using. Rather than send 1 large file, they've designed their rendering software to take a picture and break it up into tiles. pretty sweet. it's not a new idea, but the way they've implemented it much nicer than my own attempts a few years back using mapquest.
I never use Mapquest. I use maps.yahoo.com, and when I login with my yahoo id (started using it for mail, now I just use it for everything but mail because gmail rocks), I am able to name and save specific locations. So now I have all of my son's soccer and basketball game locations available for instant lookup.
When Google Maps gets this feature and allows me to save locations linked to my gmail account, I'll switch over. The new interface in Google Maps is cool, but Yahoo maps (and Mapquest, I suspect) is good enough - especially for simply printout out map and driving directions.
How many of you noticed that your allotment of Gmail invites jumped up to 50 from 6 the night before last? Is Google getting ready to take gmail out of beta?
This map thing kinda makes up for them charging $30 for Keyhole
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Try map24.com. Their java applet kicks googles ass. And they have the US and Europe.
Works in K-Meleon 0.8.2, so it should also work in K-Meleon 0.9.
Of course, K-Meleon is Gecko-based, just like Camino for Mac OS X.
Is if this worked on my Treo 300.
The maps look so much cleaner than others I've seen, and might actually be somewhat understandable on the small screen. I really think it would be amazing if combined with Google Local, I could put in an address in New York, and "pizza" and have a map with the nearest pizza joint.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Liked the interface and the speed. However, checking my local area turned up some errors in road names, a missing lake, and a town shown with a name that disappeared about 15 years ago when it was swallowed up and incorporated into a larger town nearby.
Ditto the comments that we want other countries included. I'd like to see Japan, for one. And I'd like to get topo maps as an option. Yeah, I know I can get topo maps from terraserver, but it's only the USA as well.
Now I'll NEVER get lost again! It's too bad the inventor of the drop shadow never filed a patent...
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I love the fact that the map loads nearly as fast as I can scroll. It's size is really nice too. Even better, the route marker it puts on the map when it gives directions isn't in the way, like it is on Mapquest.
Add to that the wonderful UI, and I think that Google has a real winner here.
By the way, all of you complaining that the map is USA only should note that this is only a beta. Chances are that when the full version is released, it will cover as much, or more, of the world than Mapquest.
No thanks. I prefer Google's version.
Sure, it's still rough on the edges (text and textbox inputs on the right are overlapping the map image), but it's amazing improvement over the others, and decent for a beta release.
First and foremost, I find the click-and-drag function on the map so much more appealing than the "click north" of mapquest and yahoo maps. Many minor yet significant factors like clearer indication of highway on/off ramps (mapquest doesn't even have ramps), actual width dimensions of the roads (as opposed to thick/thin lines), more pleasant color schemes (less contrast...mapquest's red highways hurt the eyes!), and very smooth integration with Google Local.
The directions seem to work well, and I think the most important improvement in the directions is the ability to zoom and pan in to any portion of the route to see it clearer (as opposed to the standard origin and destination zoomed maps provided by competitors
Google Maps has just won over the heart of one more customer!
h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slash-dot-dot-org
I just ran some maps through here and it's great! It is TONS easier to soak up the lay of the land than in MapQuest.
Actually, it seems that Halifax isn't quite all there after all. I tried zooming in, and once you go in past the first couple levels, most of Nova Scotia disappears. Some of it is still there - the western half of the area west of Halifax is available at all zoom levels, but it seems they don't have the close-in data for anything east of that.
Oh well, it's still an extremely impressive interface (like somebody else mentioned, one of the best web apps ever), and hopefully they'll expand the range of the available data soon.
I game, therefore I am...
1) They won't take you the wrong way down one-way streets.
2) They will get you to your destination instead of 95% of the way there.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Do a hotels near DCA serach - it shows the Sheraton north of teh Marriott Crystal Gateway, it is actually a block or so south - I think they reversed the pushpins
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
* They used DHTML and Javascript
* They did _not_ use Flash
* They did _not_ write cross browser code.
* No need to use the on-screen arrows to move around
Yeah, also...
* No need to look outside a country, since no other exist.
I ran a few maps and the results were acceptable in that the routes are workable and can be followed. However, someone who is familiar with the streets would take a different route. In my example, Google exited me off the freeway one earlier than anyone who knew the area at all would have used. However, I have used Mapquest and found a lot of errors, especially in the distances. Yahoo maps are all right, but they aren't all that clear. I like the map display in Google much better. So, I don't care if this is a Beta release, I going to use this for when I need directions. (Which is fairly frequently as my job entails visiting various locations all over the State.)
Um, ok.... those two services you linked to? They suck compared to this. They're a big reload fest, just like all other traditional web apps. Click, wait for a new picture to load, repeat endlessly. It's not interactive, it's just a normal web page with links that do interesting things.
Google's service does live zooms, live scrolling, and never leaves me waiting. If it requires breaking standards to accomplish that, then so be it. Nobody's forcing you to use it.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
It seems as the interface is supreme to other online maps. With some enhancements - it will be no longer necessary to buy any "boxed" computer maps.
I just hope they will cover more than just the USA. But knowing the Google's desire for domination... Just good luck!
michal
The Google guys are some clever. Its like they think through their work and make it work before releasing it. Once again a Google beta is better than the cometitions live app.
The coolest feature on the maps is the "Link to this page" button. While you can do similar things with Mapquest, the Google guys have realised linking to maps is very important. Just another piece of evidence of their forethought.
Overall, this is one of the cooler web apps I've seen in a while. Knowing that Google want to organise the 'world's info' they are sure to roll out maps for Europe, Asia and the rest of the world soon.
I wonder if somefday this will be linked up with the data thet got when they bought Keyhole. That was a sat imaging firm, IIRC. It would be pretty bitchin' if they had a "see photo" button on a subsequent release of this app.
I'm Norwegian you insensitive clods!
(no 'wege maps like on Mapquest)
I think we just made another step towards Epic 2014
I did a search for Apple Computer Inc Cupertino CA and I got an Infinite Loop ...
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
So, who lives closest to the intersection of 2200 Rd and 4300 Rd, Coffeyville, Kansas? Just keep clicking the "+" button, and that's where the exact centre of Google's map of the US is. Just north of Coffeyville Country Club.
Isn't it funny how some people come up with standards and expect everyone to follow them, but at the same time refuse to follow other standards?
Mappy, an originally French service, has very good maps with public transportation and driving directions support. Maps are in flash, so they look smoother than usual.
.fr, .co.uk, .it, .es and .nl flavors.
Their database of local resources is pretty much empty, though, at least for Italy.
It's available in
Google's maps seem to be missing at least one fundamental map feature: a scale of distance. They have a nifty slider and a not-so-nifty scrolling feature (I cannot find any way to select my own center point (never mind, just discovered I can clikc'n'drag)). But they are lacking anything that would allow me to estimate the distance between two points on the map. At last a standard scale can be used for guessing. A TRULY fancy feature would be an option to click on start, and have the display dynamically highlight the route and show the distance... If anyone can do it, the Googlites can, right? (smile)
I just tried it. That has to be the worst map using experience I've ever had. As a comparison, check out http://www.map24.com. The zooming is *smooth*. The Google one is really hard to pinpoint where you want to zoom and then have it go to that specific area. I kept zooming into the middle of the Atlantic. I also think this is a good example of a company over stretching its bounds. They should return and focus a bit more on their core search product. Increasinly I don't find relevant information and overall there are *way* too many product-focused results. It's as if they are trying to replace their main search product with Froogle.
..and it failed to notice the highway connection. It sends me through back roads by the geographically most direct route, then tells me that the 45-minute drive (I've done it) will take 19 minutes. It looks nice, but it needs some work. It seems they are ignoring/miscalculating travel time. Mapquest, on the other hand, gives me the route I've found to be fastest.
-----
Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
What I just did with google maps is something that I don't _think_ you can do (at least as easily) with the others. Last year I went to an Indian restaurant that I liked...but I'd forgotten the name an location. I knew that it was near the Cambridgeside Galleria (mall), so I started my search by typing that in. The first pushpin thing was a match, so I zoomed in to get myself a nice big map of that part of cambridge. I then typed "Restaurants" as my search and the pushpins repopulated with all the restaurants in the area. Bingo, found it, quick and easy. Google was kind enough to also point me to a number of review sites and the like.
My experience with mapquest is that it is very finicky about what you search for, and will only accept very well formed addresses and intersections. Of course Mapquest's big business is in liscensing their tech. It will be interesting to see if Google does this also, and how the market is affected.
SPAM
If the eastern half of Halifax is missing, it's because you're about to be inundated by a tsunami of gigantic proportions, and be wiped off the map. Prepare yourself.
After all, they must be right. They took Ottawa off the main map, and Ottawa's been "way off the map" for a while ...
my journal: scripts for leaching porn baked fresh daily
perhaps we'll return to our roots and they'll call it 'GeOS'. ;)
Ah, love the c64.
Map24. It's free, stable, Java-based, and also includes the good ol' Yurp. And it will find a shorter roadbetween Haugesund and Trondheim, Norway than mappoint.
Just
The only complaint I have thus far is that I believe they should seperate the fields a bit more for address, city, state, zip, etc. It's not really too bad because it did parse my input correctly. It's just confusing and I think it would look nicer if the fields were seperate.
My lame blog.
Wow! Amazing stuff for being on the web. The fact that they support Firefox is awesome! This is basically true map-like quality! The link-it feature is cool too, as is the fact that double-clicking CENTERS the map on the current location!
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
Works perfect in Safari even though I had to click twice to go in. Now if only it had Canada so i could use it :^).
It's really hard to beat Map24.
"Your browser is not supported by Google Maps just yet" - Konqueror
One thing they'll need to add soon is printing options. Turn by turn, etc.
When I print a map, it's for one reason only... to take and run out the door.
Now accepting PayPal donations!
my journal: scripts for leaching porn baked fresh daily
With Googles ability to find just about anything I thought that I was in luck, however a search for my car keys at my residential address came up with nothing.
Bummer.
Still waiting for mousewheel zoom! As it stands though, it definitely beats all the other competition.
The user interface is really nice and cool while being simple.
However, like most other online mapping application, they don't provide geographic coordinates which could be used in a GPS device.
Right now, I'm using using Multimap most of the time, even if their maps are a bit outdated, because they provide geographic coordinates.
If they google where to provide geographics coordinate, at least for driving direction, with a way to download them in a text or xml file, it will beat the compitition without any doubt.
The rest of the planet's governments doesn't produce detailed mapping information and release it into the public domain.
As I understand, all these services like Yahoo Maps, Mapquest, Mappoint, and Google Maps might be using United States Postal Service (USPS) (or some other such govt org) data on street level maps and coordinates. (This is only my understanding, it MIGHT BE COMPLETELY WRONG).
And the problem is that, such data is not easily available for other countries. Hence, we can not expect Google to go and map out all the countries in the world when they start their beta service.
Even if such data exists for other countries compiled by their respective organizations, it will possibly take more effort and time to integerate with "n" number of organizations' data in various formats. Just like Yahoo Maps and Mapquest provide very less coverage of other countries.
I have found a solution to Riemann's Hypothesis, but have run out of spac
- Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church In Canada
- St Mary's Coptic Orthodox Church
- Customers For Life Inc
- Brantford Public Library
- Children's Aid Society of Haldimand-Norfolk
- Oxford Self-Help Network
Google teaches us so many things!- c -
Awesome interface, very intuitive, nice graphical touches too. Google has a real winner here. No Australia/Sydney yet, but it is only a Beta. Can't wait.
One interesting thing though, I typed in "Pet Stores Springfield" just for fun (ok I was bored), as expected I got a list of pet related matches in Springfield, IL. The first on the list is a company called Petsmart. Clicked on the "24 more" in the balloon and got a layout of the address plus a closeup of the map and other search results. The interesting thing is clicking "driving directions@ on the address takes you to MapQuest. Could be because the link comes from something called "superpages.com" and Google is just displaying the link. It kind of blends in with their own mapping related links though.
I went looking for some cities I know of in the US, and the coverage is spotty, to say the least. New York is there, of course, but I went south to New Jersey and Delaware, and both Gotham and Metropolis are missing. Duh! Iowa and Minnesota exist, but Central City and Keystone are missing. Boston and Seattle are there, but no sign of Hub City, Gateway City, Star City -- need I go on? Obviously Coast City isn't there, but there's no marker for where it WAS.
Pretty shakey all round. Not impressed.
I have discovered a truly remarkable
* No need to look outside a country, since no other exist.
It's beta? I don't know what other response you're looking for....
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Excuse me? Drop shadows are one of the touted features? MORE crap on a map that I don't NEED is an advantage??
It burns! IT BURNS!
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
Not wishing to be critical, oh all right...
There is no 'click to zoom', if you want to zoom into a specific area you have to position it in the middle of the area and zoom it seperately. That's really clumsy, it needs to either click to zoom or have a drag box to select an area.
Now someone is going to tell me i've missed the big 'Click to Zoom' button on it I imagine.
The image quality is clear and of print quality. I hope that never changes. I am sick of those little tiny maps from Yahoo! and the like. This is vastly more useful.
what, does google have their own obfuscated html / javascript contests?
And there's a little bug - if you search for a city, its name appears on the right. Now, zoom out, and zoom in on another city. The city name doesn't change.
I'm looking at Montreal (street level), and i says I'm still looking at Ottawa.
This will be GREAT for practical jokes - "Need directions? Here's the map of downtown New York (hands over map of Detroit that says "New York" on it).
Now what about those of us who have to hold a map upside-down over our head to make sense of the orientation? Frigging monitors are HEAVY.
http://www.formarama.com/mapper/mapmain.asp
They apparently traded a cleaner look for less information. There's no markings for one-way streets... That'll be a real problem in some jurisdictions.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
A must see.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
best... mapping... service... ever
Seems nice, aside from apparently not knowing any addresses in New Hampshire outside of the major cities (None of my test addresses in Hanover, Enfield, Claremont, or Grantham work).
It also has some very, very bizarre routing. For example, to go from Grantham, NH to Manchester NH (a simple drive S on I-89), it has me go *North* on I-89 for 6.2 miles and then turn around.
Hopefully they'll get a full database online sometime, and fix the obvious glitches...
I will never use mapquest or yahoo maps again.
Only to say wow.. and apparently I live on 'Promenade Uplands'.. not 'Uplands Drive' as I had previously thought.
Anyone think these could eventually tie in with Google's Purchase of KeyHole?
The interface here, and that of Gmail, is truly impressive. It's astounding what Google has accomplished here in web applications, simply blowing away those apps that have had many, many years of dedicated development in the area.
If you have experience creating map sites with ArcIMS or any of the major GIS software, you know that this interface and speed are unmatched.
To simply leap over the competition like this is something that's been missing in software for a long time...
I know mapquest is a nice site but I find that no one here mentioned http://map24.com/. I prefer it to mapquest and it seems to have some features that google does not yet have. But the google site is also excellent. Google scares me and I hate to think that every new place I go to with the assistance of google maps could be stored somewhere. The way google is growing we better think about our future: http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/
Zoom all the way in before you think they left something out. It looks to be complete.
Well I can tell you they left out the one-way streets with their directions, those can be very important if you're making driving directions. How unfortunate for those who live in a city full of them!
Being a regular Mapquest user, I was a bit confused by the boxes on the right. Why are there two in each category? Where do I type in my search? Can I type in a home address in the "find a business" box? Turns out those are exactly what the heading says - *example* searches. You still search from the main google box at the top. They just put the stuff on the right if you're too lazy to type something to try this out. IMO, they should have made those text links rather than form fields. They break the layout on Firefox/OS X - I get a perpetual horizontal scroller (doesn't happen after I've typed in my own search and the form on the right is gone). Was anyone else confused by this?
We could not calculate driving directions between miami and anchorage. We currently only support road-based driving directions.
Coming soon - off road based driving directions!
Turn left out of drive.
Go through neighbours yard.
Swerve to avoid barn
Swerve to avoid cow
Attatch floats to car, cross pond
Drive across desert, hope for reliable engine
Drive through mountains, attatch boring attatchment(yawn)
Reach crevasse
Plummet
Go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200
Very impressive but all those XMLHTTP requests will soon add up, i'd guess 50x more costly in terms of bandwidth than a "traditional" online map.
I wonder if they use some sort of custom HTTP server (and possibly custom TCP/IP stack) which can be tuned for the type of traffic this app will generate?
It really a map. No goats.cx.
Maybe I'm daft, but I'm sitting here looking at the direction screen with the little drop shadowed markers, but how do I set a clickable waypoint? I must be missing something here. I can click on the endpoints for the destination, but I don't see a way to click on the map and add a waypoint to the directions.
Maybe I misunderstood.
"Nevada test site" You actually get roads. They could have been funier by putting some UFO Photo instead of gray area!
Except for the rather massive restriction of having USA only (I'm European) its impressive.
I know what you mean. I wanted to see what they thought of the Norway route...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
For the most part, mapping data is collected by government agencies. The access policies vary, but from what I can tell, the USA has the biggest, most easily accessible collection of GIS data. Don't gripe to Google, look at your national mapping initiatives and such.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Great let me know when it's available to Google UK..along with a dozen other Google toys
It doesnt seem to recognise 'London' as a city in Europe.
Come to think of it, it doesnt seem to show Europe at all and scrolling down from N.America to S.America I can only assume that there has been an awful lot of flooding down there lately.
I do like the fact that it doesn't try to tell you were every Denny's along the way is, but if you don't put in an accurate address, it just gives up.
Eg, I tried to get directions from my house to 1219 Kenan St. When it didn't find 1219 Kenan, it's only recommendation was that I check the address or try adding a zip code.
This is the company that brought us "Did you mean ... ?" See, maybe something like "Did you mean 1291 Kenan St?" might have been nice. I might have mistyped. Or even if not, it doesn't matter that I want to go to 1219, 1291 is probably close enough, and I'll get directions there.
Just a thought.
However, the UI standard (as found in google maps) seems to be the "pointer sticks to the page" metaphor, which is frankly idiotic. When I'm reading a page in reality, I do not stick my finger on it and push up in order to see a lower portion of the map. Rather, I move my gaze downward. If you want a metaphor, imagine the pointer is stuck to the viewport, not the page. Worse, the google maps method has a built-in limitation: when you reach the edge of the screen, you have to let go of the button and move to the other edge to keep scrolling. The other way, you can scroll forever, because the mouse pointer doesn't actually move.
I always get it backwards when using the "sticks to page" metaphor--very frustrating. So is this just me? How about starting a "down means down" movement to correct this interface blunder?
(I admit I don't know if this can be implemented in javascript for google maps. Can you get mouse movement events but prevent the pointer from moving? Can you get scroll wheel events?)
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
man... try to locate "boobies" in new york and you get (among others) a Leukemia facility and a Tennis school.
I tried Missouri and they came up with this: Missouri Democratic Party
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
so they have to carefully vet any localized versions.
Yes, I know Americans don't use public transport, but it would be nice for tourists, etc.
May be Google should buy and integrate "HopStop". HopStop is used for New York area (is now offline for some reason).
Geez, for all the bellyaching I hear about this new service, have you all forgotten that it is in BETA? They're going to adjust the technology... it isn't perfect.
Just thought I'd bring us back to reality.
As usual, I tried plugging in two routes, one from my home here to my hometown, usually about a 3 hour trip due to the highways requiring 30-minute jaunt west, followed by traveling south, then taking a 30-minute drive east to get there and then my route from home to work. The first (approximated by "Newark, OH to Ashland, KY") showed me an interesting route that takes more of a straight-line approach (albeit taking me through some city streets in the middle) that shaves about 15 miles off of the trip, but the software apparently doesn't deal well with sections of highways, as I was told to turn onto or continue on US-23 S 7 times in a row. Definitely promising though, and I'll be submitting feedback for that bug. The trip from home to work seems almost kosher, only taking me a few miles out of the way to keep me on the "state route" that goes through town (Around here in Newark, state routes and highways frequently drop to 35 MPH or lower, so they're not worth going out of your way for) and taking me through one road that doesn't exist. Overall, pretty respectable. They may wish to add in some tolerance for spelling and geography errors though. Misspelling a road name by one letter meant they couldn't find it and it took me a bit of fiddling around with surrounding city names to find one street which is near the constantly shifting border.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I found some highway names were called by their official name, instead of what they're commonly called.
For example: Toronto.
HWY 401 is labelled as the MacDonald-Cartier Fwy (I heard that name once years ago, but nobody uses it).
In addition, HWY 407 is not labelled at all!
In addition, searches don't seem to work well for me in Vaughan/Thornhill.
I assume this will all be fixed before the beta period is expired; but just wanted to point out some issues (those of you in Toronto will find it).
BTW, where are the other continents on the world map?
The thing about making a flat map of a spherical world is that there will always be distortion. Either the relative sizes of landmasses, the angles between them or BOTH will be distorted. The particular projection used to create the map will determine how much of what kind of distortion the map has. Whether if a map is "online" or not has nothing to do with it as long as it is still a two dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional object.
The most popular projection is called the Mercator Projection. This projection will heavily distort the relative sizes of landmasses, making whatever is in the corners of the map appear to be much larger than what is in the center. For example, depending on where the map is centered, Greenland could appear to be larger than the entire South American continent. The good side of the Mercator Projection is that it preserves the relative angles of locations. In other words, if 3 places all fall on the same straight line (around the world of course), then all three will also be in a straight line on a Mercator Projection map. For this reason, the Mercator Projection is by far the most useful for sailors and Navigators.
Other projections such as the Lambert Azimuthal Projection provide more exact relative sizes of countries and continents, while horribly distorting the shapes of places near the edge. There is also an Azimuthal Equidistant projection which neither maintains correct relative sizes, nor angles, but has the advantage that all distances measured from the center of the map will be correct.
As you can see, mapping online or off is all about trade offs. You can have correct shapes or angles or distances, but you any map will distort at least two of the three.
http://www.aquarius.geomar.de/omc/omc_project.htm
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/worldout.htm
I'm a gnu world man.
Great tool! Now add it as a layer on top of Keyhole.
Is there no Easter Egg in this app? I was hopping to see the Google logo if I zoom enough on Mountain View, CA. Bummer.
I'm googling your house right now.
Bad karma for correcting people I always say.
It gave me a ceally crazy map to my studio in Toronto, though.
From Markham to Lansdowne & Dundas, it had me on the 407 to 400, back across the 401 to the DVP, down Gardiner to York st. and across Dundas to Landsdowne.
More like a ride with a drunken cab driver.
Nice interface, but I hope the logic improves.... or do they know something I don't??
blah, blah, blah...
I can see how this directly impacts mapquest and how it is a nice addition to their search/ads empire, but how it signifies taking over Microsoft is not obvious.
If anything, they appear to have their sights on Yahoo. Google dominates in search engines, but I still use yahoo for my homepage/portal for their rss feeds/mail/stocks/financial information.
I guess the similarity with Microsoft is their show of dominance in their respective arenas, but to me those arenas are still distinctly separate.
Personally, if anyone 'takes on' microsoft, I hope its debian.
...the map gets covered with little brand icons showing the closest PizzaHut and Starbucks when I *didn't* search for 'pizza' or 'coffee'? Not very long I'm sure.
there's no place like ~
printed out in your hands in your car?
(like crap)
yahoo maps and msn maps both give you paper-compatible imagery.... this is not.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The google map is nice, but I like the technology behind this map a lot better. Panning and zooming responding instantly!
http://www.starcus.se/objectdemo/demo_v1_2.html
//b
Imagine that: you start typing "talla..." and Google Suggests "Tallahasee, FL". (For those who don't know: Google Suggest is a kind of a real-time AutoComplete for the search box.)
Finally I found out that the centre of the world is just north of the Coffeyville Country Club! :D
(I just pushed the zoom slider all the way in)
A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?
"If you have a website that shows a map, and the user clicks to zoom in, they're going to expect the map to zoom in, quickly--they will no longer tolerate the full-page-reload-and-scroll-to-the-top that Mapquest has conditioned them to accept.
"That's what I meant by "raising the bar.""
I'm not sure where you are from, but saying the service is US-only is a tad untrue, though it may look like it from the opening page. Though arguably Canada might as well be a state, we aren't yet... ...and they mapped the frikin' cemetery near my house! Right down to where they put pylons to limit the traffic to one lane! Dead or alive you ain't gettin lost with this map service... ...I also found out the park by my house where I grew up actually has a name! God love the internet...
- often when drawing a route, near the end the line does a slash off the map and back. Zooming in further will usually correct that.
- If you search a route using the airport id "roc" for Greater Rochester International Airport, instead of showing you a route to the passenger terminal, it shows you how to get to my flying club! (The general aviation area is on the south side of the airport, off Scottsville Rd, the passenger terminal is on the north side off... damn, I forget the name of the road.)
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
We still need more detail in these maps... I wanna be able to get directions to my bathroom that warns me of the shoe I left in the middle of the hallway last night.
available at msn maps-- nice for cut & paster
I wish the maps were more printer friendly.. with printable mini intersections.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Its official, the "middle of nowhere" is located in Oklahoma!
Check out map24.com-- Blows google out of the water.
I think it'll be more impressive than that. If you've tried the Keyhole satellite software (parent company bought by Google), it becomes obvious that the eventual product will incorporate actual satellite imagery down to the block level.
If you haven't tried(played)with the keyhole software, I highly recommend the free trial. Same address location, zoom in and scroll capabilities as Google maps plus angle effects, but with real satellite photos.
http://www.keyhole.com/
You can see some detail appearing in areas like Halifax, NS and Charlottetown, PE, however you can't zoom in past half the slider.
They forgot Poland!
Superb design and functionality.
One thing I found a bit disconcerting is that the North/South directions are not indicated on the maps, especially the small bubbles that are shown at te start and endpoints when a route is displayed.
This is great news for me, since I've seriously been typing in "maps.google.com" in the address bar for years.
Property is theft.
Yes, you are right. I just found out that they use Navteq and TeleAtlas map data, and NavTeq has info on 40 countries. So probably I would say "its just a matter of time".
I have found a solution to Riemann's Hypothesis, but have run out of spac
While it's still in beta, the areas for which they don't have information online yet should have the text "Here be dragons."
Man I should use map24 for all my needs as I probably wouldn't find a thing correctly.
Just to try to ward of some of the -mod points, I'm sure it does get most thing right.
LK
Art by Mindy Herman, my wife.
They have a feedback form. :)
Who said Freedom was Fair?
is there any way to change the units of measurement from mi to km?
toronto and some other major canadian cities are mapped pretty well on this thing, i am *extremely* impressed!
Enjoy an e-piphany
The beta period probably won't expire. Google News is still in "beta".
Two words:
lens flares!
Read my blog.
The maps doesn't show all the different areas. Lots of blank spaces on the map.
Pretty cool. One odd thing though. I double-clicked near Cleveland from a pretty wide view. It centered and I zoomed in very close and found I had centered within half a mile of where I work (in the suburbs). Does Google maps use geolocation or was it just an odd coincidence? I didn't see any mention of it in the FAQ.
It isd amazing by looking at this map the world has only one continent and it for some odd reason is only populated in its center and nowhere else.
How shortsighted.
If you think this is bad beta, look at God's release!
May Peace Prevail On Earth
According to Google, it looks like Coffeeville Country Club is the closest thing to the center of the world. Looks like my old boss who played golf 4 days a week was right after all! Looks like my bowling days are over...
Monitor bandwidth usage on IIS6 in real-time: http://www.waetech.com/services/iisbm/
Well if I want to buy a pizza in Kansas it is all very well....but hello Google there is a world outside the US. Sort of
Except for the fact that it appears to give me directions going the opposite way on a one-way street near my house (is this part of their plan!?!?). Man I should never have used MSN Search last week.. i knew Google wouldn't approve.
Likes:
The maps are pretty, and though U.S. and the more populated parts of Canada only, I presume more will be included eventually.
The interactivity of the maps is great -- nice performance, and dragging the map is intuitive.
Dislikes:
It took me 5 more seconds than it should have to figure out that clicking on a location of interest does nothing at all -- no zoom-in, no center, etc. I had to read the small comment on the right side about double-clicking to center, and then fiddle with the zoom gadget. Am I stupid, or is this poor interface design? From my perspective, if I see the spot that is of interest to me and I click on it, zooming in on it would be the most logical default behaviour. This is what mapquest does. I was using Mozilla 1.7, so maybe this is a browser-specific issue.
Yes, it is beta.
Integration with google text messages.
Imagine getting the directions txt'ed to your phone!
OK there is no Europe yet but thats why its beta... draging the map... sweet sweet sweet. So the graphic tiles and their URL's have better than Base-30 compression (haven't checked with tcpdump but it seems obvious) interesting that all of them are called mt.gif in the browser :-D So the MS patent is completely moot... they can have it BWAHAHAHAHA
I just experimented with the Driving Direction feature. I fed in my work address in Waterloo, Ontario and my father's home address in Dundas, Ontario (a small town not too far away).
For reference Mapquest gives a reasonable route (in fact, exactly the one I take) and reports the expected time as 63 min. and estimated distance as 38.35 miles.
Holy crap is Google Maps on crack. (I know, it's beta, but it's funny still.) Its expected driving time of 5 hrs. 42 min. with estimated distance of 394 miles.
For those familiar with Ontario geography, its planned route takes me from Dundas (near Hamilton) up the 403 to Toronto, up the 400 North through Barrie all the way to Bracebridge.
Then, somehow, it tells you to take the exit to the 401, as though you were still in Toronto. This confuses me, as it never told me to go back south along the 400 or take any turns. From this point the directions are reasonable, if you had wanted to go to Waterloo from Toronto.
I'm perplexed at how the software could lose track of location like that. Others have reported reasonable driving information for the States, so it's likely that their Canadian driving information is just spotty.
* Yawn *
Due to the new cooperation between Google, Inc, and Mapsolute GmbH, maker of the unique mapping portal Map24.com, it is now possible to search for city maps in all European Google search engines. If you enter a city name into Google.co.uk, the first result list entry is a special link to Map24.com that brings up the corresponding city map. On the result page, for sure, the full set of the rich Map24 options is available to the users.
I'd wait until they're bought out, just like Picasa and Blogger.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
First maps.google.com is amazing, it found my address immediately and I can search for local businesses in my area (Canada). The interface too is fantastic!
.ca version.
One thing I notice right away when plotting directions is that it's all designated in miles. This is logical as it's an American service, but if plotting directions from say a Canadian to an American destination, it'd be extremely easy for them to convert the mileage to kms north of the border, and miles to the south of it.
Perhaps this'll change once it goes to final release or when they release a
www.brownsauce.org
you actually have to do a search for a specific location (or some such thing) to be able to link to it. At least with Mapquest if you just randomly zoomed in and panned around, you'd be able to link to whatever location you want.
Where are the little arrows that point which way one-way streets go? That's sort of an important piece of information to leave off...
-S
I searched for bookstores near where I work using something like the following querry:
books near 123 main street, 01752
I got a list of book stores with the correct addresses, but some of them were placed at the wrong locations on the map.
Google maps indicates the source of their information.
Overall this is a cool feature. Hopefully they can do a better job pointing to locations on the map.
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
For a nice interface, you really should try:
:)
http://map.search.ch/
Hey, I can even put the address of my current location in the url, and maybe you'll see me:
http://map.search.ch/morges/lausanne-45/
Sorry guys, this is a Swiss-only feature
In case it dies under slashdotting, the site offers a choice between satellite photos and street plans, interactive zooming, etc.
(NB: if you know any equivalent for other regions of the world, I'm interested!)
I like that% 2C-71.116 184
unlike mapquest (which encodes location in a cryptic
way) you can link in google maps, directly to
longitude and lattitude: example
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=42.376373
Gbrowser, Google Maps, Google Mail, Google Images, Google Local....... Come on Google, gimmie an ISO. =) Google Office.......=)
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
Wow. Google is run by like, the smartest people in modern times. Every new technology they release always seems "too good to be true." The map looks beautiful and is amazingly easy to use. Google, will you be my Valentine?
The image is made out of an array of tiles, each a GIF about 3.6K in size. They have URLs like this: http://mt.google.com/mt?v=.3&x=5&y=-4&zoom=8 As you pan to the right, each tile's src attribute gets the url of the tile to its right, which is of course already in browser cache. The rightmost column of five tiles is then fetched from the server. The very clever thing is how they make panning continuous. I have to look at their javascript to see how they accomplish it, it's quite an illusion. In any case, the efficiency of this approach accounts for the generous size of the map. and its responsiveness, which would be hard to achieve using conventional mapserver techniques.
I've worked with developing web map services before. This approach complicates some things you might want to do, but is probably how you'd do it if you wanted a very fast, ultra-scalable service I wouldn't be surprised if Google, which in many ways is in the information storage business, has got all these tiles pre-rendered somewhere. Normally, you'd render the gif for the entire map in a temporary directory somewhere. Natrually this approach is more processor and bandwidth sensitive, but saves on storage. Of course, it allows you to do other kinds of GISy things that probably would be hard to do with Google's approach, but those kinds of things are relatively rare in this kind of application.
I'd like to figure out how to map from geographic coordinate systems to the bizarre system they're using. Then I could use the mapping service for my own uses.
Altogether, it's an interesting first effort. A rectangle drag zoom function would be welcome.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Neat.
Pat Niemeyer
I was hoping that it was using SVG maybe, even though it's not standard yet. If a portal used SVG for something widespread like a mapping service, then all the browsers would be forced to make it standard, hopefully.
Wow. Now Dorothy will certainly find her way back home.
For years I griped at the ever-so-ugly web mapping services navigational tools. Google nail it right on the head! The grid refreshes and the edges instead of the nasty blank-hiccup of all the other mapping services.
Clearly all the other mapping services have been doing their stuff for years..then comes Google with a beta and whammy! The old services get caught with their pants down.
I well deserved tip of the hat for Google.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
None of these maps have a scale on them. It seems like a poor choice to omit that.
MapQuest's raw data has the direction of one-way streets marked. Google's presentation layer is much better, but MapQuest's data is therefore much more useful in navigating. If it's going only in the direction against you, it's not a street - it's a very dangerous wall. Maybe when it's out of beta. But I haven't seen Google make that big a change; their betas are nearly done.
--
make install -not war
What I would like is a better transit map searching system.. I'm planing a trip to SFO, and having a nice on-the-fly map drawn of different bus/train routes would be handy.
I'd like a bike route feature, which avoids highways and other major streets.
--
RumorsDaily
Just did a search for Detroit and scrolled South (because Canada is South of D-town) and whaddya know - I get a turn by turn to my favorite rendition of the Windsor Ballet!
Not trolling here, just a curious newbie: What makes DHTML + Javascript better than Flash?
Frankly, it's a waste of my time to animate the zoom from continental view to street -- just show me what I want to see. I tried using map24, and it (1) takes forever to load, (2) is less readable and much smaller than Google Maps, and (3) spammed by browser with Java errors when I killed it's tab. Google's interface seems much more lightweight, robust, and readable.
...is that the slashdot story doesn't mention that it is US-only. Clicking the link and discovering that it's US only is inclined to p*ss off any non-US readers.
I mean it IS a more important point than saying IE/Firefox only. Talk about US-centricism at Slashdot.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
The map information that Google is using is at least 6 to 8 years old in some areas. They could have at least launched a service that had fresh data.
Does anyone else think the drop shadows are fundamentally wrong? I mean we all know that we are staring straight down upon the earth. So why are there shadows that display as if we're at some angle towards the map? Cool for the sake of cool is not cool.
Look at the bottom right corner of Google's map: "Map data ©2005 NAVTEC TeleAtlas"
When people are thrilled that they can click and drag something, and the app is slightly more responsive than a pot head at 6 in the morning. I remember way back in the old days before the web was big everything utilized the full power of my processor. Things were clickable, dragable, etc. Hell, we even had text boxes bigger than 400x300. You could resize them, and they would even check your spelling for you. You could save them and work on them later. I think they were called "word processors". Ah, those were the days.
This is obviously another nasty M$ ploy de get at Linux, next time Linus travels home to Finland they hope he gets lost.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The best thing about MapQuest was it's excellent trip planner, which they took offline about a year ago for no apparent reason.
Specify starting point, specify end point, and then choose all the places you want to go in between. Incredibly useful... There are a couple others available, but they are all pretty clunky and slow, hopefully Google will add this feature soon...
sig.
The map is awesome but the interface isn't that great. Everyone shouldn't just start saying that Google is the best, just because they are good at something else doesn't make them great at everything!
Here are a few brief reasons why Google's mapping service fails, and will not ever be as good as much of the competition (MapBlast, MapQuest, etc.)
For people who want to go "Ooo... pretty map", it will be fine, but for people who actually use mapping services to navigate, or use them from non-full-blown-desktop browsers (cell, WAP, PDA), this service is useless.
Why Google insists on building everything they do upon reams of Javascript, is beyond me.
Move along, nothing to see here.
When will I be able to download a .gpx (common GPS interchange format) file with my route on it? :)
Nicely implemented interface, too bad it doesn't do smooth zooming, and it needs a miniature overview map in the corner zoomed out a few levels from the main map, first time I zoomed in I ended up lost in the middle of the ocean.
Mapquest gets their images from aol, usually this site comes up as the source, http://mq-mapgend.websys.aol.com/, therefore biasing me against them. Doesn't anyone else use maps.yahoo.com?
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.
In Google's sense, I'd suspect the second... :)
if you happen to be running xp
CTRL+ALT+arrow keys
will change the orientation of your screen.
its an accessability option for those of you not able to carry your monitor ^_^~
1600 pennsylvania ave, washington - doesn't work
1600 pennsylvania ave, washington, d.c. - bingo
you woulda thought...
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
I live in a four year old subdivision and only one out of three streets show up in the map. MapuQest has all three, they actually had them before they were built.
-1 for old data, but overall a good experience.
I'll still use others for driving directions because Google doesn't seem to have opions like shortest/fastest yet.
After I loaded a map, I figured I'd try something, even though there was no way they'd implemented it... um, nevermind. Try: whatever near whereever Works like a champ. I tried searching for bars, but I'm sure anything that works on Google Local would work here.
The biggest missing feature of all the mapping services I have seen is the lack of integrating mass transit.
I live in NYC, and whenever I am going somewhere, I usually pull out mapquest to find the address (cross streets) and then sit there with a subway/bus map to try and figure out how to get there. Aside from the time problem (the time intervals that flights trains and busses leave is not as flexible as a car), this should be relatively easy to implement as the search space is so much smaller, and should be easy to acquire information about (as opposed to every backroad across the US). Just overlaying subway and bus stops onto the street maps would be a huge improvement.
There are many profitable ways to utilize this:
I type in to WA. I get all the options- from trains, busses, airplanes. This is targeted marketing nirvana, as unlike people who are searching for TV's just to see the latest stuff, very few people ask for driving directions "just to see how they would get there."
Just targetting airlines and railroads, etc. might be too small of a market... So how about showing ads from places along the route? Driving from NY to DC? See the diners along the way. Taking the train? Stop at the pizza hut in Penn. There is alot of revenue to be made there.
It could be argued that this is a small market. However, considering that there are 10M people in NYC alone, most of which whom rely on mass transit, I would have to disagree.
Everybody keeps saying this works with Firefox but all I get is a blank rectangle. Checking the JavaScript console I see:
Those two lines read:
and
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
I wouldn't say it works "fine" with Safari -- there are definitely problems compared with trying it in Firefox on my Mac right now. I can see why they put up that notice.
For example, I tried finding my hometown by double-clicking to center and then zooming in. In Firefox, this worked without noticeable problems. In Safari, I'd keep ending up in the Atlantic Ocean because the double click wouldn't really recenter -- it'd move about halfway.
Another case: I tried to get directions for someplace I'm going this weekend. In Safari, the map didn't actually show up -- I saw a computed path and a blue background, but no roads or text where the map should be, just blue color. Zooming in and out didn't reload the map either. Again, in Firefox, there was no problem.
So yes, it works (somewhat) in Safari, and I'm glad you can click through the warning and try it. But it's definitely not the same experience in other browsers yet.
.....SHADDUP.
> However, overall, the system doesn't seem like it would transfer to print well. I suppose the only way to find out is to try it.
Great Scott, another reason to be amazed at this. I didn't think it would print well either.
Just tried the print preview in Mozilla. Not only did the map show up well, but the navigation controls and most of the rest of the cruft on the page were GONE!!!
They must have used the CSS media type to hide some elements when printing. Which is what everyone should do instead of having stupid "click here for a printer friendly version" links.
Now, it looks like the main weakness of the thing is that you apparently can't email links to map directions or locations. Can't copy URLs. Also, you apparently can't save PNG images, but you could get around that with a screen capture program.
I love how smooth it is to scroll around. Much nicer than having to load a new map like mapquest does. Google is right on par with Apple with creating user interfaces.
United States Government-Attorney Office
(702) 388-6336 - 0.6 mi S
United States Government: Fbi-Federal Bureau of Investigations
(702) 385-1281 - 1.2 mi S
Sheri's Ranch
(775) 751-5111 - 45 mi W
Las Vegas Freebies
(702) 368-1779 - 4.1 mi SW
Way to go Google!!!
How come none of the mapping services let you input anything more than a single origin/destination route? For example, suppose I want to drive across the country, and would like to specify going the northern route through Chicago and then Denver on the way to SF. Wouldn't it be easy to offer multiple lines of intermediate destinations?
Have a quick look at http://map.search.ch/ , precedes Google, seems nicer to use and works in Safari and Opera. Also, since Google bought Keyhole lately this might be a preview on what you might see on Google in the future...
Oh, um, wait a minute... Wow, Maporama rocks -- thanks for the link!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
to produce something with less than
20% functionality,
so long as it's labeled "beta"?
from your link
"but satisfies a majority of the requirements"
the main requirement (imho) of online mapping with point-point directions happens to be being able to use them away from online.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Drop Shadows ? fer crying out loud... Just how does that "enhance my user experience" ?!
I quit using mapquest and yahoo maps a long time ago -- they just got too fugly. I stumbled upon a nice alternative, however, in maporama. Big clean maps you can customize and save. I believe thay use the navtek data as google does, but the maps are global, not just the US. Still, I'm glad google is in the game.
http://www.maporama.com/
From map24
Due to the new cooperation between Google, Inc, and Mapsolute GmbH, maker of the unique mapping portal Map24.com, it is now possible to search for city maps in all European Google search engines. If you enter a city name into Google.co.uk, the first result list entry is a special link to Map24.com that brings up the corresponding city map. On the result page, for sure, the full set of the rich Map24 options is available to the users.
so I guess no real competition for map24
probably they will be partners or something
...g a cleaner layout, drop shadows, clickable...
Well, there's the feature, right there! Imagine what we could do now that we have drop shadows...
You can't even do latitude and longitude lookup, much less reverse lookup, or aerial overlay.
At least my city, and it does seem to do a decent job except that every road on the island my sister lives on is listed as "Indian Reserve of Lyacksun 3" and there is actually no reserve on that island. The main map just doesn't show provincial boundaries or many cities.
They should've taken the SECOND exit onto Coble Dene, not the first! That's going to take them right out of their way!
Actually, the map pieces themselves are GIFs. The PNGs are for the UI.
damaged by dogma
Not sure if its been mentioned, but it supports airport codes too. X to BOS for example.
Damnit, they thought of that too!
I can't tell you how many times I've been handed a map printed from Yahoo or Mpaquest only to find out the directions are an outright lie.
Just yesterday I got a map from MQ and it told me to drive down Wilshire to La Brea and turn right, then go a mile or two. Wrong! I quickly realised I'd been decieved and got turned around, but I'd been lied to!
Another thing I'd like to see from Google is the ability to tell it to leave freeways and highways out of its driving directions. This is LA, and the freeways are worthless and certain times of the day. I'd like to avoid them if I can most of the time...
Hope they're listening...
ie, "laundromat close by a coffee shop in Sunnyvale, CA" or something like that. The ability to put multiple locations together like that would be great to have.
if there's a way to do this, I am unaware of it..
First let me say I love the interface and the "look" of the maps. The searching ability is quite good as well. That said, after pulling up maps around my home I was distressed to see several major highways "missing chunks" which made the directions to get places pretty strange. I pulled up maps of some relatives living in other cities and found phantom roads, missing roads and incorrect railroad crossings. This would be a great serivice if they could get some better mapping data or do a better job converting that data to visual maps. Incidentally, the "most correct" maps I have found come from mapsonus.com. Before you start jumping down my throat about this still being a beta and all, I know it is but with Google that makes little difference in the public's mind. After all a lot of people are using gmail daily, not just testing it.
I've tried "Arkham to Innsmouth" and it can't found the route.
Check this service:
;)
;)
http://map.search.ch/
It has all the click to zoom & drag features, but shows you real aerial/satellite images as you go. Also Javascript+DHTML.
The same site also has business search and reverse phone lookup, with links to the map system. Route planning is missing though at this point.
It has separate boxes to enter an address, but typing its components on the URL works well (it has some flexibility) - it's great for inclusion in my Firefox shorcuts.
By the way, here's my work's address:
http://map.search.ch/morges/lausanne-45/
Watch, maybe you'll see me drive out of the building
I'd say its a draw between google and search.ch - go Switzerland
Okay just took a look at this for the first time and I am very impressed. It found my house with no problems. I am especially impressed with the lack of clutter. The mapping system just looks crisp and clean. This may be beta but I would say look out Mapquest who has grown too complacient for too long.
"Help me Obi-/.-Kenobi,your my only hope!" -$
It seems that there is no scale on the map. This is pretty important so you can tell how much area you're actually looking at.
Arghh a big tsunami covered the oceans of this world. Everything but the united states of america has been flooded.
I like the navigation, and of course the always clean look of google. Unfortunately their information is out of date. They have my road listed as NC-1109 when in fact it was renamed Holly Shelter Rd nearly a decade ago. They also list Sky Manor airport, whose hanger fell down 10 years ago, and whose runway now covered in corn. Of course, this is google, so I expect big things.
Fantastic web app, but my whole neighborhood isn't on the map and it's been here for 4 years. I wonder where they get their street database from?
It's actually faster than running MS Streets & Trips locally installed!
I have some links to media reports about Google Maps on my blog: http://sundroid.blogspot.com/, and I will update it throughout the day.
Sun and Fun
I had to use Yahoo maps to go some place that was new and Yahoo gave incorrect directions--and still does. Google Maps gives the correct directions. Guess I'll be using Google maps more often from now on. I never really liked all those text boxes used by Yahoo anyway.
Strange, Google's applications give a sense of "nostalgia" like Microsoft's way back when MS had to really compete by being better (when Excel 1.0 and PowerPoint 1.0 was first shown on Macintosh). Or maybe I'm imagining things... that has been so long ago.
All these map programs must be pulling their incorrect data from the same place...
As one can expect from Google, the interface is great, but in my parts (Edmonton, Canada), the map detail is lacking beyond highway level.
Strangely, though, it does provide street-level directions, however, in one case (going across the city to a friend's house), it gives directions that are horribly and humourously out of the way and would take about 50% more time.
Holly Cow! He has got facts on his side! What do I do? Lets talk about Economy now that the WWII and Internet shit has not worked...
It (that shit you were talking about) has not worked, and also, it has hit the fan now. Shut up you stupid lovechild. There is more than USA in the world.
"Your search - London - did not match any locations."
its right on their home page...
http://www.us.map24.com/
Who controls the information, controls the world...
The maps are certainly beautiful and much clearer and easier to read than some of the other services.
I do like having 'link to this map' right there.
But, may be useful if you have problem steering your car in one way or the other, yeah!
Too funny. Google can't find anything in its databases about maps.google.com.
Now accepting PayPal donations!
Some cities have figured out a solution...
10Brett-T
Oh, bother.
I just noticed that my map is quite big, usually the maps mapquest/yahoo shows are smaller. then I resized my browser. the map resized with it. its still 'full screen'. do they not think of everything?
I would LOVE to see mass transit options integrated into these mapping services, but I'm not holding my breath. The obstacle as I see it is finding a way to keep route information from all the various mass transit services accurate.
Driving directions are comparatively easy. Roads will either be there, or won't, and they change maybe once, twice a year at most? But train or bus routes can be different every day, or even at different times of the same day! Users would need to specify not only where they are going, but also when.
I have seen a number of European ONLY mapping sites and I have not seen any US Citizens complaining.
Wow! I concur that has to be about the coolest web app I've seen. As a bicyclist though I'd like to add two things. 1) Traffic density. 2) Elevation profiles. This information is publicly available, but the interfaces are extremely un-user friendly. My idea would be that when you have a route laid out you ask for bicycle format and it changes the route color on a continuum from green to red based on how bicycle friendly it is. And a simple elevation profile underneath.
I put in "Waterloo, ontario" and it zoomed right too us. It seems to be missing the high school down the street but you can get it if ou zoom a bit further.
Very Cool. Hopefully, before long, a web service interface will be available so I can plug lat/long from my gps into it.
I second this idea. Mod up, please.
Whoo-hoo!
And it works BETTER that MapQuest or Yahho maps, too.
Google Maps knows that 1 Kendall Square Cambridge MA 02139 is in Cambridge MA. MapQuest and Yahoo maps insist upon showing me a map of Kendall Street in Boston, near Northeastern University.
I hope that they get this working with iCab or that the 3.0 version of iCab will work with it, so that I can make this my default mapping application, rather than MapQuest/Yahoo maps.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
Do you really think its that variable? Most mass transit systems have fairly static schedules, changing only the frequency of service throughout the day or weekend.
It is a difficult, though I don't think intractable problem, and if you also input the rates and fares information for each carrier, you are now talking about being able to incorporate aspects of froogle- and suddenly you can compete with travel sites like expedia- well worth the hassle of integrating with carriers to ensure that schedules are up to date.
If I was a google (or any map service company employee), I would be probably be known as the crazy guy that spends his day running through the halls screaming at the upper management until they saw my vision, or at least gave me a reasonable reason as to why it could not be implemented.
MBTA Trip Planning gives you the public transit options between two addresses.
20 mil and I will! Learn Esperanto with 20M others.
Come on, is 'drop shadows' really a feature worth mentioning? Seems to imply there's so little else to brag about; like how car manufacturers brag about 'rack and pinion steering'. Last I checked, the Model T had that, too.
-- -R
Think of the children. Does George Bush know about this latest threat to marriage and the family? After all, do you want america's children spending hours in front of yet another gay screen (aside from the television, when it's not promoting healthy family values of teamwork like football games, where guys keep slapping each others asses - what's with that, anyway)?
Does it come with the goat guy wallpaper/screensaver, or is that a separate patch that I have to download from the gnaa?
It doesn't know how to give driving directions from Edmonton to Toronto - but it does know Edmonton to Calgary and Calgary to Toronto, which is just weird.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
How long will it take for the new subdivision I moved into to appear within the online maps? Really, I'm just curious how often these sort of things get updated. There's already a couple hundred people living in my new subdivision, and I'm terrible at giving directions. I have to tell all my out of state friends to meet at a location we both know and have them follow. Well anyway, I'll live somehow, but I thought it was a valid questions.
Wow, it would've been great if they could've vectorized it. That way the maps would print at your printer's max DPI--not all pixilated at 72 PPI. Still, it's a damn sight better than all the other ones.
But assuming you actually meant where, what are you looking for? A long lost girlfriend, Timothy? Are you looking for a map to her new place? What about the restraining order?
Random is the New Order.
OMG, this is awesome. So long Mapquest and RandMcNalley.
When I grow up, I want to be Google.
All generalizations are bad.
Interestingly, Map24 is still a "Google partner" according to their web site. And address searches in the U.S. on Google still result in links to Mapquest and Yahoo maps, but none to Google maps. Presumably Google has exclusive arrangements with these companies -- who will not be happy that Google has become a major competitor.
Another interesting feature: you search for a business, and they seem to search multiple yellow-pages-type web sites for the address. When you get a hit, you also get a link to the web site that provided the listing. So when I searched for Starbucks in downtown San Jose, I got a link to the coffee shops page at SanJose.com. Very cool.
This is a typical Google announcement. No advance notice, no media hype, and a product that's 10 times as good as anything else out there. The only reason I would continue to use my current favorite (Yahoo Maps) is all the addresses they store for me. Talk about raising the bar.
On the other hand, Google has been trying to fill a job I'd be perfect for for months. But I can't get an interview, probably because my academic credentials suck. I hates them, I hates them forever!
Web-based apps with the functionality of a desktop app are the next big thing. Macromedia has been pushing this big time. Speaking of Macromedia, if Google had implemented this in Flash they would have overcome the browser issues at a single stroke. That said, this is an incredibly cool tool and I tip my hat to Google.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Driving directions don't work very well out in the prairies either - I could get directions from Calgary to Edmonton, and Calgary to Toronto, but not Edmonton to Toronto.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Please try http://maps.nycboe.net/ there is an option for subways. There is data for bus routes but it is disabled for now.
Abraham
Developer
NYC DEPT OF EDUCATION
Actually, I and a whole lot of other people really _would_ like to forget about Israel.
It's long past time that US tax dollars quit going there.
The Israelis ran over an innocent American girl ( Rachel Corrie)
with a bulldozer.
They deserve nothing from the US, or from anyone else. Let them sink or swim on their own.
Frankly, the sooner Israel is erased, the better for the rest of the world.
All the googlebombs carry across! Miserable Failure (Near Washington DC)
with the exception of a few scaling issues, i enjoy the locate functionality and free from text entry..... "cafes near 19th street and 8th ave new york new york" now i just have to see how to tie it into movabletype blog entries for location blogging.. http://blogx.org/
doing a plain google search for "maps" brings back mapquest as the first result. I find that interesting because if this were a MS sort of company, not only could they have been sure to get themselves as the number 1 return, but it would have been there as a first result for about 3 weeks before the product was even available at all.
I don't see anything but a big beige square.
So that's what they wanted with Keyhole. . .
Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but try:
someonesname city, state
If a business page mentions that person's name, it pulls it up on the map as a hit. A friend of mine searched his name and it found the church he frequents. Scary, eh?
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
1. I get a big beige square in Firefox 1.0 on XP, interesting.
:-)
2. The US has somehow extended their interstate system into canada. Our highways all have the american symbols on them... is this part of an evil plot?
3. Similarly, it would be nice if measurements could be moved into the 21st century. Miles are so passe.
4. I'll be really impressed when I can get street directions to some place in fiji.
5. This is VERY impressive... buh bye mapquest, hope none of you had stocks.
6. They should launch a directory service too...since my company still shows it's old locatino even though we moved in 2003.
(yes I know it's beta - just making verbal observations.)
The Société des Transports de Montréal offers this kind of service and it works pretty well most of the time. You can try it on http://www2.stm.info/azimuts/carte.wcs?eff=OD&lng= a
Maybe some other cities do the same thing...
I'm sure Google has a bigger picture in mind and we will eventually see some integrated package between Google the Search Engin, Google the Email serve, Google the map provider, and Google the watever. Throw in Google Desktop and maybe we have the first hints on a Google OS (I don't know I'm just speculating now?).
(I know it's beta)
I just drove from Detroit to Minneapolis. I compared the directions Mapquest gave to Google's. Google's directions were 50 miles longer, but 15 minutes quicker. This shouldn't be possible because the roads it chose differently have the same speed limit.
I love Google's interface for exploring the maps, but for printing Mapquest still wins. Mapquest uses pictures indicating the highways and turns. Mapquest also keeps the distance in seperate columns. Much easier to read when you're flying down the highway at 80mph.
... GOOGLE IS GOD!
GOOGLE IS GOD!
I have tears in my eyes. This is awesome....seriously. Note how the map expands and slides smoothly to the "start" when you click on a landmark and then select "to here" to get directions and enter your start point. You can then see the entire sketched direction coupled with that smooth slide...
Oh. My. God.
One thing that they should implement is to indicate what direction the streets are facing, especially for big cities with lots of one-way streets like New York. Maybe one could assume that driving directions alone are enough, and that a person wouldn't bother checking the street directions of irrelevant streets, but a few arrows on the map can't hurt.
Interestingly enough, checking Map24 I see the single road outside my cul-de-sac, in fact, a divided highway. And that I live on the outlet to the cul-de-sac, rather than in the big loopy part.
I guess I moved.
Due to the new cooperation between Google, Inc, and Mapsolute GmbH, maker of the unique mapping portal Map24.com, it is now possible to search for city maps in all European Google search engines. If you enter a city name into Google.co.uk, the first result list entry is a special link to Map24.com that brings up the corresponding city map. On the result page, for sure, the full set of the rich Map24 options is available to the users.
Did blaming map24 hold up in court? Didn't the barriers, warning signs and phenomenal number of jay-walkers give you any hints before you drove over that section of road?
(I know, it's just that quaint lazy-Brit style of sentence phrasing.)
Actually, maps@Yahoo is the only one that marks the destination correctly down to the which-side-of-the-street level of detail.
You want hopstop for NYC area directions with mass transit.
Google aren't the only ones with bizarre directions...
The Register has a go at Streets and Trips
Secondly, it would be really cool if they had cycling directions. Bicycles generally cannot travel on interstates, but often can go where cars cannot; it would be a great thing if a map engine offered cycling routes. To my knowledge no-one does this yet: it could become a killer feature.
google has finally taken over the interweb.. this mapping service makes me cream my pants, a lot easier than going to mapquest, soon I'll be able to just type "LAX to ONT" into the google search in firefox and i'll be set!
Lessee now...
Zoom in to an area 3 square miles in San Francisco... check.
Move mouse to right arrow.... okay
Hold down mouse button...
Yup.... coast to coast in 12.8 minutes. And not a single traffic jam!
How are we going to justify a 2 week vacation anymore?
"The Census has better data, called TIGER, which is half decent, but they only really worry about it being up to date every ten years. For really good, up-to-date data like these services will all need, you're going to be paying big $ to one of a few companies that produce it (by examining aerial photos and even driving around to check)."
You're forgetting two sources. One is the US military/Intelligence community. The other is local states and municipalities.
* They did _not_ use Flash
Well, if they had used Flash, it would be accessible to more users. Flash, running on 98% of desktops, is more ubiquitious than IE + Firefox.
The UI is definitely slick, but it definitely has some quirks, some annoying. Some random observations:
Wish list items:
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
mmm - just what the world needed more of. :)
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
Flash, running on 98% of desktops, is more ubiquitious than IE + Firefox.
Flash is even more ubiquitious Windows!
cpeterso
If you try to find a business it'll come up with results that are totally unrelated. They aren't labeled as advertisements, but they certainly look suspicious.
sig.
Perhaps people should lobby their local governments to collaborate with MTC. All it takes is a little leg work to coordinate your transit agencies -- they probably publish schedules and maps on the web already, and at the most it'll be some format changes and/or conversions. I'm sure MTC will share their webapp.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
aquire 1 navtec dataset. bout 20k USD Make A vector renderer to render a few vector layers to raster tiles at different resolutions. Make a a spacial database to index those raster tiles, 13 levels deep. DHTML to query and load those image ties from the spacial DB to image containers. and display them on screen. A serverside app to generate a polyline from two addresses. A serverside app to render a polyline to a transparent png. DHTML to piece together the overlaying objects. Add a beta logo as it is still buggy. Add in marketing hype, a slashdot entry. Watch Shares sore. Profit!
If you get caught robbing a bank, is it ok to tell the cops your plan is still in beta?
See my point?
Non cross browser design is inexusable. Displaying a blank page saying "Your browser is not supported by Google Maps just yet" is worst than beta, I call this unusable crap. We are not just talking about unexpected displaying here, that would be understandable, but they actually took the effort to filter out non-javascript browsers instead of displaying a simplified text and image version. This kind of behaviour should end up in jail.
return -ENOTFUNNY;
You should double check your results: linky
I searched for Switzerland, and was sent to ... (no, not to Sweden)
Icc Adult Basic Education
(620) 332-1420
200 Arco Pl
Independence, KS 67301
Makes me wonder what Adult Basic Education may be about. And what is the relation to the small chocolate-watches-banks-mountains country? All the "educators" are called Heidi?
I can't find it anywhere around California.. Has someone got any search which displays it?
Sorry, this sig is beneath your current threshold
www.straphangers.org
has had the maps you're looking for for a LONG TIME.
Actually, I was quite impressed by the accuracy and detail of rural Canada in the map. For example, my family has a summer home in the middle of central Ontario and while Mapquest doesn't even know it exists and Mappoint (which I'm almost instantly starting to like less now even though you can drag the map there too) has the lake as a shapeless blue blob, GoogleMaps has all the roads with accurate names (including unnamed gravel roads to nowhere) and fantastically detailed shorelines and islands to scale.
So I see this great new service from Google and decide to check it out.
6 6057&spn=0.020020%2C0.019419
Being a creature of habit, I zoom in on a place known as Calico Ghost Town Regional Park. I am able to zoom in much closer than with other programs that I have used. This is great.
Then I notice something. Running North out of Calico, it shows a road heading off into the Calico Mountains. Right up Wall Street Canyon. Heading right on up and paying no never no mind to the 200 foot tall dead vertical waterfall that is in the head of the canyon.
Take a look
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.946838%2C-116.8
I have been on the ground there and know for an irrefutable fact that there is no road up that canyon, and that there never will be for there is no need or reason for such.
So now I am wondering. What is the resource that Google has used for their map database ? And just how many such errors does it contain ?
The underlying maps it uses appear to be from the same sources as mapquest. They have the same errors on the addresses I'm aware of as being wrong.
Like the street where I live - it's really a dead end, but both google and mapquest show it as connecting to the next road over.
The other addresses I know are wrong are wrong in exactly the same ways on both services.
A better interface is great and all, but if the information being served up is still wrong, so what?
Government IS the problem.
So who knows anything about how this DHTML/JavaScript is implemented (commentary, not the source, which is obviously viewable)? It works amazingly well (zooming, panning), even during a slashdotting.
I'd like to be able to save maps onto my PDA (Zaurus) that Google outputs, rather than print them out. Unfortunately, I see no way to save Google maps... :(
Mapquest lets me do it though.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
It's missing the lake by my town...
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
Why does it run so slow on Firefox 1.0 in Mac OS x 10.3.7 ? Dragging the map takes FOREVER --
it was much faster/instant on Firefox 1.0 on my PC at work?
Mactroubles?
It would make my life much easier. about every map service has removed them from end user view. shame really. Otherwise it's great.
Firefox &
Well, first off I love the idea. I thought of it myself, and contacted my city's transit system admins to get the schedules and long/lat coordinates for the stops (I live in Halifax, NS).
It turns out they won't even let the bus drivers get the information in electronic format (except for a limited set of stops in PDF). Compare to cities like San Francisco, Paris... you'd scarcely believe we had bleeding edge technology just 15 years ago.
This is simple technology. Finding the shortest route between two points is not a complicated algorithm to implement. What this requires is vision, something many transit bureaucracies lack.
The best release their version of trip planners with their crappy UIs, but I want real-time data to be free so hackers can experiment with better ways of delivering it. And neat ways to integrate it, analyze it, and whatever else hackers will do with data.
You mentionned that this could be profitable, and you are absolutely correct. Knowing where people come from, where they go and when tells you a lot about them that is of use to marketers. That can be a problem, as bureaucracies will want money for the information. Either they develop their own trip planning website/subsite, or they charge for access to the information.
Perhaps I'm bitter that I couldn't do it. Try with your city's transit, and I wish you better luck there. Perhaps after a few let their citizens develop nice applications my city's administrators will come to their collective senses. I'm not giving up hope just yet.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
I agree the readability of the information is better than most - if scant attention to the *quality* of the *changing* data is not addressed (500 people truth checking the entire US - let alone the major cities) the service will be substandard for all but the routine point to point navigation.
I think I'll journal more on this topic.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
they're not done yet... this has a way to go.
Oh yeah, I'm using Firefox 1.0 under Windows and it's not working for me. I had to dig out Internet Explorer to look at this dud. I guess I'm the only Firefox user in the world who can't use this thing.
Try straphangers.org. Shows subway stops and lines around any location in the 5 boroughs.
Insanely great for it's genre. Smooth user transitions between functions, elegant, intuitive, fast. Fun to use. A+.
Why have they been removed?
I once used Microsoft's Expedia to get directions to the Indiannapolis airport. It got me just about there, but a chainlink fence with a warning sign on it separated me from the runway. So, I turned around and found some main roads to get to the airport entrance on my own, instead.
I don't use Expedia anymore.
Me thinks the AC protests too much.
Keyhole didn't have this, I'm glad it's been corrected here.
Another excited user.
Needle Nardle Noo
I'm not completely sure. Mapquest and others used to provide this info when they started but don't now. Perhaps they're protecting their map data from other services. now there's wayhoo.com where you can take mapquest map and it will give you gps coords, but it goes up and down (currently down).
I'd love to be able to just download waypoints into my gps so I don't get lost and do travel blogging the same way with some maps easily- also taging photos with locations, etc. some of this is available but usually proprietary and not integrated.
Firefox &
I've tried at different zoom levels, and in different zones and I couldn't paint zones as being commercial or residential. I couldn't use the bulldozer either.
Nevermind. It's marking one-way streets in the same color as highways. The hotel I looked for doesn't exist. A search for a restaurant turned up the restaurant and a ton of unrelated businesses (who don't even have similiar names, nor sell food). The interface is neat, but the content NEEDS LOTS OF WORK.
Google Maps might have got help from their Keyhole acquisition too.
I tried it over a broadband connection. It was nice, but on dial-up. Yuck!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Like http://maps.yahoo.com/.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
maps.google.com is not yet useful to the ninety-five percent of the worlds population that lives outside the United States. A nice little toy for the few people who live in that area.
The only service I know of that still provides lat and lon is maporama.com which is much better than mapquest anyway, IMHO.
I thought this was neat, so I wrote a quick Firefox extension to show the current Google Maps location in Keyhole. Only works on Windows, obviously, and of course you need Keyhole installed, but the free trial works.
Google Maps to Keyhole 0.1
It's not perfect, since it doesn't take zoom level into account, but it works.
THANK YOU! You're absolutely right!
May the utility gods bless you.
Firefox &
For those who are tempted to think that Google is the first to come up a sleek interface for maps, check this interactive map of switzerland, it's very similar:
http://map.search.ch/
Google. where are the satellite pictures? Being able to zoom in on that would be cool.
I'm waiting for lunar.maps.google.com and mars.maps.google.com!!
I KNEW IT !!!, zoom out, have a look at the earth, I knew it was a scam all along, like the Moon landings. Trust Google to blow the coverup Wide Open !!!
When clicking on the Manicouagan Crater in Quebec, I got lots of red X action...
8 5
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA033
I've been looking at overseas maps... especially since the Tsunami, and I know why there are sketchy details. Some of these places don't have real roads. Other places have no businesses, no tourism, and no one with an internet connection. Why would we need a road map with directions for Banda Aceh? Yet people bitch because they think that these map sites are ONLY for the US? Most of them cover Europe, Australia, and the populated parts of Asia, Africa, and South America.
If you want a road map for the Serengeti, good luck.
Don't forget Poland!
Parent is a known troll. Mod him down!
I wouldn't doubt if this either becomes very heavily integrated into google local or basically replaces google local entirely.
Look at the great searches you can do. Don't like that example? Type pizza in the search box and stay in the same city... Pretty cool indeed!
Apparently there's still no pizza in Detroit.
Those bastards in Windsor, Ontario, Canada are hoarding all our pizza.
With Little Ceasar's, Domino's and Hungry Howies all based out of Detroit, you'd think we'd have some of our own.
for SF/Bay Area check out:
http://www.transitinfo.org/tripplanner/index.asp