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Google Maps, Local Expand To UK

Posted by timothy on from the well-it's-about-thames dept.

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?"

31 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. UKIP Victory! by philbowman · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
    1. Re:UKIP Victory! by gowen · · Score: 5, Informative

      Kilroy Silk isn't in UKIP anymore. He's formed his own party "Veritas".

      The name comes from the latin : "Verity" meaning "True" and "Ass", meaning "Robert Kilroy Silk".

      --
      Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
    2. Re:UKIP Victory! by iainl · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, he says that he named it Veritas to signify that they're plain speaking.

      Because nothing says 'plain speaking' like a bit of Latin.

      --
      "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
    3. Re:UKIP Victory! by tehshen · · Score: 3, Funny

      I was looking at the "Veritas Manifesto" and thought "Is it all going to be in Latin?"

      --
      Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
    4. Re:UKIP Victory! by dani317 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well its all greek to me.

    5. Re:UKIP Victory! by mrsev · · Score: 3, Funny

      The bastards, how dare they; they are feeding off the very lifeblood of the Conservative party.

  2. OK, I'm impressed. by Darkon · · Score: 3, Funny


    It even found my local chippy. Go Google!

    1. Re:OK, I'm impressed. by gowen · · Score: 3, Informative

      Because you had to know the address of the chipshop to get that URL.

      Google found on the basis of "Find a chippy near my house."

      --
      Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
    2. Re:OK, I'm impressed. by timthorn · · Score: 4, Informative
      The colour is for the road status - in the UK we have motorways (eg M1, M25), other trunk roads (A class and B class, eg A41 or B4096), and other roads. Motorways are usually blue, A roads usually red or green, and B roads usually orange. Motorways are almost all 70mph, A roads vary from 40 to 70, and B roads from 30 to 60.

      The road numbering started out as loosely based on which direction from London the road heads. The M1 goes north from London, as does the A1. The A11 is a bit further around, the A110 further still. I'm sure there's a website somewhere that explains the numbering better.

    3. Re:OK, I'm impressed. by m50d · · Score: 4, Informative

      They're numbered in a spiral out from London. The A1 goes north to edinburgh along the east coast, A2 into kent, A3 south to portsmouth, A4 to wales and A5 to Birmingham, with the A6 going north to Edinburgh (historically) by the west coast. Then the A7 goes south from Edinburgh to meet the A6, the A8 goes west to Glasgow, and the A9 north to Inverness. Then coming back to London we have the A10 up to Cambridge, the A11 out towards Norwich, A12 to Ipswich, A13 out to Chelmsford, A14 confusingly elsewhere, but then A15 going more southerly and so on until we get to A69, all of these starting gradually further from the dome of St Paul's which is taken as the centre of London. After this the A70-A99 are numbered in a spiral from Edinburgh, A100-699 from London and so on. The green ones are primary routes, in rare cases B roads can also be green roads, and link up a set of "primary destinations". Generally these are straighter and faster roads than the red ones, with more service stations, etc. B roads (which are normally yellow rather than orange) are numbered similarly, but motorways are different, instead taking the number of the nearby A road. Thus there are plenty of gaps in the motorway numbering, for example there is an M20 but no M19, and the M5 starts nowhere near London, it's just long and vaguely near the A5. Also, when an A road is upgraded to a motorway it keeps its name, just with a (M) afterwards, so we have the A1(M) for large sections of the A1 route.

      --
      I am trolling
  3. Not only the UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    But Ireland as well.

    1. Re:Not only the UK by Finuvir · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ireland is the name of the island, which includes Northern Ireland (part of the UK) and the Republic of Ireland (a seperate nation). The Republic of Ireland is officially called Ireland (in English) or Eire (in Irish). The name "Republic of Ireland" is its official description for use in contexts where the distinction between the nation and the island (both named Ireland) is necessary to avoid ambiguity.

      So yes, part of Ireland (the island) is in the UK. None of Ireland (the country) is in the UK.

      --
      Why is anything anything?
  4. Canada by mincognito · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "expand its regional services to an international audience" Canada isn't the U.S. you know.

    --

    Ludwig Wittgenstein
    1. Re:Canada by Jussi+K.+Kojootti · · Score: 3, Funny

      Have they sold Canada? To whom?

  5. SMS by Big+Mark · · Score: 4, Informative

    We've also got Google SMS now, which is actually useful.

    1. Re:SMS by meringuoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Bugger me. Well, that's the end of the great British pub quiz, then... I think we have to just accept it now. Google is on course to evolve into an Overmind and rule the world. Suddenly I've got an information source in my pocket that makes the Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy look feeble...

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  6. Pah! by veeoh · · Score: 4, Funny

    No "houses of ill repute", or "ladies of negotiable affection" near me - useless damn site!

  7. Nice but not up to date by trash+eighty · · Score: 4, Informative

    very nice though several newish roads (2-3 years old by now) near me arn't on the maps.

  8. Re:But the prime minister's house by pklong · · Score: 3, Informative

    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

  9. Hmm, good and bad things by iainl · · Score: 5, Funny

    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?"
  10. Unusual Projections by andrewbirkett · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Unusual Projections by jabuzz · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, but most european countries have suitable projections optimized for the country. So Great Britain should use OSGB36 and Ireland should use the Irish National Grid, and so on and so forth. Instead they look to have imposed some WGS84 based projection on us.

    2. Re:Unusual Projections by redbaron7 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It is worse than that. It looks like their postcode database was in OS GR coordinates (good), which they converted to lat,long; but used the new coords as if they are WGS84 and not Airy36. This results in errors of a few hundred metres. I've mailed them point out the error.

  11. Google Maps India a distant dream by cOdEgUru · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Google Maps India a distant dream by swiftstream · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It is like this in other places, as well--or even worse! I lived in Nicaragua for three years, and in the capital they gave directions by referring to places that had been destroyed thirty years earlier, in the earthquake of '72!

      "What? The American school? Oh, right, it's right behind [such and such building]"

      "Where's that?"

      "Uh, well, it got destroyed in the earthquake, but if you drive three blocks east toward the lake, then turn south..."

      --
      Be a PATRIOT--because the only thing we have to fear is the lack thereof.
  12. Looks like UK satellite views soon too... by Aphrika · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  13. Re:If you scroll over.... by meringuoid · · Score: 4, Informative
    How long before asking for directions between locations in different countries, such as your house in the UK and a hotel in the US, and google gives you details of flights between the nearest appropriate airports?

    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.
  14. No Ordnance Survey maps! by jabuzz · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  15. Missing places by AndrewRUK · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.)

  16. Re:Poor routing by cybergibbons · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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...

  17. From memory... by aug24 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.