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Google Maps, Local Expand To UK
Koushiro writes "From Google's official blog comes word that Google Maps UK and Google Local UK have been launched, confirming speculations that the search engine giant would continue to expand its regional services to an international audience. The seemingly logical next step, of course, would be to expand coverage to Western Europe, but given the input Google's UK office had into this project, can we expect Google Maps India next?"
Mr Kilroy-Silk will be pleased. Just go look at Britain, and zoom right out ([-] button). Look - no Europe! Just us Brits and our American fiends.
Phil
But no Satellite mapping as yet... Still playing catchup.
It even found my local chippy. Go Google!
And it goes to New Delhi...
Wow, those google people are so smart.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
But Ireland as well.
"expand its regional services to an international audience" Canada isn't the U.S. you know.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
We've also got Google SMS now, which is actually useful.
No "houses of ill repute", or "ladies of negotiable affection" near me - useless damn site!
very nice though several newish roads (2-3 years old by now) near me arn't on the maps.
It's not like you can go visit anyway. They errected huge steel gates at the end of Downing street years ago. All you can do if peer through the railings.
Philip
Signatures are broken
On the one hand, it knows about the mighty Hings, the Food of the Gods. On the other, I'm more than a little disturbed by the Google ad that 'helpfully' suggests I could find cheaper Fish & Chips on eBay. Doesn't really bear thinking about, that one.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
In the UK, most maps use the British Grid projection. Google, in their international wisdom, appear to have used a different projection which causes the map to "appear wrong" to a UK person. Actually, the map is perfectly correct, it's just that Google are presenting it in a way which is not customary for the UK.
For example, try a search for postcode "EH1" on http://maps.google.co.uk, and the same on www.multimap.co.uk. Notice that the shape of the quarter-circle road system (Princes St, Melville Drive, the Bridges) is different on each.
Not due to the lack of attempt, just that mostly directions meant (when I was growing up) was : "Go Straight for two kilometres, turn right at the Junction with the Statue and then one mile ahead take a left by the Cricket Stadium". Not something you want to pull up on Google!
:)
In the Rural areas of the country and even in the suburbs of some major metropolitan areas, the above method will apply.
Rarely are there Street names. But it doesnt really matter as men arent embarassed to ask for directions
Rapid Nirvana
Bah, with our small population in relation to our large size we'll probably be the last continent to be covered by Google maps/local. I'd expect western Europe and/or southeast Asia to be covered next. Lots more people there. Even parts of Africa and South America might be covered before us.
Speaking as a geographer/cartographer, I've found Google Maps exceedingly useful. But a few things to note, applying both to the UK and the US sites.
--Data resolution is far from uniform. We see every little street in central London, but go to northern Scotland and only (relatively) major roads show up.
--The engine is less than wonderful when it comes to choosing the most important towns to identify on the maps at various scales. The base view identifies the Edinburgh neighborhood of Dunfermline, rather than the greater (and more recognizable) conurbation. Similarly, I've found it awkward when looking around the US midwest--sometimes it seemed to display every place name *but* Peoria.
--In the US version at least, highway numbers seem to be displayed fully only at very high zooms. There could also be more distinction in road grades--currently the system distinguishes only freeways, state roads, and everything else. This makes it a bit difficult to use the system for figuring out driving routes.
--Could do better at showing non-road things: rivers, neighborhoods, etc.
All in all, the search feature and seemless panning are excellent, but the maps generated are a bit too stripped-down for my tastes.
The label for Dunfermline obscures the label for Edinburgh on the zoomed out view. It is actualy there if you zoom in a bit..
If you go to the maps.google.com, zoom right out and switch to satellite view, you can scroll over to the right where the UK is and hey presto satellite views!
It's not complete yet and only zooms halfway in before you're notified it's incomplete, but it should definitely be something to look forward to.
Although I am a google fan, I have been using for quite some time the Map24 page after someone in /. pointed at it. I find it quite useful and the interface is pretty cool (Real time map find using Java or No Java option.
I find it quite useful to look for places in Europe when going to a conference or vacations, that and the HostelWorld are pretty cool pages, now, there is something I have seen no Map page do, that is, to add Bus line information to the maps, I know in some countrys it would be rather difficult but, in UK, there is Arriva, MerseyTravel and other companies whose lines and journeys are very well defined, now, if someone adds that functionality it will be THE map web page I will use =o).
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I played with this a bit. Plan a route from, say, Bristol to Belfast, and Google will include the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin. So, my guess: not very long at all.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Google Maps UK does look nice and I expect I'll make some use of it. However, one of the things I like about Multimap is that you can actually see the Ordnance Survey map, which gives you loads of lovely detail, including topographic information. This is very nice if you're just looking for a scenic ride.
After getting lost in Haryana once, I figured out that most roads here do not have names, and even if they do, no one is quite sure where they go...
You could probably map the "official" areas of big cities like Delhi or Mumbai, but forget about the slums or village India.
Still using Americanisms as well: "Take the ramp to Stansted/London" for example. Ramp? What is this, a BMX stunt course?
Frankly I will be sticking with streetmap.co.uk, multimap.com and the OS's own website that have the highly detailed, instantly recognizable to anyone from the U.K. Ordnance Survey 1:50000 and 1:25000 topographic maps of Great Britain on them. They also have the easily recognisable Bartholomew and OS road atlas maps. In comparison the TeleAtlas road maps suck.
It seems to me that its no coincidence that Map24 is also a good service - if you check their home page www.uk.map24.com then they are announcing a collaboration with Google. Methinks this is where Google got their map data from, and perhaps some of the software.
It's nice, but it's missing quite a lot of places - try searching for the Millennium Stadium (in Cardiff), the National Exhibition Centre (Birmingham), Bristol Temple Meads station, Birmingham New Street station, Edinburgh Waverly station or Cardiff Central station (I tried stations because it gave Paddington as an example and they have unique names, so it should be easy for it to find them if it knows about them.)
Ehhh, not quite.
All the mapping programs I've worked with treat ferry routes "like a road" - they have the ferry route in the database just as they would a road, and they just have a flag that says "This is a ferry route".
I have yet to see a routing program that knew of the schedule of the ferry and would then say "At this point, wait 6.3 hours for the ferry to arrive".
The problem with extending this to the airlines would be the time dependence of the different routes. While it does not matter WHEN I arrive at the junction of I-35 and I-40 (I-40 will still be there and still be available), if my plane arrives 1 hour too late, the next plane will be gone, and the route will be invalidated.
And then there is the fact that the "cost" of taking a given road is pretty easily computed - take the length of the road, multiply by an estimated speed for that type of road - done. Now, try to compute the "cost" of a flight - is that super-duper-mega-saver-standby, or "I need to fly out TONIGHT" pay through the nose?
Having a routing program that takes into account the different costs of air travel - especially when you remove the constraints on city of departure and arrival - you'd get into a VERY nasty bit of design. Consider: is it faster/cheaper to drive to Wichita, get a plane to Dallas, get a plane to LA, drive to Acton, or is it cheaper to fly into Burbank, or into Flagstaff, or to drive to OKC and fly out, or to KCI, or to Salina, or.... - and each of those choices imposes time constraints on the connections.
I won't speculate on the P/NP completeness of the problem, and I won't say that it COULDN'T be solved electronically, but I think you'd still be better planning the air part of the trips with a dedicated tool and much input from the user, then planning the road trip side of things with a map program.
www.eFax.com are spammers
http://www.hot-maps.de/index.html
and if you want good sat photos, download nasa's WorldWind earth viewer.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I love the smooth transitioning. But as far as detail goes, there isn't even any junction numbers on the roads. Not very useful when planning a journey. I think I will stick with http://www.multimap.com/ in the meantime!
it's nice that in london, it shows the tube stations right on the map.
It doesn't do this for the metro, in DC for instance. That would definitely be a useful feature to have when planning trips and the like
I presume your at Imperial College... but that's not the point.
That motorway based route would not only be faster when there is no traffic (which is what most route finders assume), but it is a hell of a lot more simple. Simplicity is really important when your driving a route for the first time in London...
The OS here (whom I worked for till last September or so) use a double-orthogonal approach. That is, they flatten left and right sides of the country relative to their respective centre lines, then marry the two images. This makes measurement errors smaller.
International maps tend to use a simple Mercator projection.
Someone from the OS will hopefully be along shortly to correct my terminology... Nigel T? Dave R? Are you reading?
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
I know people would say that Google can just buy satellite images from an independent source
Not that it changes your post much, but Google's aquisition of KeyHole netted them a satellite or two.
You can find out more on the Keyhole.com website under What are Google's Plans with KeyHole
Interestingly enough, if you try to select "India" from the drop down, you'll find it isn't there. Google has no plans for posting satellite images of India beyond the 1km resolution they plan to do the entire world using.
Public transportation is a viable option in NYC as opposed to other parts of the country. So the New Yorkers care, at least.
I never realized Yahoo Maps had the public transportation option, which is cool. I agree, having the different line options on the map is critical information.
"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want." - F Scott Fitzgerald
4 Privet Drive, Little Whingling, Surrey doesn't work! But hey, you get strange results when you try to map Hogwarts, try it.
and provide local maps for local people?
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