Google Offers Hybrid Satellite and Map View

That's Unpossible! writes "Google Maps now offers a hybrid view which combines their map view with their satellite view. The Google blog has a notice on the update. It appears to use 8-bit alpha transparent PNGs to make it work."

Comments

I wonder ...

[poopooboi]

... how large is the intersection of code between Google Maps and Google Earth?

Re:I wonder ...

[dariuscardren]

Earthsized?

Re:I wonder ...

[dragonman97]

Frankly, I think Google Maps' Hybrid Mode is much better than Google Earth's street mode. It's so perfectly clear - that was the thing that immediately won my adoration of Google Maps when it came out...I immediately recognized just how much it eat the pants off stuff like MapQuest -- and of course, the smooth scrolling and zooming. Google Earth is pretty awesome, but: a. I can only use it at work (I run Linux & OS X at home); b. It's extremely sluggish sometimes (not sure if it's congestion or RAM/CPU availability on my machine at times); c. the streets don't seem to be labelled nearly as well as Google Maps. Heck, I'd really like it if Google Maps could be integrated into Google Earth - I don't need to see satellite imagery 100% of the time. These faults excepted, I must admit that Google Earth is loads of fun to play with when it works well.

Re:I wonder ...

[tonsofpcs]

Well it seems that [recently] the Google Maps 'satellite' images were replaced with those images used in the Google Earth product [Google Maps had some nearby areas with older/different images that I could easily notice the change, and there was no change from Keyhole to Google Earth (I had the demo about a month before Google changed it)]

Re:I wonder ...

[mboverload]

How well the streets and satellite line up are amazing.

Re:I wonder ...

[mboverload]

Well for one thing it totally doesn't zoom in as far.

Re:I wonder ...

[p3d0]

It's not so great in some parts of Toronto.

Re:I wonder ...

[goneutt]

I don't get it? Is the gag the the don mills centre is nowehere in the scope? Might work better if you use center rather than centre, pulls up a don mills center at the intersection of Lawrence ave and Don mills road.

Having never been to Toronto I don't know if this is the right location, but if google has it as center then they'll get mussed if you use centre.

Re:I wonder ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought when you linked they would be nearly off the screen from each other, but they are so close they are touching. As good as perfect for any use I'll ever have.

Re:I wonder ...

[mrjb]

Depends on the area. My house shows the exact same satellite photograph both on google maps and google earth. As for the detail, I'm nearly able to see myself walking the dog.

Re:I wonder ...

[p3d0]

No gag. I just used the Don Mills Center to get close to where I live. The actual streets in that area line up astonishingly well. However, when I slid over to Scarborough, the streets are off by about a dozen metres. You can't see it unless you zoom in. ("Link to this page" doesn't preserve the zoom level.)

Nice

[Jeet81]

Saw that this afternoon as I was pulling out directions. More interestingly they even have arrows pointing traffic flow which I don't think they had earlier.

Re:Nice

[bladx]

They've had arrows pointing out traffic flow for a while now... as far as I know. (Because I used it a while ago to see traffic flow for a certain city...)

Re:Nice

[fimbulvetr]

Interestingly, if you read the story about the dude getting a taffic ticket, he said they inferred the "two way" streets because the one ways were clearly marked.
It's the same way here. I'm so glad they have the hybrid mode, the sat./map worked well before for navigating, but I think this will take the cake.

I wonder if there are any streets incorrectly labled as one way, and how often the map (not sat.) portion gets update to reflect these changes. It doesn't really matter too much, although I hope changing a two way into a one way is pretty rare.

Re:Nice

[turkeywrap]

It was these arrows that saved a man from a traffic ticket: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/20/180231 &tid=133&tid=217&tid=1

Re:Nice

[OrangeGoo]

I dunno how often their maps are updated, but it is interesting to note that in certain areas, their map data is at least as old as their satellite data. A new bypass highway opened around my piddly hometown not too long ago. To no surprise, the completed highway doesn't show up on the satellite (though most of it is present). The map, however, shows none of it.

It's amazing how accurate the roads they do show are, though - most online mapping tools (MapQuest, MSN) aren't very close, especially on the local college campus. Google, however, has everything nailed. Well... at least until the college decided to rip up all the streets, but that's another story. I wonder where they get their data...

Re:Nice

[bmwm3nut]

To no surprise, the completed highway doesn't show up on the satellite (though most of it is present). The map, however, shows none of it.

here's a cool view of a place where the map is newer than the sattelite picture. you can see where rt 36 extends to the west over washington street. but in the pure sattellite picture, you can only see the construction. this is a realitively new bypass, so the sattellite doesn't have it in, but the map is updated perfectlly. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=westminster,+co&ll=3 9.825644,-104.980974&spn=0.007749,0.015003&t=h&hl= en

Re:Nice

[surprise_audit]

I just looked for my house, and found something a bit out of place. The road running past my house has another road joining it as T-junction, with the upright part of the T running directly away from the house. Google Maps shows that as a 4-way intersection, with a completly fictitious road following what is in fact a drainage ditch... And just up the road the map shows a cross-street that runs through someone's house...

I too wonder where they get their data. I was looking at a couple of mapping apps a few weeks ago, playing with a GPS puck I got for my birthday, and I think one of those shows the same stupid mistakes in the streets. It was either Microsoft Streets and Trips, or it was Rand McNally Streetfinder. I don't remember which, and right now I don't have either loaded because my disk drive died...

The satellite view shows my pool, though, so - Hey!! I can see my pool from space!!

Re:Nice

[Citizen of Earth]

Here's an example of where the satellite imagery is newer than the map. The Ottawa River Parkway was moved around the new War Museum.

Re:Nice

[BackInIraq]

It's amazing how accurate the roads they do show are, though - most online mapping tools (MapQuest, MSN) aren't very close, especially on the local college campus. Google, however, has everything nailed. Well... at least until the college decided to rip up all the streets, but that's another story. I wonder where they get their data...

While they've nailed the streets in well-populated areas, and around points of interest (such as my college campus), it's funny to see how far off some of the streets are when overlaid on the satellite view...or at least how far offset they are from each other. The street my parents live on, for instance, runs right through their backyard. And no, they don't live in the boonies, they just live in an out-of-the-way neighborhood in a medium-sized town. Still, this is pretty good stuff...I can see a lot of good uses for it, when giving directions to people from out of town, for instance.

Re:Nice

[itchy92]

The satellite view shows my pool, though, so - Hey!! I can see my pool from space!!

That's more scary than exciting to me, though.

Re:Nice

[Baricom]

Google, however, has everything nailed.
The hybrid mode works great - maps and photos match exactly - but their geocoding has been consistently off by a couple of blocks for me. Not enough to keep me from where I'm going, but enough to make it more difficult to get there. On Google Earth, however, some streets aren't quite lined up with the photos.

I do have to admit they're better than the competition, however.

Re:Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Woo! Go state!

Re:Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Not many people could appreciate that, for my little crx just made that hop this evening!

Re:Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Many maps, it seems, do contain minor detail errors like this. It allows the copyright holder to prove when somebody's republished their map without permission.

Re:Nice

[anthony_dipierro]

Google Maps shows that as a 4-way intersection, with a completly fictitious road following what is in fact a drainage ditch...

You must be using Wiki Maps, the map site that anyone can edit!

Re:Nice

[Zouden]

As another poster mentioned, it's a fairly common practise to add non-existent roads to maps. The roads never go anywhere, so no one should get misled.
This allows the map-makers to quickly check for unauthorised use of their maps.

There was an article in the Sydney Morning Herald a few years ago about this. The map-makers said that in 15 years of doing it, no one has ever noticed!

Re:Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

I've also found that most streets in my city are shifted to the side of where they actually appear.

Re:Nice

[CyricZ]

Then it shows that they're selling a knowingly flawed product. Were someone to attempt to drive down one of these false roads, perhaps into a drainage ditch that is actually there instead, and was killed, then it would be a tragedy. The map makers who performed such cartographic falsity should be held responsible for such a death.

Re:Nice

[pedroloco]

Were someone to attempt to drive down one of these false roads, perhaps into a drainage ditch that is actually there instead, and was killed, then it would be a tragedy.

Please tell me you're joking. Anyone who drives a car and drives off a road because they were following an erroneous map instead of their own eyes is asking to be Darwined.

Re:Nice

[rthille]

Really? I'm not worried by it, since it's not real time and you certainly can't identify individuals there, though you might possibly be able to see that people are there.
Besides, if you've ever been up in a plane, especially a light plane that you can direct (either by flying it yourself or asking the pilot to "head over there, I want to check that out") you'd know that you can get much better views into people's back yards (in real time :-).
I'm with David Brin. If there's no privacy, I'd rather that the information be available to everyone, not just the powerful.

Re:Nice

[surprise_audit]

I would agree with that - anyone with eyesight good enough to be allowed to drive ought to be able to spot a drainage ditch or a place where there's no road.

On the other hand, if you're in an unfamiliar city and you're using one of these flawed maps to navigate to a hospital in an emergency, for example, the consequences could be life-threatening. But you know, I'm abso-fucking-lutely sure that somewhere in the packaging, or in the click-though EULA, there'll be weasel words that absolve the maker of all responsibility.

"This product is for informational purposes only. It is not warranted for use in an actual emergency. If this product performs flawlessly, be surprised - we certainly will be, because we're just trying to ship it out the door as fast as possible. Any resemblance between this product and an actual verfified-accurate map is entirely coincidental."

Never mind that on a good day the GPS unit can pinpoint your position to within about 3 feet...

Re:Nice

[rew]

This could be one of those planted errors. They plant an error in the map-data, so that if someone steals their map-data, and has the same error, they can prove it was stolen. Google (or whomever owns the map data) would appreciate you not publishing the address of the drainage ditch... :-)

Re:Nice

[surprise_audit]

You can see the ditch on the satellite view. Switching between satellite and hybrid views makes it really obvious to anyone with any kind of clue. And the satellite view shows 42nd.St running along what would be the fenceline between the backyards of two rows of houses, if they had fences. It passes through someone's house and swimming pool, crosses a real road, and ends up in someone else's storage barn. It's not a big secret...

Re:Nice

[rew]

If the thieves look at EXACTLY this part, there is no problem correcting this one "brandmark" in the map.

However if they miss ONE of say 100 of the marks, they can be succesfully sued for thievery. You know the area. You're able to find this one. Now go ahead and find more than 5 of the other 99 markers... Tricky ey?

As good as this looks...

[hoka]

I personally won't use it much. I like to be looking at either a map or a satellite, but not some combination. While I'm sure there will be plenty of neat hacks on this, and all sorts of other great things done with it, I just don't feel it.

On a side note, I am wondering who exactly is doing QA testing for all of these things, given how much square mileage is covered and how poorly some things may match up.

Re:As good as this looks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Geee, Mr. Negativity. What side of the bed did you get up on this morning!

Re:As good as this looks...

[TopShelf]

Quite the contrary, I could see using the hybrid in preference to just the map. If you print it out for someone, I find it more useful than just the raw map...

Re:As good as this looks...

[kevcol]

I am wondering who exactly is doing QA testing for all of these things, given how much square mileage is covered and how poorly some things may match up.

You saw the new Willy Wonka, haven't you? You know, those squirrels?

Re:As good as this looks...

[IgLou]

The satelite image alone was worth it for me. It's a good way to get the feel for the layout of buildings on a street. You just don't get that from a regular map. I do see where you are coming from but I think it's a case of net-novelty that hasn't yet bloomed into popular net-app... yet. Time will tell.

On a side note for me, I'm also waiting for higher satellite resolution so I can virtually stalk Angelina Jolie...

Re:As good as this looks...

[Anonymous Coward]

In large cities this would be useful because you can't see the road for all the high rises. Like NYC

Re:As good as this looks...

[tjernobyl]

There used to be a significant desynch between the map and the satellite image for Canada and other northern areas. It was an artifact having to do with how the projection was done. They seem to have cleared it up now though; Winnipeg looks much less stretched, though you can still see some funny business in the watermarks.

Re:As good as this looks...

[gstoddart]

I personally won't use it much. I like to be looking at either a map or a satellite, but not some combination.

Not to be contrarian, but I actually think the hybrid will be useful.

Several times I've found myself flipping back and forth between the two as I'm trying to visualize where something is and I need to see the street names to know exactly where something is, and the map to reconcile with the geography.

Like all shiney google things, you may not need all of the features, but someone will find 'em useful.

Cheers

Re:As good as this looks...

[nwbvt]

Thats fine as long as you live somewhere where nothing has changed recently. I'm not sure when those satellite pictures were taken, but when I took a look at my neighboorhood, the shopping center down the street (which was built and developed when I moved in) was still a construction site in the image.

Re:As good as this looks...

[plover]

Well I just used the feature quite extensively this weekend. I was selecting points on a googlemap to locate traffic cameras.

The only reference points I had was a rough text description (TH77 @ Old Shakopee Road, camera nearest TH77 southbound) and a pair of reference photos showing the viewpoints to the north and south. Through the camera photos, I could see things like bridges in the distance, cross streets, nearby features, the curvature of the roads, etc. Using the hybrid view, I was able to see the physical features on the map, and in most cases was able to locate the camera quite accurately.

I found it quite difficult to locate the cameras using the map only, and there were places where I was unfamiliar with the roads, and would have spent a lot of time flipping back and forth from the map to the satellite view in order to identify the locations.

In my area, the roads Google indicates are dead center down the middle of the paved stripes visible in the satellite images, so they line up nicely. As an added bonus, the precise placement on the map isn't of paramount importance - being off by 50 feet won't make a difference in usabiliity. Although it would have been nice to do it "perfectly", I had no source for lat/lon data for the cameras. That actually would have made it much easier, as I could have bulk inserted the cameras into the database rather than pick them all out by eyeball.

Too bad for IE

[Godman]

Transparent PNG files won't work...

Re:Too bad for IE

[Anonymous Coward]

1-bit transparency works fine. Do you think Google is that stupid?

Re:Too bad for IE

[SNACKeR]

you can do transparency in IE using its own CSS alpha filter

Hmm...

[Mr. Spontaneous]

Hmm... It appears to work in IE, but I thought IE didn't support png alpha transparency? Anyone know why?

Re:Hmm...

[turkeywrap]

I believe IE 6 doesn't support 24-bit PNGs.

Re:Hmm...

[SpinJaunt]

http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel 9.InternetExplorerSupportForPNG

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... It appears to work in IE oh google, what CAN'T you do???

Re:Hmm...

[fimbulvetr]

Google to AC: Get you a girlfriend.

Re:Hmm...

[hazee]

Perhaps a more interesting question would be why they bothered to make it work with IE, rather than requiring IE to work with PNGs. How long is it before Google is strong enough, at least in the web sphere, to dictate terms to Microsoft?

Maybe they're there already - it's not implausible that they could release something that doesn't work properly with existing versions of IE, along with an explanatory note to upgrade to a working browser.

If they put in a direct link to Firefox say, the takeup could be huge, dwarfing the installed base to date. All of us here may know about all the alternative browsers, but your average joe doesn't - but if Google were to start pushing people towards them... now *that* would be news.

Re:Hmm...

[schon]

Considering that MS views google as a competitor, I think that would cause MS to never support translucent PNGs, and launch a similar feature on MSN that works with IE.

Re:Hmm...

[jeremyds]

What exactly would Google gain have by making their applications not work properly in IE? The general public does not want to bother installing a different browser just so they can use a Google app. In fact, it may have the unintended effect of turning people off to Google. It gives the perception that they have lazy developers and/or just doesn't care. I'd like to believe that Google develops applications for the end-user, not just Firefox zealots.

Re:Hmm...

[Buran]

What exactly do most web sites have to gain by making me install a crapware browser I don't want just to view their shitty site? Yet over and over I see "Works best in IE..." bullshit.

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't! I thought he was a girl!

I feel like I need to brush my teeth now...

Re:Hmm...

[multipartmixed]

Download http://www.realtime-realtor.com/scripts/pngbehavio r.htc

Add IMG { behavior: url(/path/to/pngbehavior.htc); } to your CSS.

IE now supports transparent PNGs (but only for image tags). Remember to include height/width attributes when you're done developing, or it'll be a little flaky ('specially when image is already cached).

Re:Hmm...

[hazee]

It's all about standards.

Google exists almost entirely in the web sphere. As such, it's in their interests that the web is consistent and reliable. When you get people like MS who simply can't be bothered to fix or update their browsers, that hurts everyone.

So currently everyone has to jump through hoops coding both a standards compliant site, and also an IE compliant site. Most people haven't got a hope of persuading MS to fix their issues, so they just deal with it.

Google, on the other hand, is potentially big enough to say "why should *we* have to jump through hoops fixing MS issues? FU MS, *you* fix the issues."

So it's not about zealotry for a particular browser - it's about someone finally being big enough to drag MS into line.

As for how they'd actually handle it, granted, it might be a little tricky to win people over, but I daresay it could be done. Imagine that you've looking at Google maps or whatever with IE, and the display is messed up. Google have detected that you're using IE, so they've included a link at the bottom of the page "having problems with the display - click here".

That takes you to a note which reads something like the following:

"Google is always seeking to bring you the newest and best features of the web. Unfortunately, Microsoft appears to have ceased active development of their Internet Explorer web browser some years ago, and it does not support the latest features. Fortunately however, a number of free, up-to-date alternatives are available. Click here, here, or here"...

(Yes, I know IE7 is in development, but A) it won't be available to those of us not running XP, and B) may still contain plenty of issues.)

So your average person gets the message that "Google is recommending I switch browsers".

Who do you trust? Who does your boss trust? Even PHBs have certainly heard of Google.

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

>I'd like to believe that Google develops applications for the end-user, not just Firefox zealots.

For your information, Internet Explorer is the ONLY modern browser that doesn't support alpha for PNGs.

It works in Opera, Safari, Firefox.

I'm on a Mac, I use Safari. When I was on Windows, I used Opera. I don't even like FireFox, so calling me "a FireFox zealot" because I want Goggle to support web standards is just plain wrong.

And btw, Google wouldn't "make their application not work properly in IE", they simply wouldn't code the IE-only crap that's required for IE in the first place.

The web is for the end-users, as you say, not Microsoft's personnal playground.

Re:Hmm...

[Buran]

Why the hell is it "redundant" to make the same smart-ass comment that the parent post made, except to make it about a different browser? I moderate fairly. Apparently I'm a rarity.

Cool!

[ballstothat]

This is a great development. As a delivery person for certain "items", it will be great to have an overview of roads and traffic patterns for my "stops" on my "route", especially when traveling to new areas.

It was so tiring carefully printing out the satellite views and then cutting out the roadmaps in thin slivers to fit over my printouts.

Re:Cool!

[ashot]

It was so tiring carefully printing out the satellite views and then cutting out the roadmaps in thin slivers to fit over my printouts.
man, what a godsend..

Re:Cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a great development. As a delivery person for certain "items", it will be great to have an overview of roads and traffic patterns for my "stops" on my "route", especially when traveling to new areas. Oy vey! This is why users make the worst dealers.

Not entirely new

[PeeAitchPee]

Mapper of Doom has had this for quite some time, albeit with existing data from Terraserver.

Re:Not entirely new

[Segway Ninja]

True, but you gotta admit, the Google Maps interface is far nicer.

Re:Not entirely new

[mr_sas]

Multimap have had a similar feature for a while too, take a look at their aerial view and then hover over the map..

Re:Not entirely new

[kzinti]

The USGS National Map has had the ability to overlay map symbology on aerial imagery for years. For example, check out this map. Furthermore, Google's imagery of urban areas is often the same aerial photos used by the USGS and Terra Server. Of course, Google Maps is way cooler to use than either the USGS or Terra Server.

Google Maps Widget

[halter-da-man]

Is anyone else noticing that the Google Maps Widget doesn't work on the sattelite mode anymore? And does anyone know if a revision for the widget to support the hybrid view in the works?

Re:Google Maps Widget

[QuaZar666]

I think I have used the several Google Map widgets and I have never liked them. Any you might recommend? But then again the Google Map widget takes up lots of space and well my dashboard is full of other more usefull widgets.

- Qua

Re:Google Maps Widget

[halter-da-man]

I've just been using one from the apple website. http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/transport ation/googlemapswidget.html/ I just keep it tucked in the top corner, so the only time it takes up more than a tiny sliver is when I am using it, and then generally do not need to see the ones underneath.

Scale!

[OrangeGoo]

They added a scale since the last time I checked the maps, too! Halleluah!

Re:Scale!

[glass_window]

Zoom out a fair amount and move the map around, the scale will change slightly. Seems kind of odd.

Re:Scale!

[OrangeGoo]

Not really. Depending on how they project from spheroid to rectangle, the scale should change. The distance between parallels is constant, but the distance between meridians decreases as you move further from the equator.

I guess it is actually odd, though, because the rectangle covers the same area at all times. Interesting.

Re:Scale!

[klui]

What's even odder is if you zoom all the way out you will see 3 Americas continents and a little over 2 Europe/Africa/Asia continents.

Re:Scale!

[Combuchan]

Only if the map projection is equal area/equivalent.

The projection maps.google.com is using is not.

Re:Scale!

[gstoddart]

They added a scale since the last time I checked the maps, too! Halleluah!

And thank Finnegan for that.

That's always been the biggest nuisance with google maps for me.

Re:Scale!

[Deodat]

What's more odd is that the United States is only 10 miles across....

Internet Explorer?

[RoadkillBunny]

Last time I checked internet explorer didn't support transparency in PNG's. So why is google ignoring most of the world then?

Re:Internet Explorer?

[halter-da-man]

Somehow Google doesn't seem like the type to conform to a bad product/standard, just because most of the world uses it. This is either another nail in the coffin of IE, or just one more thing to be "fixed" in the next service pack.

Re:Internet Explorer?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think its the other way around, bud.

Its most of the world ignoring Google if they choose not to use supporting software.

Re:Internet Explorer?

[KarmaMB84]

It works fine in IE. 1-bit transparency ya know.

Re:Internet Explorer?

[netsharc]

Actually IE can be made to do it, because MS has an ActiveX "filter" that enables things to be translucent. So yeah, instead of fixing their PNG support they expect everyone to load this filter crap.

Fancy, if not really useless, filters too, like one that makes the page a mirror image of itself.

But my version of IE crashes when looking at that example map, I wonder who will people blame, Microsoft or Google.

Re:Internet Explorer?

[GigsVT]

MS took all that kind of stuff from open source BSDed code anyway. zlib, jpeg, png, etc...

I get the feeling the only reason they don't add transparent png support is because they forked libpng and don't feel like porting forward their changes to a newer OSS release. So they continue to use the modified (and ancient) open source libpng.

Re:Internet Explorer?

[jlarocco]

Actually, if you would've taken 30 seconds to actually load the link in IE, you would see that it does, in fact, work.

If you remember when Google Maps came out, you might also remember people being surprised the directions showed up in IE, because they also used PNG transparency.

But, of course, I'm sure you're super L337 and using Linux and couldn't load the link in IE, so why do you even care?

Re:Internet Explorer?

[bot24]

Any time a browser crashes, it is the browser developers' fault. There should be no way to inflict harm upon the viewer's compter through the use of a malformed file.

So that means...

[Three Headed Man]

...that it won't work in IE? Thank you, Google, you bring good things to my life by forcing MS to improve their browser.

Re:So that means...

[Godman]

Actually it does work in IE. I just tried it.

Have no idea HOW it works, if it is in fact based on transparent PNG images.

Re:So that means...

[tavilach]

Actually, IE now supports the PNG format. Google would never alienate the majority: It seems that we'll have to let Microsoft improve IE at its own pace. It worked for Longhorn! Wait.

Re:So that means...

[Anonymous Coward]

(Reply to sig:)
You can metamod however you like. I mod Troll any post with your sig.

Re:So that means...

[tgd]

There has always been work-arounds for transparent PNG support in IE for quite a while now.

I don't use IE much but I've assumed a lot of sites used them, I know I did some work at the last company I worked at getting it set up in our software correctly. I'm not a web-developer, so I may be wrong in how widespread both knowledge it CAN be fixed, as well as HOW to fix it really was.

In either case, its a quick Google search. There are lots of sites that explain how.

Re:So that means...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's gonna hurt your karma a lot more than his.

Re:So that means...

[ScytheBlade1]

8-bit PNG images are supported, including transparency.

Read: one level of transparency. Another word for 8-bit PNG: GIF in a new format.

There's a few small advantages to using a 8-bit PNG isntead of a GIF, but they are essentially the same. IE also has no problem with them, unlike their 24-bit older brother that supports full transparency (unless you do that nasty Active X hack).

Draw my own line?

[wirwzd]

Now they need to make it do I can draw or adjust the line to see the mileage on different routes I want to take.

This could also potentially used be used to collect data to improve the mapping, i.e if the end user plots a better/shorter/faster path between two points if to/from map drawn.

Also could be used to collect correction data (i.e directed down one way street.

A button for optional feedback on change reasoncouldbe used to collect why the change was made, etc.

Re:Draw my own line?

[pcmanjon]

"Also could be used to collect correction data (i.e directed down one way street."

Whoa, does google maps really point users down one way streets? I've seen it avoid one way streets here in Fort Worth, TX.

Re:Draw my own line?

[Gunnery Sgt. Hartman]

Or you could download Google earth that has a measure feature. It allows you to measure a path or a straight line. There are a variety of units available including American and Metric.

This'll come in handy...

[The I Shing]

This is certainly bad news for all those girls I've been stalking.

Re:This'll come in handy...

[kai.chan]

To all the inflatable dolls and lonely men from mIRC out there, run for your lives before it is too late!

Re:This'll come in handy...

[br0ck]

Maybe you'll find the marriage between Google maps and hotornot personals even handier. (next in the popup from the pushpin takes you through all pics for a given zip - link via metafilter this morning)

Whoopty-doo

[Anonymous Coward]

The pinpoint for my house is shown a half block off... not nice for anyone looking for directions. While it may not seem like a big deal... in some areas where there are no discernible building numbers, this could really suck.

As far as IE png transparency... apparently MS slipped in an update with a recent patch... or for IE, both map and sat are combined into one png.

Re:Whoopty-doo

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

That's when you tell them: "It's the RED house in the middle of the block" or something...

Re:Whoopty-doo

[Linus Torvaalds]

Doesn't work for me: when I put in my address or postcode, it actually points to a road adjacent to mine.

Re:Whoopty-doo

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

It's most likly because the line map is not actually made from the sat picture, which is rarely directly above the point you are looking at.

Re:Whoopty-doo

[TLLOTS]

Actually they're only using 8-bit PNG files, which IE has supported for quite some time, unsurprisingly as they only use one bit for transparency much like good old .gif files. Full 24-bit PNG transparency support is still lacking in IE however, though you can use an ActiveX filter to force it in IE if you desire it.

Re:Whoopty-doo

[alphakappa]

Exact addresses are not geocoded to lat-long. However one can tell which block the house is on from the address, so the easiest way is to assume an equal distribution of the addresses on the block. In reality however, all houses do not take up the same amount of space on the block, so it is easy to find that your house is pinpointed at a slightly different location. However, it will be on the same block.

Re:Whoopty-doo

[That's Unpossible!]

Actually they're only using 8-bit PNG files

No, they're not, they're using 24-bit PNG files with 8-bit transparency. You can see this plainly by looking at a PNG snippet from the L.A. area hybrid I posted in the article:

http://mt.google.com/mt?v=w2t.1&x=11236&y=26171&zo om=1

I wish life were more like the internet.

[Baloo Ursidae]

Some reasons life would be better if it were like the internet:

• "Remove presence authorization from" would work physically on annoying coworkers without causing a scene involving security
• People calling me to not spend money would be told to "slow down, cowboy!"
• I could get driving directions from my home to my favorite campground by following a purple line floating over the highway

Re:I wish life were more like the internet.

[OrangeGoo]

As for the purple line floating over the highway, that's an active research area. The military is pumping a lot of dollars into augmented reality. I've gotten to see a few shots of some of their demo tech and it's pretty cool stuff. Now they just have to make it work correctly all the time and give proper depth queing... heheh

Someday, though. Someday!

Seems to work fine in IE...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Seems to work fine in IE. Does that mean it uses a different method for IE than Firefox, or it doesn't use transparent PNGs?

Hybrid Satellite

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it run on both gas and electric power?

Scaled as well

[Penguin]

It's pretty neat - the satellite photos are no longer wrapped around a cylinder (making places far away north or south from equator look squished).

Unfortunately there still isn't maps available for Europe besides England. I hope it would arrive soon.

Re:Scaled as well

[crazyprogrammer]

if you zoom in on Antarctica or an area near the north pole, the "(c) 2005 Google" text is streched taller.

Re:Scaled as well

[mike.newton]

Excuse me, there are maps for Ireland as well. (Not to mention Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.)

Re:Scaled as well

[riflemann]

Unfortunately there still isn't maps available for Europe besides England. I hope it would arrive soon.

Google Earth shows roads throughout most of Europe, so it's just a matter of time before they put that data onto Google Maps.

Re:Scaled as well

[simonwalton]

To most people they are the same thing. :)

Re:Scaled as well

[liteswap]

To Americans they are the same thing :)

Re:Scaled as well

[Council]

And they've still declined to use the high-res b&w imagery available on Terraserver, or some other color image package that MapQuest had for a while. There are far too many locations (like my current apartment) that are still at crap-level. I wait impatiently.

And when you zoom in all the way...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 8-bit alpha transparency CHEESE!

IE supported as well (transparent PNG)

[Penguin]

There are a couple of different ways to achieve transparent PNGs in IE - besides simple 100% transparent colors (as known from gifs). The Google overlay isn't simply 100% transparent. The same goes for the "speech bubble" when clicking on different places.

There are a couple of different methods. The Google Maps API mentions one:

http://www.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/#XHT ML_and_VML

Amazing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at how all the roofs have "Google" written on them. Only in America.

But I pity those who have to live/work where the roads have been build on top of thier houses. Just look at that blue roof.

Google

[dourk]

I love them. *blush*

M$ must be saying...

[bogaboga]

"...now wait a minute, how the heck do we respond to this? Before we even thin of an appropriate response, they (Google) will be out with another innovation". S**t!"

Re:M$ must be saying...

[Anonymous Coward]

Response is already ready. MS' "virtual earth", which does the same thing (scrolling around, maps overlaid on satellite photos) is going to be released on Monday.

Re:M$ must be saying...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's TerraServer satellite images are of a much better quality than Google's and have been around for years (they don't cover the whole US, mainly urban areas). Of course, their interface is as pukey as it gets, but I do find interesting that we've been able to see which of our neighbors have pools for years through M$'s TerraServer, and nobody even knew about it.

Anyway, the kind of innovation everyone should be watching - including Google - is not this kind. I find the Google Maps app pretty cool but I know that Google isn't going to make a dime from me out of it, even if they pack it with ads.

Mind also that both, the satellite images and the geodata are not from Google. The ones making money here really are the companies that maintain and provide that data. Acquisitions anyone?

PNG support in IE

[gusnz]

OK, so as sort of a meta-reply to all the posters asking about IE and PNG support, here's 2 interesting hacks you can use to get your PNG magic rolling in MSIE.

MSIE (as of v6) doesn't support 32 bit transparent PNGs natively, but there is a cool hack where you can dither them down to 8 bits, retaining translucenct for browsers that support it, and using 1-bit transparency in MSIE, so it still looks OK.

Alternatively, you can use the AlphaImageLoader() filter for near native IE PNG support -- that's a link to my own free CSS behavior that automatically adds IMG and background-image support for PNGs to MSIE 5.5+.

Either way, PNGs rock, except for the lack of a cross-platform gamma standard -- if you need to match other colours on your site, just use JPEGs/GIFs.

Re:PNG support in IE

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps one can ditch world's worst, crappiest, most broken browser, and use something else that works? Anything will do - Firefox, Mozila, Opera, you name it - they're ALL better than IE.

That's like a workaround to still drive your rusty 1976 Lada Niva... The point is?

Re:PNG support in IE

[Anonymous Coward]

>if you need to match other colours on your site,

drop the GAMA-header of your .png - with pngout for example.

Re:PNG support in IE

[Cuthalion]

That's not a solution web developers (Which is who he's talking to) can do. But thanks for your suggestion!

This is great... What's next?

[Gamingboy]

This is truly a great innovation, I gotta wonder what's next. Any Ideas?

Re:This is great... What's next?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really a great "innovation" that you tout it to be. It's the next logical step. The Virtual Earth demo shown on the channel9 video had this feature, and thats been out for quite a while...this looks more like Google catching up with Microsoft for the first time on ideas (yes I know Virtual Earth has not yet been released)

Not the newest map I see...

[guardiangod]

When I looked at the new google maps I noticed that some of the streets near my house are not indexed. When I compare it to yahoo map, however, the roads are present.

I guess google map is not as new as we thought.

About time!

[Jon Abbott]

Multimap had done this for quite some time over the UK, but only with Internet Explorer. Google's solution works fine on Safari, and it looks clean to boot. Kudos Google!

Now if our ZIP codes resolved to a single address, we would be set. ZIP+4 helps, but it's still not there yet. UK postcodes, while not perfect, are much better in this regard.

I guess "regular" maps can now be officially

[melted]

I guess "regular" maps can now be officially declared dead. This is right on so many levels, and implementation appears to be flawless.

Re:I guess "regular" maps can now be officially

[Anonymous Coward]

So when did google maps get installed into my car?

Re:I guess "regular" maps can now be officially

[melted]

Heck, you can do this right now. EVDO data service and cheap laptop is all you need.

Re:I guess "regular" maps can now be officially

[Ron Bennett]

Not quite yet ... for all the bells and whistles, Google Maps has a major weakness...

NO distance scale - many folks have sent Google comments about the lack of this important item.

That's among the reasons some folks still use MapQuest, etc.

Ron

Re:I guess "regular" maps can now be officially

[Ron Bennett]

Jumped the gun on that one - I should have taken another look before posting...

Google finally listened and recently added a distance scale - it wasn't there the other day.

Now Google Maps is finally complete :)

Ron

Re:I guess "regular" maps can now be officially

[Linus Torvaalds]

I guess "regular" maps can now be officially declared dead. This is right on so many levels, and implementation appears to be flawless.

Regular maps don't need a computer and Internet connection. Those are two pretty big flaws.

Re:I guess "regular" maps can now be officially

[Anonymous Coward]

http://ark42.com/google/gmapcache/

Re:I guess "regular" maps can now be officially

[imemyself]

Neat! :) I don't suppose there is anything for Linux that will do the same thing (yet) is there?

Re:I guess "regular" maps can now be officially

[rthille]

Actually, I don't hold the fact that 'regular' maps don't need the computer and internet against them. :-)

Re:endless praise

[FosterKanig]

I think you are using it wrong.

IE Crashes with it

[origamy]

Reproducible steps:

Map a place in San Francisco (1500 Mission St)
Click "Hybrid"
Wait for the hybrid map to load
Click "Map" to return to original view
SEE: IE Crashes

System specs: Win2K with all (released) updates.
IE 6.0.2800.1106

Re:IE Crashes with it

[ShockingCoincidence]

Works fine for me without crashing. 6.0.2900 xpsp_sp2

Re:IE Crashes with it

[s7uar7]

It's not just you, it crashes on me if I follow those steps. It doesn't matter what the zoom level is or whether you have any markers are displayed, just swapping from map to hybrid to map does it.

Re:IE Crashes with it

[klui]

Crashes under IE 6.0.3790.0. Windows 2003 Server.

Re:IE Crashes with it

[toddestan]

It crashes Internet Explorer here too. Version 6.0.2800.1106.xpsp2.050301-1526 (and I thought other programs had confusing version numbers!)

Still in progress road marking

[phoebe]

Google Earth has this feature, but both highlight errors in the overlay process. I'm sure there are worse examples, but the Brooklyn Bridge road is in the East River at high zoom.

Re:Still in progress road marking

[klparrot]

I'm sure there are worse examples, but the Brooklyn Bridge road is in the East River at high zoom.

If you look more closely, you'll see it actually does line up pretty well. The satellite photo was taken at a bit of an angle, and the height of the bridge deck above the water is making it appear misaligned to the map data. But look by the base of the suspension towers; you can see that at ground level, the alignment is pretty good.

Very Impressive

[(eternal_software)]

From a programming standpoint, this is amazing.

The fact you can zoom in, to the highest zoom level, anywhere in the US... and the roads line up with the satellite maps.. is amazing.

I just zoomed in fully to my street on Long Island, NY, and the road names and highways were overlayed perfectly with the actual streets as depicted on the satellite map.

How do they do this? I guess the satellite maps are labelled so precisely that they can overlay lat/lon routes on top of them?

Re:Very Impressive

[OrangeGoo]

I dunno, but it must be a nightmare having to get everything to work correctly. I've recently had the (dis)pleasure of doing coordinate conversions - not only between coordinate systems (lat/lon, UTM, SPCS), but also projections (LCC, NAD27/83, WGS84) and datums (NAD27/83, WGS84), and sometimes even spheroids (GRS80, Clarke66, WGS84).

They do it so well and so cleanly, I can't help but wonder if maybe some of the major GIS companies are starting to worry. Could ESRI be the next target? I know we've been investigating using Google Maps and Google Earth for our GIS applications, and that's quite a handful of contracts ESRI could lose...

Re:Very Impressive

[thegamerformelyknown]

The interesting thing is that they are doing the perfect overlay on Google Maps, but it's still not working that well on Google Earth, which actually has people paying for it ATM (for the Plus version anyways). I wonder if they are totally different parts of the company?

Re:Very Impressive

[killa62]

The accuracy of the overlay seems to vary according to the elevation of the area and also the image itslf.
Because of the fact that sattilites can only zoom in so far and still have a good image, in areas where you can zoom all the way in, they have to use airplanes to take pictures. Nevertheless, these survery airplanes have to maintain a perfect or almost perfect parallellness with the ground or else the image will look shifted. In places where the overlays are not very exact, the most common reason is than when the sattilite image was taken, the survey plane's camera was not pointing straight down and resulted in a shifted overlay in relation to the real image.

Re:Very Impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in LI too! w0o00o0ot! Nassau County kicks ass, and girls from Suffolk are easy.

Re:Very Impressive

[burns210]

Yea, praise Google and all that... Except my town near Salem, OR is grossly mislabeled on Maps. One of the 2 main roads in town is cut off at roughly halfway. This is a couple mile long road that feeds directly into the interstate, and is not labeled properly at all... As long as you want to stay on the Northeast end of it, you are fine, though.

Re:Very Impressive

[Witchblade]

The fact you can zoom in, to the highest zoom level, anywhere in the US... and the roads line up with the satellite maps.. is amazing.

Not quite. Everyplace I look at in the satellite views never have the highest view zoom resolutions available. Outside of the largest metropolitan areas coverage is not quite as reliable. For instance they show my house as being at the wrong end of my street. (What it claims is my house is a small apartment building.)

Re:Very Impressive

[Bob Wehadababyitsabo]

Not to nitpick, but in NYC the streets do not line up with the photo properly. A little annoying to see the supposed street cutting through the block. (not sure how to post a link to the evidence).

Re:Very Impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually they've cleaned up their road center lines quite a bit.

Not long after Google maps was released with satellite data I pretty easily found lots of massive shifts (10's of meters) in the area where I live.

Going back there now to those places it seems the problems have been fixed.

It's likely they wrote some software to combine road extraction using radiometry & edge detection and applied graph theory on their road networks to pretty much adjust all the road vectors (which would also move the roads in new construction areas).

Of course there are a few more details involved in doing this...

Re:Very Impressive

[westyvw]

Id love to see ESRI get some real competition. I have the STate of open GIS and use some open source GIS apps, but they dont have the tools that ESRI does now.

Server, though is another thing, if you can make you maps, you dont need ESRI to show them, you can do it yourself for nothing. And be better at it too.

Re:Very Impressive

[mblase]

The fact you can zoom in, to the highest zoom level, anywhere in the US... and the roads line up with the satellite maps.. is amazing.

This is only true where the satellite imagery is complete, and it isn't. My hometown of Peoria, IL is missing detailed imagery for about the eastern third of the city. There's nothing Google can do if they don't have the imagery, of course. I just wanted to point out that your praise isn't strictly true.

Yeah, it's 1 AM and I don't have anything better to do right now. :-)

Re:Very Impressive

[william_w_bush]

Google maps v 1 didn't really blow me away. there were cool features, but it was mostly like, "wow, but so?". This is frickin' incredible. Seeing the world top-down doesn't always make sense to us, but with the points of reference you can get a much better sense of perspective. Real street maps should be like this, but they couldn't be big enough.

Someone should make a pda that can snag this stuff via gps.

Re:Very Impressive

[zippthorne]

You do realize that gps is not a network protocol, but rather a constellation of satellites with "known" orbits continuously transmitting timecodes for the purpose of triangulation, right?

Re:Very Impressive

[Tim Browse]

They do it so well and so cleanly

Well, they do now, anyway. I get the impression that this Hybrid stuff has been around a while, but they were trying to get the mapping correct (I mean mapping between co-ordinate systems used by the source data). It wasn't long ago that if you switched between map and satellite view (at least in my area) they didn't match up exactly.

It was pretty good, but not enough for overlaying the two. However the hybrid view of where I live is now pretty damn good. Having said that, they still clearly have problems with some areas.

I'm tempted to say this is just a question of getting the maths right, but I expect there's a whole load of inconsistent crap in the source data that they (and anyone else who does this) has to cope with. Goddamn humans :-)

Re:Very Impressive

[Pollardito]

there's a little link on the right that is labeled "Link to this page" that you can copy as a bookmark

Re:Very Impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting the addresses is much harder than getting the streets themselves. For the most part, you have to interpolate.

Re:Very Impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

For both airplanes and sats you can only be pointing down at once single point at a time. Everwhere besides that point is a little off axis from the camera (and increasingly so the further away from the center point). You have to use this off axis data to some degree since it's too expensive to cover the entire Earth otherwise.

SWEET!

[ytsejam-ppc]

I live at the former Stapleton Airport in Denver, which has been redeveloped into a nice urban community by Forest City, Inc. (not to be confused with Detroit's OCP) I always wondered which part of the airport I was living on, and this answers that question handily. The new roads of the "map" are superimposed over the old satellite photos of the airport! I'm living square in the middle of the east/west runway! I love you Google.

GPS + google maps

[aword]

Hybrid maps are too good.

Is there any product which combines GPS and Google maps?? For car navigation or whatever.. Why hasn't google come up with such a product?

Re:GPS + google maps

[linuxinit]

I'm sure there is a third party app that does it... Though, you are supposed to have a Google API for that sort of thing...

Re:GPS + google maps

[ShockingCoincidence]

Google Eearth Plus (subscriber) supports GPS devices, but I've not tried it.

Re:GPS + google maps

[Anonymous Coward]

yes google earth supports it.
almost every advancement made to google maps in the last few months is stuff that is already in google earth.
one exception is the moon

Re:GPS + google maps

[Solder Fumes]

Not quite feasible until everyone has streaming broadband in their car. Or Google offers their entire mapstore for download.

It's a little off

[brjndr]

It's interesting to see places where the satellite images and map date do not line up quite right. In my neighborhood, they are just off, the map data is slightly right of the images. You can see it here."

So is the map data wrong, or did my my whole neighborhood shift slightly to the left? It is California, we do have the occasional 'ground shiftage'.

Re:It's a little off

[jamesoutlaw]

It's hard to say which is "wrong".. the map data or the image itself. NavTeq (the vendor who provides the street data to google) drives every road that is contained in their map to verify the geometry. However, there are still "errors" in digitizing and projecting the geographic data.

Regardless, it's really not a big issue for the purpose of these maps. :)

Re:It's a little off

[ShockingCoincidence]

Google satellite has my home address shifted east by two houses. The hybrid shows my street running through my living room. Not a big deal unless someone is actually using the map to pinpoint my house.

Re:It's a little off

[surprise_audit]

I can guarantee that the map vendor actually doesn't drive every road. In this view, the street just above center, E.42nd.St, does not exist. If you flick between satellite and hybrid views, there's not even a stream, ditch or footpath that could possibly be mistaken for E.42nd.St. There *is* no E.42nd.St in that neighborhood..

Also, in the center of the image, the 4-way intersection is actually a 3-way. E43rd.St does *not* run northwest from the T to join with S.193rd.E.Ave - that actually *is* a drainage ditch.

WTF is up with you people?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

They have satellite/aerial photography. They have map data. The map data is often derived from said photography. They've compositied one over the other.

Geez! If they put pictures of fancy roses in corner you'd be creaming yourselves!

Re:WTF is up with you people?

[william_w_bush]

yes, but either is less useful without the other. it's a small thing, but it makes a huge difference because it adds meaning/significance to images we otherwise might not recognize unless you like to sit on your roof a lot.

Re:WTF is up with you people?

[Tim Browse]

Because as we all know, of course, user interface doesn't really matter.

Re:WTF is up with you people?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was really as easy as you make it out to be, then why haven't any of the other major map sites done it yet?

The answer is that it's not all that easy.

Re:WTF is up with you people?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Someone had implemented it as a google hack already.

Re:WTF is up with you people?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

WTF are you talking about. There's no new interface here. And the interface they do have is stone age compared to the old Nvidia/Keyhole interface to satellite imagery which used some pretty sophisticated graphics/network programming.

Re:WTF is up with you people?

[Tim Browse]

Google tend not to do new UI. That's not the point. They do consistently good UI. They keep things simple, responsive, and easy to use.

That is their innovation. The world is full of developers who can't see how much their UI sucks, and instead expect the average person to be able to see how advanced/cool their underlying technology is.

Newsflash: people won't do that. Unless you have good UI.

Re:WTF is up with you people?

[diamondsw]

If it's so easy and obvious, then why no one has done it before?

Won't be long...

[__aaclcg7560]

Before you can Google Map a picture from Pioneer 10 that's way out there!

You're right, I just noticed too.

[game kid]

Yep, there's a scale. Seems credibly accurale.

With all this and Google Earth too, I still wonder why my brother uses MapQuest. I guess some people like legacy systems.*

*I notice they both use "@media print" so they only print what matters, not all the ad and search-box crap. Sweeeet.

Re:You're right, I just noticed too.

[drsquare]

Maybe because Google maps is slow as hell and very ugly. We don't all want to wait twenty minutes for a map to download, and we're not all drooling Google fanboys, some of us actually like to get things done.

Re:You're right, I just noticed too.

[recursiv]

Shit. In actual use, I find google maps about 10 times faster than any competitor. I think it looks better too.

Re:You're right, I just noticed too.

[klui]

The reason why I still use Yahoo Maps is because it prints better than Google Maps. The last time I tried printing was around 2 months ago. I couldn't get the map to display the route Google plotted in the zoom level I wanted (or print with a destination bubble). Google defaults to the initial route zoom (fairly high level). The printout of the text directions also was too large using too many sheets of paper. It didn't produce any output when I printed from Firefox--I had to use IE in order to get my output. Printer is a PS-based printer.

Google has fixed the problem with output problems in Firefox and the text size.

Submitted bug.

Re:You're right, I just noticed too.

[anthony_dipierro]

MapQuest has better driving directions. Can you even choose to avoid highways or make multiple stops with Google Maps? What about turn by turn maps?

Re:You're right, I just noticed too.

[anthony_dipierro]

I guess you can get turn by turn maps, but I'm not sure how you're supposed to print them (and they're kind of crowded for my taste). Avoiding highways is somewhat of a big deal though: I just mapped the route from my old apartment to my new one and it tells me to get on a toll highway for all of 0.6 miles.

More of the same....

[Anonymous Coward]

I hardly see it as "innovative" in the classic sense. It is, however, nice to see Google continuing to develop their services (unlike, say, Microsoft and IE6).

Other sites have had this; Keyhole has had this; hell, even the demo of MSN Virtual Earth has thie feature (which is not released. Yes, I know; it doesn't matter).

It's very useful, and nice to see. I note that it's difficult to read streetnames in places (try looking at a very jagged road that's vertical; the names are nigh on impossible to discern).

Here's one question - how can Google make their map service better NOW? What do they lack? I can think of integration with other services - Blogger/Gmail/etc) - real-time traffic information (Yahoo! has had this for some time. Actually, Yahoo! has an awesome mapping utility apart from the drag-'n'drop.. send to phone, send to email, print, multiple views so you don't have to print images EVERY DAMN TIME and pointlessly waste ink...).

And when will THOSE be released? More to the point, what additions will really make the service VASTLY more useful? Are there any?

Just missed it...

[linuxinit]

I was just using Google Maps about an hour ago... I must have missed it somehow...

I can't wait till it comes out of beta. :-)

Okay, awesome

[mcc]

When did google add the satellite images to google maps? Is that new too?

This totally makes up for the lack of a Google Earth mac version :)

Hmm...Knee-capper.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Perhaps a more interesting question would be why they bothered to make it work with IE, rather than requiring IE to work with PNGs. How long is it before Google is strong enough, at least in the web sphere, to dictate terms to Microsoft?"

When Google become's the thing you all claim to hate.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Computer Issues

[fwice]

I was just using this with my brother. On his pentium III 600, 256 mb ram comp, and windows 2000, google hybrid killed his virtual memory and pretty much borked his computer into a hard restart.

this happen to anyone else?

This guy did it earlier...

[GillBates0]

I wholly agree that this is a very cool development, but some credit has to go to this guy who developed it first with the Google API.

And I find his GUI better than Google's. It's slicker, and the ability to adjust the transparency (slider at the bottom) is quite innovative. As is also the ability to move the foreground or background and have the other align itself accordingly.

Re:This guy did it earlier...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also look at this site here.

Re:This guy did it earlier...

[Akardam]

That guy's implemtation certianly has some cool features, but I think Google's idea is slicker, since it gives you just the bare essentials in the overlay, as opposed to having to adjust the transparency so you can kind of see the satellite and kind of see the map.

Re:This guy did it earlier...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think this site's ghetto hybrid is superior, I've got a phone to sell you:
http://daryld.com/schtuff/ghetto_camera_phone.jpg

It has to be said.

[fm6]

As much as I admire Google, I think they really need to grow up a little. Yeah, all the cool applications and features they keep releasing are impressive as hell. But they're starting to neglect the basics. Like getting a product out of Beta mode in a reasonable time. (It's true that Google's Beta releases are often less buggy than most companys' final releases, but that doesn't change the fact that many of their products never seem to mature.) Like putting basic functionality ahead of the gee whiz stuff: Google Maps now has three different kinds of fancy displays, but still can't disambiguate addresses properly.

Google has a reputation for having a totally unstructured working environment. That's good for creativity and morale, but there has to be some coordination and policy making, or else you're just creating stuff at random and shoving it out the door.

I hear somebody saying, "But they're making money!" Sure, they do have some good basic products that generating tons of cash flow. The fact remains, their other projects are a mess, and a lot of promising products will probably never mature. All that cash flow is both very good and very evil. Very good because Google will not be in real trouble for the foreseeable future. Very evil because they have no incentive to correct their worst mistakes.

Re:It has to be said.

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Parsing addresses is not as easy as all that, as not only do people type them all sorts of non-standard ways, but also cities use many different non-standard naming formulas. These things being so, Google does extremely well in figuring out the garbage that people type in.

Re:It has to be said.

[pete-classic]

Stop complaining. As far as I can tell "beta" means "no ads yet" in Google-speak!

-Peter

Re:It has to be said.

[dourk]

But, since Google provides all these neeto features to me and so many others free of charge, who am I to complain?

Re:It has to be said.

[Naikrovek]

Beta is no longer a technical term for them, it is a marketing term. It is for most people.

and about the address parsing: it isn't sure it can accurately guess what you want, so it prompts you. would you rather it guess incorrectly or prompt? I'll pick prompt, thanks.

nothing has to be said.

Re:It has to be said.

[burns210]

It isn't like Google is one short attention span hardcore coder that just jumps from project to project. Neglecting the old as he moves to the new... Google, in fact, is an entire company. Some people in that company work on the google maps project, some on the local, some on news, etc, etc... And yes, some of them are slower at releases than others, or go through more R&D or get multiple projects that get time-shared.

Just because Google Maps is going break neck doesn't make Google Local go any slower in development(or lack thereof).

Re:It has to be said.

[Anonymous Coward]

Historically, the greatest advances in most fields have occurred when the thinking behind them is orthogonal to a clearly visible "reason". For example, cash flow.

Because something is not easily understandable, or not easily mappable to "profit", does not mean it cannot be monetized. And, frankly, MapQuest has shown that the business of getting people from point A to point B can be monetized. I see absolutely no barrier to Google owning the "directions" space within two years, regardless of anything any other company attempts to do to prevent it.

And they're going to make a lot of money doing that. So, do you have a better argument than "they just seem to invent things of no discernable value that millions of people use fanatically: they're clearly screwing up"?

You classify things like Google Maps as "a mistake". I classify them as "really, really interesting thinking". In the long view of history, the view you're taking has given shareholders large benefits, it's true.

However, the view I'm taking has given us results of larger quantifiable benefit to humanity as a whole. And I know which side I'm on in that particular comparison.

Re:It has to be said.

[mike.newton]

their other projects are a mess

You said it: projects. Not products. Projects that are clearly marked as 'beta.' I totally agree that their address comprehension is pants, but at the same time I don't expect too much, given that it's a beta project, not even linked from their front page.

Re:It has to be said.

[fm6]

I used to think that Google was using "beta" as a marketing term. But after a while it became obvious that it's their excuse for not having any real plan for products like Maps and GMail. They just pile on feature after feature. It is impressive that they can do this and still keep good control over their bugs. But the overall product is still something of a mess.

I guess it's a positive thing that they're honest enough to acknowledge that mess by refusing to remove the "beta" label. But it's sad that that label remains in place for years, and that nobody seems to have responsibility for removing it.

Re:It has to be said.

[fm6]

Easy or not, other mapping sites have been doing it for years. It's a pretty basic feature.

Re:It has to be said.

[Deliveranc3]

Google isn't a company... Google is an Empire.

They will create services which will survive for YEARS! Slow ad revenue is just a stumbling block towards total domination.

If they can just keep generating 5c a click for 50 years they'll generate billions!

Plus they have froogle which promises to be the biggest cash cow the internet has ever seen.

Re:It has to be said.

[rm999]

Do you really think gmail is a mess? I find it easier to use and more feature filled than the competitors. I especially like the search.

But anyway, to the point, I personally like the "beta" designation because it means they *are* actively working on it and improving it. Many of the improvements aren't big deals and advertised, but they make an overall better product. For example, how google maps recently added the scale and hybrid features. Both are useful, and make an overall better final product. They may not have been added if google maps were not beta (and I expected a scale in the final product!).

Re:It has to be said.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear that? That is the sound of Google giving a shite about your feeble opinion while they count their billion$

Re:It has to be said.

[krunk4ever]

so how's this going to be different to you? imagine google did remove the beta word from their google maps software. would you know the difference? would it matter if it was exactly the same product that it was during beta form?

in my opinion, beta is just a term google likes to fool the public with. if something is truly beta, you have 'beta' testers which usually are a select group to test out the product before releasing to the general public. this is usually a process to find bugs and etc. google has made the ENTIRE WORLD their beta testers, which i don't really mind, but final question that i want to ask you is how is sticking the word 'beta' or removing it from their products going to be any difference to you.

i can see why you'd complain if it wasn't release to the general public, while beta users reaped all the usefulness. sorta like how people felt when only a select few got 1gb gmail accounts. gmail was in beta, and people were fighting to get accounts paying over $50 for 1 account. i could see why you'd want to see gmail go outta beta just for that reason. but google maps doesn't require subscription fees, no one has exclusive access, and it works beautifully.

in fact, as someone else mention, google beta products are AD free!

Re:It has to be said.

[krunk4ever]

though froogle is nice, it's pretty hard to find deals on it. most times, prices on pricewatch or other price search engines would return the same product at cheaper prices.

of course what froogle does is automated by scanning websites, but it's far from competing against it's rivals at the moment. i'd say at least a few years worth. a lot of refining work on their froogle engine is needed.

Re:It has to be said.

[donscarletti]

What more could a business ask for than a model that works. Google's model may not be perfect, but currently they are more successful than any other business in its industry. You said it before: "Google will not be in real trouble for the foreseeable future". This is the case because google has not trodden the road of heavy structuring that you have suggested. Be careful what you wish for. Many have trodden that road, such as Apple and HP. Some were able to turn back but some were not. That mannic way google approaches its problem is a dangerous path as well, its snares are harder to see since it is running ahead faster than it can look forwards but we don't know about anything that will trip it. We know what is down the other path, they will become so entrenched in a single market that they do not see it collapsing around their ears, or they will get so overcome with marketing so the brand will be more important than the product, or they will become so top heavy with management that their production will not be able to support the resources required to maintain their upper strata. We have all seen each of these things happening many times before and they will continue to happen.

Corperations look around at each other for inspiration of where to go, we all remember that in the '80s western businesses looked at Japan as the holy grail. After the Asian crisis Japaneese Corperations even started hiring western executives to learn from them their inovative ways. All this teaches us is there is no wisdom in business nomatter how hard we search, on a long enough timeline all is folly. Google should do whatever it can do to simply keep making money in clever ways. The world will always need cleverness and google has prooven that it can supply a formidible chunk of the worlds needs in that field.

I like google, and I'd hate to see them ruined by ceasing to be themselves.

Re:It has to be said.

[IdntUnknwn]

I'm not aware of any mapping sites where you can type in "675 S Sixth, 95112" and get a proper result. Mapquest, for example, requires you to separate the address from the zipcode. In addition, Mapquest gives back two results, just like Google.

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?searchtype=ad dress&country=US&addtohistory=&searchtab=home&addr ess=675+S+Sixth&city=&state=&zipcode=+95112

Re:It has to be said.

[IdntUnknwn]

In my other comment, I pwned your one sole example. I would now like to ask, why are you expecting perfection in the first place? All mapping sites are bound to make mistakes. Good job, you found one. You blame Google for it, but how do you know that this was systematically Google's fault rather than the natural course of things. One example does not prove a pattern. Not even several.

You imply that your one example shows that Google is an ineffective company. However, Mapquest returns the same result. Are you thereby making the same statement about Mapquest?

Re:It has to be said.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gmail isn't ad-free.

And the beta label implies there may still be bugs, and if you don't want to use a buggy product, wait until it's out of beta. But you're given the choice.

Re:It has to be said.

[VoidEngineer]

by keeping the 'beta' term, they avoid the problem of shipping a final product with flaws in it. the software industry has, somehow, managed to convince people that it's okay to sell products which regularly crash and have bugs in them. if the automotive industry or airline industry sold products that had the same types of problems as software, people would be screaming bloody murder. somehow, the software industry gets away with it though. the 'beta' signifier merely puts google's offerings in a more realistic development cycle, on par with other industries.

consider this: perhaps google isn't keeping their products in 'beta' testing overly long. rather, perhaps the rest of the software industry has adopted a poor practice of shipping software too early under the guise of a 'working product'. maybe google is just being honest about the state of their products, unlike the rest of the industry.

Re:It has to be said.

[fm6]

But anyway, to the point, I personally like the "beta" designation because it means they *are* actively working on it and improving it.

No, it means that they acknowledge that the product needs work. Which isn't the same as actually getting the work done.

In any software project, developers are always tempted to work on snazzy new features: it's more fun and much more satisfying to implement a cool new feature than to implement a boring bug fix or basic feature tweak. One job of project management is to see to that developers do the boring but important work ahead of the fun but secondary work. When you see developers doing this, it's a sure sign that project managers aren't doing their job. Sometimes this means that the PMs aren't competent, but more often (especially at a company like Google), it means that they don't have they clout they need to enforce sane priorities.

And I see this in Google Maps. Yes, it's the most advanced mapping application on the web. Yes, it's got impressive AJAX UI features. Yes it has three kinds of displays, including a fancy satellite/map overay.

But it still lacks basic features that every other online mapping app has. Like the ability to store often-used addresses. Or, like I said before, the ability to disambiguate addresses properly.

A lot of people don't seem to get that, so I'll spell it out. The example I gave before was "675 S Sixth, 95112" That's not a complete address, but it's enough for Mapquest, Yahoo Maps, and MSN Maps. But feed it to Google Maps, and you get "Did you mean: 675 S 6th St, San Jose, CA 95112 or 675 N 6th St, San Jose, CA 95112". Well of course I don't mean "N 6th" I said "S"! The parser seems to get hung up over that fact that I left out "St." Which shouldn't matter, since Sixth St. is the only Sixth anything on the San Jose map.

"Yeah, big deal, that's a puny little bug". That's precisely my point. It's a puny little boring bug. And nobody seems to be working on it, because they're too busy dreaming up cool variations on the AJAX theme. Such negligence of boring little reliablity features is not a good sign! It means there's no overall coordination of the project, and it's likely to remain in Beta forever.

Re:It has to be said.

[fm6]

Hey, I'm not saying that they need to become IBM. But avoiding having too much structure doesn't mean they have to have too little. And probably they're beginning to realize this, what with all the projects that are still in beta mode years after being released!

As you point out, they're not in a bad place now: they're making money hand over fist, and everybody (including me) is impressed with their work. They could continue on this way indefinitely and still be in better shape than 99.9% of all high tech companies. That doesn't mean I can't wish they'd buckle down and do the boring part of the job that means taking their products out of beta mode. As I said before, I admire them, but I wish they'd grow up a little.

Poor Guy...

[Ghoser777]

Ouch, you must be on dial-up. My condolences. Maybe you can write google and see if they can do an ascii version to speed up the downloads.

Re:QA testing.....

[Anonymous Coward]

is done by pidgeons

A good time to point this out

[willisbueller]

prolly get modded off topic, but for the web devs out there
IE png fix via javascript
I'd imagine google is using something similar for their IE support.

Google temple

[dextroz]

Can someone point me directions to the Google Temple - I think I need plenty of blessings from the Google God.

But it has to be said.

[zerocircle]

Yeah, but all the cool applications and features they keep releasing are impressive as hell.

Address Accuracy

[hidispenser]

As much as I love Uncle GoogleMaps, if I want to find an address accurately I still have to ask Aunt MapQuest first. But then I run back to Uncle because he's more friendly and just plain fun.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

coincidence

[Anonymous Coward]

I was using google maps for the first time just a minute ago. I was lookiing ofr a river beach i went to last year and coulndnt remember the name, just the highway. I hit the hybrid button and i can see rivers and street names overlap, and thought really nifty thing there.

i switch to /. and learn its a new feature !

BUT

[Ark42]

Still NO EXIT NUMBERS! :(
I can't believe I still use Mapquest's tiny and slow interface just to find freeway exit numbers.

Re:BUT

[Cromac]

It can't be far off. Google Earth shows exit numbers, at least they did in northern Idaho.

Re:BUT

[jesser]

For surface streets, how about telling me the name of the street before the turn? At least in the San Francisco area, it's difficult to see the names of streets until you're so close that it's too late to make a turn legally.

Re:BUT

[Civil_Disobedient]

Same complaint. Usually when I'm trying to find directions I'll start off with GMaps (for the scrollability), then go to Yahoo (Mapquest) to get the exit numbers. Very annoying.

Re:BUT

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps because Google is based in California, where we are just getting used to exit numbers... http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/signtech/calnexu s/

Re:BUT

[fingerfucker]

They did add one-ways though. It must have happened recently. Only after they add exit numbers too will they be as good as MapQuest.

Works Great But...

[Dread Pirate Shanks]

It looks pretty goofy in rural areas where the satellite pictures can't zoom in enough.

That only really matters though for college students like me who want to look at their quad from space, but since it's in the middle of a frickin' cornfield it seems nobody cares enough to take pictures of it.

Re:Works Great But...

[LeftHandedPants]

Yeah totally. Makes me wonder how precisely they're trying to fill in all the gaps... and how soon.

and in other news

[Anonymous Coward]

...an employee at google takes a shit ...

Google Moon

[ScaryFroMan]

So how long until we have overlayed maps on Google Moon?

Re:Google Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to http://moon.google.com/ - zoom all the way in. If you can't find your way around a hunk of that stuff, you need to spend less time on Slashdot.

THIS FUCKING RULES!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

yet again, google amazes me... the whole is more than the sum of its parts in this case, makes it much less of a pain in the ass to use.

Wellllll... not always perfect. But close.

[crlove]

Neat that parks are labeled to, though: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=kearney,+mo&ll=39.36 9407,-94.362935&spn=0.003885,0.007308&t=h&hl=en

Not quite the same map

[Forthan Red]

The interesting thing is that it's not really a mix of their standard map display and satellite display. The map used to overlay the aerial (a more correct term) image, is a completely different map from that which you get in standard Map mode. They've stripped out all the background shading for different areas, made the roads much narrower, and made the street names more visible.

If you select an area where they don't have detailed aerial images at the closest zoom setting, and then switch between Map and Hybrid, you can see just how different the maps are.

And for any developers out there, the constant value to set the initial display type to Hybrid is G_HYBRID_TYPE. Happy coding!

Interesting to See What Politicians have done

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in LA, and when I opened the link, the map was (sort of) centered on Los Angeles looking down at the I-10. Much to my surprise, large sections of the I-10 (the Ronald Reagan Transcontinental Highway, last time I checked) has been renamed the "Rosa Parks Freeway". Who the heck is Rosa Parks, I wondered before Googling? It turns out that she is some hero of the so-called "Civil Rights Movement", a woman who won a court case against the city of Montgomery, AL back in the sixties, and somehow became a hero of the liberal press. WTF? Why is a large section of the Santa Monica Freeway named after the hero of a a liberal cause? Probably for the same reason that there is a "Martin Luther King Boulevard" in Las Vegas - some pol needed to buy off a pressure group.

It will be interesting to see how many of these bogus payoffs have been passed out, once people start looking at these maps.

when is the real-time traffic information availabl

[jameszhou2000]

when is the real-time traffic information available?

Real-time

[crawly]

They can provide us with satellite overlay but where is my real-time video feed with traffic overlay so I can decide what route to take that isn't blocked.

Re:Real-time

[Anonymous Coward]

real-time traffic displays? coming soon...

(someone who knows...) /t

the moon is made of cheese

[paughsw]

If you zoom all the way in at moon.google.com you can see what the moon is really made of (try it!)

Re:the moon is made of cheese

[Tablizer]

If you zoom all the way in at moon.google.com you can see what the moon is really made of (try it!)

Dope! It says "Made in China"

NZ MAPS!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.guide.org.nz/

Nice and all but

[Seb C.]

When do they map the reste of Europe ?
Honestly this is interesting, but since i won't go to the US anywhere near now, this stuff is useless to me... and even the satellite view won't do it, since they only map big european town and i'm leaving only 15 km from one, my town is not mapped...
Now Google, stop the eye candy for a while and get fill in the data buckets... If you wan tto overtake the world, you'll have to map it :p

Driving Directions: Vancouver, BC to Victoria, BC

[xbhatti]

Last week I was in Canada for the first time and was trolling around the web to find a way to reach Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada.

Unmindful of the fact that the island on which Victoria is situated is at least 90 minutes away by ferry, I plunk the following on Google Maps:

Start Address: Vancouver, BC, Canada and Destination Address: Victoria, BC, Canada

Pat comes, Google Map's reply: Distance 108.1 km (about 11 hours 49 mins). I'm still trying to figure out whether geeks would like cool technology or they would like buggy betas. Based on the vote, I would write the next business plan ;) If you care for the map and little bit more of the story, waste your time at http://www.khaitan.org/mt/archives/000074.html

how will yahoo maps and mapquest compete?

[krunk4ever]

google map has a way nicer interface than any of the 2 leading/competiting map websites. i haven't seen yahoo maps or mapquest introduce much more features to their mapping software. though the other software do allow searching for hotels, restaurants, airports, shopping, travel, entertainment and etc. but those are just a database of locations which is easily implemented. the interface of google maps was the hard part.

not the first...

[jbloggs]

http://www.mappy.fr/ has had this for a long time.

Virtual Earth

[alienfluid]

Virtual Earth had it first. This time Microsoft beat Google on their own turf. By the way, the MS interface is way better and the clarity of the aerial photographs is better too.

Re:Virtual Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

uh, virtual earth ain't even released as beta. if you can't use it, it don't count. It's like how longhorn's gonnahave all those nifty features that Tiger has right now.

No.......

[Anonymous Coward]

Works for me Fuck Cake.

Another good one...

[MixmastaKooz]

Here's a link to a bridge in St. Charles, MO that wasn't done when the picture was taken, but with Google Maps, you can see the mapped road jumps a partially constructed bridge over the Misssouri River (like Dukes of Hazzard! Bridge Jump

Re:Another good one...

[Tim Browse]

What I worry about is that people will follow the roads marked on the Google map instead of where the road actually is.

Re:Another good one...

[ScytheBlade1]

I read that, and one phrase came to mind.

"Good game."

Damn!

[Tablizer]

There is a giant fucking "R" covering my house, and I am really pissed.

does anyone care about he geographers?

[iamnot]

All these google map/earth features and well and fine, but what I want to know about is the projection! And what about UTM? Lat/long is a okay for the globe, but for regions UTM makes much more sense - and its what I like!

Cool

[suttree.com]

But it was cooler that Multimap had this about a year ago.

Playaholics: Wolf N Swine

Heres some cool links to try

[csplinter]

1.__ Statue of Liberty [http://maps.google.com/
2.__ The Hollywood Sign [http://maps.google.com/
3.__ Neverland Ranch [http://maps.google.com/
4.__ Area 51 [http://maps.google.com/
5.__ The Pentagon [http://maps.google.com/
6.__ 49ers at 3com park [http://maps.google.com/
7.__ Alcatraz [http://maps.google.com/
8.__ Playboy Mansion [http://maps.google.com/
9.__ Hoover Dam [http://maps.google.com/
10.- Microsoft Campus [http://maps.google.com/
11.- Initech (from Office Space :D) [http://maps.google.com/

Not necessarilly nice

[dj245]

18 years ago an overpass was planned in Bangor, ME where 95 crosses Stillwater. This was expected to go through the red tape quickly and was added to top-level cartographers mapping information. I was annoyed as hell when driving directions suggested I take this overpass exit, and they hadn't even gotten everyone to sell their house lots in the construction zone yet. The interstate exit finally went in 2 and a half years later, but only in one direction, not in both as the driving directions so helpfully suggested. Maps should follow the sattelite photos not the other way around. Having the latest and greatest highway informaiton doesn't mean didly if it is completely inaccurate.

actually, that is right

[Imazalil]

Sadly, that time estimate is accurate.

I believe Google is telling you the worst case time scenario (long weekend baby!) making it 30 minutes to drive out to the ferry terminal, 90 minutes for the crossing, another 30 minutes from the terminal to Victoria proper and of course the 9 and a half hours waiting for the ferry because everyone and their dog wants to get out of town.

Google is making sure someone doesn't punch in the info and expect to get there in two hours on a long weekend, blaming Google for the 'extra' ten hours.

Im.

Slightly off

[EnglishTim]

Sometimes the map and satellite data don't quite line up...

Re:Slightly off

[The Ape With No Name]

When I saw this at a Google employee's house and what they are trying to do I told them it would never ever work. My PhD dissertation is on remote sensing and mapping, and if there is one thing I can tell your about road maps and Tiger maps, they sure as hell are not derived from photos. Maybe helped by but not derived from. As he was a Google employee he told me that I was wrong and that they were developing a solution. I offered to co-author the paper at a large conference where Google and all of its super-genius employees would get credit for solving the raster vs vector problem. It would make my career. Ha!

Virtual Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually funny that they did this hybrid maps thing now because MSN's Virtual Earth launches on Monday which has the same feature. Microsoft also figured out how to do transparency on IE and Firefox.

MSN Virtual Earth

[lastberserker]

So why not go a link further? Or perhaps even try it for yourself? Pity most folks here don't realize that Google rarely innovates* anymore; they'd rather herald half-cooked imitations as something amazing ;-P

-----
* Correction: they do innovate sometimes, like making green cheese yellow or something equally amusing. Here, mods, do your worst!

Re:MSN Virtual Earth

[rpdillon]

Actually, one of Google's biggest innovations was that their interface is fast, intuitive and clean, and all their services are fast and responsive, and always available. I've never has a problem getting through to any of their services, and a search has practically never taken more than 1 second. I can't say the same of any other engine.

Besides which, a product to debut in July 2005 doesn't exactly beat Google Maps to the punch...seeing as how Google maps came out months ago. Also, seems I'm having a bit of trouble getting to your link above (no response). It makes it hard for me to evaluate it against Google Maps which I can get to just fine.

Tying in their main engine with local searches, and binding those to satellite and maps with pop-up markers directly on the map? Yeah, that hasn't been done anywhere else. Big innovation in my book.

Neither has GMail. It was the first free email service that didn't have some stupid restriction on how much space you could use.

Have you looked at Google Labs? Their mobile phone text message search was a first (to my knowledge), as is their Google Sets functionality.

I guess what I'm getting at is the innovation at Google is doing things right. A lot of the time they're the first, and when they're not, they're successful because they took an old idea and made it fast, reliable and usable for the general public. And that's why people use them...because they are always available and deliver pretty darn decent results.

I think they're also the first engine to index over 8 billion pages.

Nothing new here in France...

[garz]

This kind of satellite mapping has been available here in France for several cities for more than a year on mappy.com :

http://www.mappy.com/PlanPerso/mx17f/0

Click on the icon named "transparence" on the upper left corner of the map. (Or use the union jack flag if you want the page in english too)

What's amazing is that google did that for the entire US. Talk about time and money here...

[BTW : Now you know where I live in...]

Impressive, but...

[praseodym]

Google's own Google Earth can already do this - for the whole world. I don't think this is really impressive...

Europe

[Dasch]

I see they've added more detailed images of cities such as Copenhagen. I hope they'll add street maps soon.

I saw this a few weeks ago..

[Dr. Mojura]

Hmm.. reminds me of this: http://www.kokogiak.com/gmaps-transparencies.html. I wish google's version had the ability to vary the transparency level between the satellite and road maps.

Why isnt EU covered as well as as the US ?

[Meltir]

Makes me wonder why arend there maps of the old continent ? And why are the sattelite images getting in fact worse instead of better ? (the images of my country lost about two zoom levels)... Is google even going to be increasing those images or will they be dropping the quality of the 'less interesting' spots as time passes... Its just too bad - i would love to see what my rooftop looks like. So is ther a e-mail address i can send my complains too or something ?

Sorry not available

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have held this off until they had the entire US covered in high res images. Look at how crappy this looks!

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=sandusky,+oh&ll=41.4 84148,-82.686710&spn=0.016768,0.030129&t=h&hl=en

Re:Not new at all

[markus_baertschi]

There is map.search.ch with this feature since a long time. In addition map.search.ch feature satellite images of higher resolution, is very intuitive to use, and has many nifty features when hovering over displayed icons (schedules on bus-stops or train stations, temperature reading of public swimming-pools, amount of free lots on parkings).

Markus

Gamma is not a browser's task

[Animaether]

Hear, hear... hell, gamma isn't even a browser's task.

I know what grandparent is referring to, I've seen many sites on the problem. Graphics getting gamma applied, but background colors not. Table cells getting gamma applied, but text not. Continue for a few hundred variations on this theme.

Now this could all be solved if the browser handled gamma globally, i.e. at the final part of the rendering engine.

But in all honesty - gamma isn't the job of a browser anyway.
Ideally, gamma would be on the display device only. Smack the same card with the same driver and the same OS onto a different CRT and there goes your perfect gamma set up in either the card, driver or OS level.
Less-ideally, it goes down that chain. Card next, card driver next, OS next, application absolute very last.

The only time this causes problems is when you get multiple authors all working with different ideas of what is a 'correct gamma'. When you put two pictures next to eachother, one from an author who used a gamma value (arbitrary) of 2.4 and the the other from an author who used a gamma value of 2.0, whilst you're displaying under a gamma of 2.2, then the former will be (simplified) a slight too dark and the latter a slight too bright.
That's where device-specific information would be saved with the image data.. to tell the handling software to work back from a gamma of 2.4/2.0 respectively back to 1.0 and let -your- gamma setup (display, card, driver, os, application) bring that back to 2.2.

If everybody would just work with a proper gamma (plenty of webpages on this), it'd be entirely unnecessary.

That said.. I don't work with a proper gamma myself. Applications are holding me back. If I set up a proper gamma in the driver, all my UIs become completely washed out. No problem, I simply re-calculted them to the proper colors and set them back up (windows, linux, whatever - all the same). But I can't do the same for games and many other applications that handle UI display for themselves without allowing the user to tweak it.

I don't see any solution for the above anytime soon.

panic on the streets of London...

[MonoSynth]

The maps of London should be shifted a bit more to the right.... American cities look fine though....

Zoom support

[cmason]

I would really like to see the ability to zoom in by dragging a rectangle on the map. You might toggle between zoom and pan with a toolbar, or use keyboard shortcuts.

shows one-way streets now, too!

[Quash]

I don't know if they integrated it at the same time as hybrid mode, but they now show one-way streets. In a place like Hamilton, ON, where many streets are one-way, this represents a solid improvement.

Next Feature Addition

[telstar]

Word has it that the next version of Google Maps will offer images of properties seized under eminent domain rights, and the buildings soon to replace them. Stay tuned!

"hidden" routes are shown too..........

[yourfavoritetroll]

there is a mall near me that when you use hybrid the underground section's (walkways, car park "roads" etc) are shown.
it wasnt like this on plain map before as i only looked the other day.

google maps rock (but i wish the sat images were more updated in places)

internet exploror

[flacco]

um, i thought IE doesn't support PNG transparency? if not, COOL! SUCK IT IE USERS!

It's been done, sort of.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had this for quite a while, thanks to the USDA and MIT, via Iowa State.

It does pretty much the same thing that the "new" Google Maps does, and with much better resolution in Iowa, although the overlays aren't as pretty.

Obviously, not even Google can get it perfect (Charleston, SC).

Report the error

[goldfndr]

• NavTeq Driver feedback
• Tele Atlas feedback form

They don't necessarily have contact with your local government or design/construction companies, so you can help out if you desire accuracy.

Re:Report the error

[surprise_audit]

Interesting. Thank you. Once I get everything back together on my laptop, I'll see whose map it actually was that's wrong.

Nice BUT!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder when they are going to UPDATE their Satellite maps. Most of what they are using are older than 5 years as the subdivision in our town doesn't even appear in their MAPS.

It is kind of like using a Thomas Guide that is 5 to 10 year old to find the NEW Store.