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Maps on Path to Mass Innovation

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the maps-rock dept.

Ryan MacCarthy writes "When Google and Yahoo! released their map APIs last week they unleashed a horde of hungry developers eager to integrate their data with the user-friendly maps. Brilliant hacks like Chicago Crime and Craigslist Real Estate are in the midst of switching over to the new API, while sites like MetroFreeFi use the new API to make it easier to find free wi-fi locations in US cities (San Francisco, for example). Imaginative developers, like Alan Taylor (Transparency concept), are digging deep into experimentation to dream up new uses for the maps. It's great to see the innovation when hacks turn to apps." I want to see Los Angeles maps of the action in James Ellroy's novels, and a national map of the worst, funniest tourist traps across the U.S.

5 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Google Earth-151,000,000 hits for Earth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "That's what I'd like to see."

    Funny how no one wants to see the bandwith bill, however.

  2. Re:Coming soon to a neighborhood near you... by patio11 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    With a database like the Chicago crime statistics, I don't think thats too farfetched. Something similar would really be useful for police departments -- color code the drug deals and murders by gang affiliation and you'll have a pretty good idea of where you need to keep an eye on fairly quickly. I'm guessing Chicago already does something like this internally (praying they do, at any rate), but it might help a smaller city which has trouble with gang territories not lining up with precinct boundaries.

    --
    Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
  3. Maps by and for the masses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The availability of high quality and freely available map data and maps over the internet along with open source software (and some creative minds) has finally been the catalyst to unleash a true revolution in the use of digital spatial data. As the recent O'Reilly book "Mapping Hacks" (http://mappinghacks.com/ documents and the Where 2.0 conference (http://conferences.oreillynet.com/where/) demonstrated, you don't need expensive GIS software licenses or exclusive geospatial technical training to make effective use of online mapping.

    Noticed how many academic or professional "geographers", "cartographers" or "certified spatial analysts" are involved in any of these projects? Nada. Oh, a few see the light but leave it to the true hackers to truly push the boundaries (no pun intended) of the art.

    As a recent ZDNET review of the Where 2.0 conference stated, "Hackers are teaching the industry what to do."

  4. Sex Offenders? by fkingarightdoggy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So here is a question.. The API TOS says "We also want to respect people's privacy, so the API should not be used to identify private information about private individuals." So if your state publishes sex offenders addresses online are you able to publish that information using google maps?

  5. Funny you should mention that... by randomiam · · Score: 3, Insightful
    A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for overheads of an air separation plant (for my father, who wants to put one in his model rail road set). I figured this would be easy to do as Praxair has a major production facility in Niagara County, one county north of me. Much to my chagrin, the plant was imaged with the low res photos. Curiosity piqued, I looked at some other 'sensitive' sites in the area. Here's what I found:

    This is the overhead of the niagara falls hydropower resevoir. The power station is lo res, but the neighborhood isn't.

    This is the site of a Dupont factory, a Dunlop Tire factory and a General Motors plant. All low res.

    This view shows a CSX rail depot in the north east and the Buffalo River (which has a plant for making HCl among other things iirc) in the south west. Both blurred.

    Now, I have no problem with denying high resolution images of sensitive areas to the civilian population (especially since the areas I've shown you are all prominently featured in the bad dreams of local emergency services types). But if that's the criterion for deciding what's obscured and what isn't, the result is slapdash. This photo shows a cheese factory. Those white tanks are NH3 tanks for the refrigeration system. Since the winds here are usually from the south west or west, the cloud resulting from a leak in the ammonia system would blow right over one of the more densly populated neighborhoods in Buffalo. Clearly, this should have been obscured as well (Except you can see pretty much the whole thing from the street, which isn't true of the other examples).

    It would seem that someone already read your mind SparafucileMan.What I want to know is who; Google, the local government, the national government (DHS or whoever), the owners of stuff being obscured?

    Discuss.