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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.

7 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Google hoods... find up to date information of the street gangs in your neighborhood.

    1. Re:Coming soon to a neighborhood near you... by SmokeSerpent · · Score: 4, Funny

      It could also help the peeping toms coordinate with the publicly indecent to save everyone involved a lot of trouble.

      --
      All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  2. Never mind maps... by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Forget 2D maps. It's dead easy to play around with Google Earth - and you don't even need an API.

    Go 'head and try it. Save a location, or folder of locations, as a .kmz file. Then rename it to .zip and unzip it. You'll find a "doc.kml" file, xml-formatted, easy as pie to reverse-engineer and work with.

    1. Re:Never mind maps... by PenguinOpus · · Score: 4, Informative

      Never mind reverse-engineering KMZ/KML, the spec and a tutorial have just been posted on http://code.google.com./

      Enjoy!

  3. Map places by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    Believe it or not, there's a map store downtown in the city where I live, but I could remember where it was.

    So I thought I would look it up with Google Maps, and sure enough, I found it!

    Thus rendering my need for the store irrelevant.

  4. satellite-map mismatch of 0.1 to 2 kilometres by dankelley · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I've started using this, and there is a problem for close-up work. The satellite view is distorted by a kilometre or two in the rural region in which I am interested. It seems to be good to about 0.1 km in the city in which I live. I have not done enough testing to know what causes the problem, but it is not difficult to imagine that it's simply a lack of control points in rural areas.

    The upshot of this is that if you want to put location balloons on a satellite image, you may need to do some ad hoc adjustments to the latitude and longitude ... which I would guess you'll have to keep changing as google gradually improves the satellite presentation.

    I've started a thread on the topic on the google map api discussion group, and at least one other person has noticed the same problem.

  5. So when are we going to be able to see ... by constantnormal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... Google maps of fictional places? I can see all kinds of tie-ins to (e)book publishing -- imagine if the Marauder's Map in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets could be accessed by the reader at any point in the story, of the potential of interactive maps of Narnia or (Alice in) Wonderland in drawing the reader into the story a bit more, blurring the boundaries between reading and gaming.

    Seems like all it would take is for Google to accept the publisher's business, and post the maps.