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Google Launches Street View and Mapplets at Where 2.0 2007

posted by Satri on Wednesday May 30, @06:18AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the bursts-of-new-era dept.
Google Web Mapping Calendar
Slashdot discuss the Google announcement of their new Street View and Mapplets feature. Their summary: "Today at the O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference Google unveiled two new map features. An O'Reilly blogger describes Street View, which uses 360-degree street-level video from Immersive Media to enable neighborhood walk-throughs in (for now) a few selected areas. The other new feature is Mapplets, which let you embed Google Maps mashups in any Web page. Much more coverage is linked from TechMeme." The GEB covers the launch. Of course, you can read about it from the Official Google Lat Long Blog. See related stories below.

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Street Side Images for Microsoft [+]
All Points Blog runs a story on the upcoming street side imagery technology for Microsoft Goes Live. Service demo will be available a little later in the day.
Technology: Amazon A9 Stops Street-level Mapping 1 comment [+]
All Points Blog links (1, 2) to ResourceShelf note and AP article on Amazon A9 withdrawing from the webmapping competition. From the article: "Amazon.com Inc.'s A9 search engine has dropped some of its most widely touted features, including the ability to remember everything a user has ever searched for and a service that showed detailed, street-level images of major cities. [...] A9 had put considerable effort into taking detailed, street-level photos of 20 U.S. cities, which people could use to map directions and find businesses. Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. also have invested heavily in such photographic search technologies."
Technology: Extensive Street-level Mapping Coming Soon? 2 comments [+]
Very Spatial links and discuss to VirtualCity, offering geolocated street-level photos for Toronto and Montreal, Canada, and planning to add more North-American cities soon. The photos are easy to browse over a Google Map interface. From their press release: "Over 4 million photographs were taken of the Toronto area, as well as 3 million more for Montreal, providing visitors a unique perspective on two of Canada’s most popular urban areas. VirtualCity plans to expand into the United States before the end of the year, beginning with Miami and continuing into the New York, Chicago, and Boston markets in 2007." See related story about Amazon A9's previous service of street level mapping and Microsoft's street-side photos.
Microsoft Acquiring More Street-level Photos [+]
Slashdot discuss Microsoft's acquisition of new street-level photography. Their summary: "Today as we were biking around our neighborhood in a small city we saw a strange vehicle slowly driving around. It appeared to be an SUV, bristling with cameras mounted on the roof, and pointing just about every possible direction. The first time we saw it, all we could see was that it had a sign on the side, something about Windows. The second time we saw it, we stared at it so hard that the driver stopped and we had a chance to ask him what it was all about. He said he was driving around, filming streets, and that there were people doing this all over the world, and getting data from the air too. It was going to be available on the Web. I asked him if this was Microsoft's answer to Google Earth, and he indicated that it was. There seems to be very little about this on the Web, and I found no mention of Microsoft's collection of this sort of detailed street level data. The Windows site appears to be http://preview.local.live.com/, although since I use a Mac it didn't work properly. I'm not sure I want my neighborhood viewable on the Web from ground level. And are they going to edit all the people out? I don't see how they could." See also related stories.
Technology: U.S. Houses Being Massively Photographed [+]
Slashdot has a story on U.S. houses being massively photographed. Their summary: "Photographers from a Canadian company are going house to house, shooting pictures of every house in America, in hopes of building a giant database that can be sold to banks, insurance companies, and appraisal firms. While this activity is legal (as long as the photographers don't trespass on private property to get their shots), there are obviously concerns about security and privacy. Considering that an individual can be detained and questioned by the FBI for photographing a bridge in this country, why should this Canadian company get a free pass? Tinfoil hat aside, something seems very, very fishy here." From the Arizona Star article about the photographing of Tucson: "'The [handout given to people who complain] made it sound like they're doing it for law enforcement, when in reality they're doing it for sales and marketing,' said [a City Council aide], who received several calls about the company."
Technology: Massive Street-level Camera Acquisition on the Way? 1 comment [+]
All Points Blog links to an article about camera data acquisition and their potential integration to virtual globe apps. From the article: "IMC has started an initiative to capture complete street-level views of 25 major U.S. cities. McGovern notes that they drive specially outfitted Volkswagens up and down all the streets, then fill in the gaps, like New York's Central Park, with backpack-mounted units. [...] "If they have New York City or Chicago captured, then it makes sense to make it available through Google Earth. That allows you to distribute it easily, and Google has hundreds of millions of users that you can spread the cost over."" See also related stories below.
Technology: Tele Atlas Mapping Toronto's Streets in 3D [+]
The DataLibre blog informs us that Toronto will soon have street view data acquired by Tele Atlas. From the blog: "This CBC.ca video gives a brief on how 2d and 3d street view data are collected. In this case it is the city of Toronto and the data collector is Tele Atlas. [...] At 500 km a day and terrabytes of data, these folks are collecting and selling tons of geo-information that we like to play with on google earth, help find places in mapquest, and allow city planners or police forces to prepare evacuation plans, understand the characteristics of the route planned for a protest or know the point address in a 911 call."
Technology: Mapplet to Browse Geotagged Picasa Photos [+]
The official Google Lat Long blog informs us of a new mapplet to browse geotagged Picasa Web Albums on Google Maps. From the post: "Now we have a new Mapplet that lets you search and browse all of the geolocated photos in Google Maps. Just click here to add the Picasa Web Albums Mapplet to your "My Maps" tab. Then, zoom in to your favorite spot on Google Maps, enable our Mapplet and watch the photos roll in! You can see what snapshots exist of your favorite getaway or take a virtual vacation to Paris. The world is your oyster." See also related stories.
Technology: Google Maps Adds Coverage for 54 Countries. 1 comment [+]
Google Product Manager Dave Barth writes from the Google Lat Long Blog, "Here's great news for all of the virtual explorers out there: Today we added 54 new countries to Google Maps! We've more than doubled our coverage of Latin America and are now mapping three times as many countries in Asia as before." Some of the more interesting additions include: Afganistan, Iran (I'm guessing no StreetView with that anytime soon), Pakistan, Syria, and of course the one everyone was clamoring for, Timor-Leste.
Technology: Earthmine - Street-Level Webmapping Competitor with Annotations 1 comment [+]
Ogle Earth introduces Earthmine, a street-level 3D webmapping tool which allow 3D user annotations. The video explains the concept effectively. From the TechCrunch article: "What this all means is that Earthmine’s system can keep track of the objects found in the real world and attribute information to each of them (a process known as “asset mapping”). The latitude, longitude, elevation, and other attributes of garbage cans, telephone posts, manholes, and trees can be recorded and tracked in a pseudo-3D virtualization system. The information can be exploited within Earthmine’s software or exported to GIS or CAD systems. Alternatively, the information stored in preexisting Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be brought into Earthmine." See also the numerous related stories below.
Application Domains: EveryScape 3D Street View with Interiors [+]
Mentioned here previously, the NYTimes (via APB) runs an article EveryScape, another 3D street view candidate, which has some unique features: "Now, one company is planning 3-D-like tours of Cambridge, Mass., and other cities that not only venture down streets, but also inside some local businesses. Tourists to this virtual Cambridge will be able to click their way along a Brattle Street rendered in realistic detail, and move through the computer-generated interiors of dozens of nearby shops and institutions. [...] EveryScape (www.everyscape.com) in Waltham, Mass., will start virtual tours of streets and businesses in Cambridge and Lexington, Mass., in December, said Mok Oh, founder and chief technology officer. [...] Mike Liebhold, a senior researcher at the Institute for the Future, a research organization in Palo Alto, Calif., says EveryScape is entering a complex marketplace of mapping services that already has many established players, like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo." See also related stories below.
Google Announcements: Earth From Above, Embeddable Panoramas, New StreetView Cities and more 1 comment [+]
Google made the geoheadlines again today. First they announced a new layer featuring the beautiful work of Yann Arthus-Bertrand named "Earth From Above". Second, they announced 8 new cities with Street View: "Check out full spherical views of Boston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Detroit, and Providence.", but in the same announcement, they also announced the possibility to embed panoramas in any website: "You can take any Street View panorama visible in Google Maps and embed it in your website or blog with a few simple steps. The panorama works just like it does in Google Maps, allowing visitors to your site to pan, zoom, and move between panoramas as they travel down a street." This is a nice new feature. Ed Parsons discuss a new set of resources for educators: "Google in the UK this week announced a set of resources for use by teachers and many of them make use of Maps and Google Earth. These resources include lesson plans and links to additional resources which are really useful for Teachers, and potentially something you as a geospatial professional could offer to help out with at your children’s school." And APB links to a BBC article on the latter. Finally, the Free Geography Tools website links to a text editor with KML validation. A few related previous stories copied below.
Technology: More Cities get Google Maps Street View 2 comments [+]
CNET News and google-latlong blog reports "Google has added four more cities to its Maps street view: San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston and Orlando, Fla. San Diego is getting the same high-resolution imagery treatment that Google gives San Francisco; I'm not sure why." Update: 08/08 20:39 GMT by S : In addition, the Geowanking list discussed examples of Google's Street View hacks.
Google Street View Cars Ready To Rumble 2 comments [+]
tprinty writes "Looks like Google is getting their street view fleet in order big time. A tipster to Gizmodo took some screenshots of a dozen Chevy Cobalts ready to hit the streets. Smile! Your on Google Maps!" From the Gizmodo article (with screenshot): "It was an entire fleet of at least 30 brand-new Chevy Cobalt cars parked behind the building, most without license plates yet. As you can see in the pictures above, each had a metal device attached to its top, which looks suspiciously like a vertical extension for mounting Google's Streetview 360° camera."
First Slashgeo Donor: MapJack.com 2 comments [+]
Stay tuned, we'll soon publish our "final call for collaborators" post. Some people have already expressed their intention to become "editors" and contribute feeding the site, exciting! Meanwhile, remember our open budget? I am happy to announce our first donor: MapJack.com. Their financial contribution of 300$ will help pay for hosting our servers. I have been clear: it is very important for Slashgeo, in order to stay reliable, to be product-neutral. I don't want to be or appear corrupted, my integrity worths more than a few thousand dollars (but don't try with millions ;-). Since MapJack offered support even during Slashgeo's hiatus and knowing the site might not go live again, here's some more about them: they offer a street-view mapping for San Francisco and you can read their recent press release below.
Google's StreetView Imagery Removing Process 1 comment [+]
Google's recent StreetView feature generated a lot of ink lately. All Points Blog links to a Wired article describing how people can indicate Google to remove imagery where they can be seen. From the article: "Google has blinked, backing down from its demand for my driver's license and a sworn statement and agreeing not to use the information I submit for any purpose other than processing my request." Google product counsel Daphne Keller personally phoned Bankston to tell him about the change in policy, and then Google's help desk sent him the new requirements: [...] (1) Your name (2) The location of the image in our service [...] That means Google has no content-based standard for a take-down, and no verification that the requester is the person pictured."
Google Street View Could Be Unlawful In Europe? 7 comments [+]
Slashdot discuss a story named Google StreetView could be unlawful in Europe. Their summary: "European data protection laws restrict the commercial use of photographs where individuals are identifiable. The law sets extra requirements for so-called sensitive personal data: it demands explicit consent, not just notification: 'If Google's multi-lens camera cars come to Europe and inadvertently find themselves taking pictures of persons leaving a church or sexual health clinic, they may just need to pull over and start picking up signatures."" See this previous story comments on privacy.
Calendar: Where 2.0 2007 Coverage 5 comments [+]
With Where 2.0 2007 going on at San Jose, several geoblogs covers the conference. The GEB, after introductory comments, offers a Day 1 report and summarize Google's Micheal Jones presentation. APB and Vector One both discuss where's the money to be made with webmapping. High Earth Orbit details the Mapstraction update announced (now, can anyone tell me what are the main distinctions between OpenLayers and Mapstraction?). Expect some more about Where 2.0 2007 later on.
Google Developer Day 2007 - Geospatial Elements 3 comments [+]
Yesterday was Google Developer Day in London, which included geospatial elements. The GEB has a quick summary and keynote reactions. Ogle Earth also offers the keynote highlights, while Mapperz shows another YouTube video. From the GEB's summary: "This year's Google Developer Day certainly still had a "Geo" emphasis, but the emphasis was decidedly on new Google Maps capabilities. A lot of attention was focused on the new Google Maps Mapplets technology. Mapplets are certainly a very important new capability to enhance geospatical context for most users using just a browser."
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