Slashgeo

Nanaimo B.C., The Google Capital of the World

posted by Satri on Tuesday March 11, @12:55PM        Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the when-cities-meet-geospatial-geeks dept.

Slashdot discuss the collaboration of Google and the City of Nanaimo, B.C., Canada. Their summary: "Time.com has up a story on Nanaimo, a British Columbia coal mining town of about 78,000 that has had everything conceivable mapped into a Google database. Citizens can track fire trucks real time. The results also include Google Earth data for Nanaimo. 'The Google fire service allows people to avoid accident sites by tuning electronic devices to automatic updates from the city's RSS news feed, says fire captain Dean Ford. Eventually, Nanaimo plans to equip its grass-cutting machines with GPS devices, so residents piqued by the apparent shabbiness of a particular park or grass verge can use Google to find out when last it was groomed by the city's gardening staff. And the city's cemeteries will soon be mapped to allow Internet users to find out who is buried in each plot, says Kristensen. A new multi-million-dollar conference center, opening in June, will have 72 wireless access points to allow out-of-towners to use their laptops to navigate the Google Earth version of the city." Several geoblogs previously discussed Nanaimo's special situation with Google, including Jason Birch himself and it's appearance on National TV, in addition to linking to several other newspaper coverage.

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• Nice article

  (Score:3, Insightful)

  by redgeographics (145) <{hans} {at} {redgeographics.com}> on Tuesday March 11, @03:32PM (#2227)
  ( http://www.redgeographics.com/ )

  Nice article, but too bad it doesn't mention Jason Birch. He's really been doing some awesome stuff with Google Maps and Earth. Saw his presentation last week at the FME User Conference and that brought me several lightbulb moments.

  --
  Hans van der Maarel

  [ Reply to This ]