In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

Here's the recent Google-related geonews.

From official sources:

• A new mapping tool offered by Google, Create, collaborate and share advanced custom maps with Google Maps Engine Lite (Beta): "Of course, experts aren’t the only ones who love to make maps. Today we're launching Google Maps Engine Lite (Beta), so any mapping enthusiast can now create and share robust custom maps using this powerful, easy-to-use tool. You can import small spreadsheets of locations onto a comprehensive map, visualize those places through a variety of styling and drawing options, and organize and compare up to three different data sets for your non-business purposes." For those who don't remember, 'Google Maps Engine' is the new name of what was known as 'Google Earth Builder'.

• Google also started looking for Explorers to test drive Google Glass, which we will definitely hear often about in the coming months - Slashdot discusses Google Glass in three discussions: Lawmakers Seek To Ban Google Glass On the Road, Should We Be Afraid of Google Glass? and Google Glass and Surveillance Culture
• There's Live transit information in more cities on Google Maps: "live departure times for seven lines on the New York City subway system (MTA), as well as for buses and trams in the greater Salt Lake City area (UTA). With these updates – part of the millions of live transit schedule updates we process every day – you get instant access to the latest information right on Google Maps, making trip planning a cinch."
• Google released Imagery on Google Maps of Fukushima Exclusion Zone Town Namie-machi also discussed over Slashdot in a story named Google Releases Street View Images From Fukushima Ghost Town
• If there's a Pirate in you, or you have kids, you might be interested in Finding treasures with Google Maps, related, here's about Teaching about the ocean floor with Google Earth
• Google invites us to Explore Everest, Kilimanjaro and more with Google Maps
• If you're a non-profit organization, you might be interested in making a map that will change the world with Google Earth Outreach Developer Grants
• Other minor official entries include: Google Maps shows Amazon funds at work, Trekker takes on Canada’s Arctic Winter and A behind-the-scenes look at our latest Google Maps special collection

From other sources:

• The GEB has a short entry on Managing KML and KMZ files on mobile devices
• What used to require a GIS, here's about Using Google Earth terrain data to plan wireless networks
• APB share links about Google Indoor Mapping: Does it Work? WIll it Save Brick and Mortar Retail from Web Competitors?
• APB also shares an entry on Queensland Putting its Data On Google Earth
• Guess what, there was new imagery to Google Earth a bit less than 2 weeks ago, other minor stories from the GEB includes Researchers rediscover lost butterfly species with the help of Google Earth, Race Formula One tracks with Google Earth and An in-depth look at the history of Street View

I've been overly busy lately, please allow the delay. Here's the recent Google-related geonews.

From official sources:

• Google is ready for winter, Mapping the Canadian Arctic and global ski resorts
• Here's a story about A 5,000-mile walk across Asia, guided by Google Maps
• For the U.S., here's a map related to Zagat’s America's Top Restaurants revealed
• Here's the official entry on the imagery update two weeks ago

From other sources:

• The GEB invites us to explore over 10,000 mines with Mining Atlas in Google Earth
• It also informs us how to create amazing Google Earth tours with TourMaker
• And in the same direction, a great 3D driving simulator that uses the Google Earth plug-in
• APB made me aware of Google's new location-based + Augmented Reality game named Ingress, see its introductory video below. Here's how APB summarizes it:
  • There are two teams: “The Enlightened,” who embrace the power, or “The Resistance,” who fight the power.
  • You get "energy" by visiting real wold paths (like a human PacMan).
  • You go on missions to portals which are associated with real places like libraries, public art and onter public places.
  • There's a tie in to real world vendors and products (Hint Water, Zipcar, Jamba Juice and Chrome apparel and messenger bags).

Google are not alone looking at augmented reality glasses, Slashdot discusses a story named Microsoft Granted Patent For Augmented Reality Glasses. Previous Google Project Glass stories.

Their summary with link to a BBC article: ""A patent granted to the U.S. tech firm describes how the eyewear could be used to bring up statistics over a wearer's view of a baseball game or details of characters in a play. The newly-released document was filed in May 2011 and is highly detailed. ... Although some have questioned how many people would want to wear such devices, a recent report by Juniper Research indicated that the market for smart glasses and other next-generation wearable tech could be worth $1.5bn by 2014 and would multiply over following years." - Noticeable differences from Google's version: two lenses, a wrist computer, and wires."

Our previous poll on Google's Augmented Reality 'Project Glass' gave the following results, out of 88 answers - much less than usual - we have 39% optimists seeing it as a success, with 10% of those anticipating it will dramatically enhance our lives. The rest, 61%, is much less enthusiastic about AR glasses, with 25% going to the point that augmented reality doesn't that much value.

Our new poll is also related to technology where Google is involved, driverless cars. In a recent NYTimes article, a Google engineer claims that driving cars “is the most important thing that computers are going to do in the next 10 years.” What's your take?

Before tomorrow's event, here's the recent Google-related geonews.

From official sources:

• Google launched Google+ Local, "a simple way to discover and share local information featuring Zagat scores and recommendations from people you trust in Google+"

• There's New 45° imagery available for 26 cities:
  • US: Albany, GA (outskirts); Atascocita, TX; Clarksville, TN; Columbia, MO; Corpus Christi, TX; Fayetteville, NC; Fort Collins, CO; Fort Smith, AR; Greensboro, NC; Jackson, TN; Lafayette, LA; Plaquemine, LA; Pueblo, CO; Santa Fe, NM; Texarkana, AR; Tyler, TX
  • International: Bern, Switzerland; Cracow, Poland; Dublin, Ireland; Gdansk, Poland; Lugo, Spain; Ourense, Spain; Poznan, Poland; Warsaw, Poland; Wroclaw, Poland; Zurich, Switzerland
• You can now Explore historic sites with the World Wonders Project
• There's now Street View data over the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
• And if you're in Europe instead, Explore the football stadiums of Poland and Ukraine as they prepare to host the European Championships
• If you're a fan of bridges in the U.S., check out this entry named Band of Bridges: Celebrating the Golden Gate Anniversary

From other sources:

• Here's tonight's Transit of Venus in Google Earth
• Nate Irwin shares an entry named Google imposing more restrictions on Google Maps API, and since he mentions "For example, you are not permitted to: (i) use or provide any part of the Service or Content (such as map imagery, geocoding, directions, places, or terrain data) in an API that you offer to others", I wonder what it means for OpenLayers and other similar tools?
• Here's a SearchEngineLand article named Google Places Is Over, Company Makes Google+ The Center Of Gravity For Local Search
• You will see mostly talk and no actual demo, but here's Sergey Brin Demos Google Glasses Prototype
• The GEB shares an entry named How Google Earth is being used by the Philippine National Police
• Another rumors going in the same direction, Apple Replacing Google Maps On iOS With Its Own Solution Later This Year
• The GEB shares the incredible 3D buildings of Istanbul, Turkey

• And of course, there was new imagery too

In February we mentioned that Google augmented reality glasses were in development, well, there's still in development but the Google Project Glass augmented reality glasses has been unveiled. The location-based features are numerous.

Slashdot discussed the story and there's articles on The Verge, The New York Times and Wired. From Wired: "The concept video for the Glass project concentrates on the cool things you may do with it one day — create instant contact with friends, monitor feeds about weather and other info, get information about a subway station out of service, receive turn by turn directions on the way to a destination, snap a picture by command, even find your way to a certain tome in the labyrinthine Strand bookstore. Everything works perfectly because, well, it’s a concept video and not a depiction of something that’s actually perfected. But Googlers have been testing prototypes and have already solved some (not all) of the challenges required to make this real and feasible."

Here's the video:

Science fiction is coming our way. Slashdot is discussing a story named Google Heads Up Display Coming By the End of the Year.

Their summary: "Google is working to deliver a heads-up display allowing users access to email, maps and other tools through a wearable interface. According to the NY Times' sources, the device will be available later this year, and sell for prices comparable to smartphones. 'The people familiar with the Google glasses said they would be Android-based, and will include a small screen that will sit a few inches from someone’s eye. They will also have a 3G or 4G data connection and a number of sensors including motion and GPS. ... The glasses will have a low-resolution built-in camera that will be able to monitor the world in real time and overlay information about locations, surrounding buildings and friends who might be nearby, according to the Google employees. The glasses are not designed to be worn constantly — although Google expects some of the nerdiest users will wear them a lot — but will be more like smartphones, used when needed.'"

More geo-stuff from the article: "The glasses will send data to the cloud and then use things like Google Latitude to share location, Google Goggles to search images and figure out what is being looked at, and Google Maps to show other things nearby, the Google employee said. “You will be able to check in to locations with your friends through the glasses,” they added."

Slashdot is running a story named Augmented Reality's Disruptive Potential. That Layar app has been mentioned here a few times since 2009. Augmented reality is here to stay in one form or another. 

Their summary: "A company called Layar, based in Amsterdam, is working on products that take augmented reality in a slightly different direction. They provide a platform that allows anyone to build an AR app. Consider these ideas: you can use your mobile phone's camera to view the world; your phone knows where you are and what you are looking at. The implications are profound. One of the most interesting apps that someone produced was a virtual tee-shirt shop. It was placed in the 20 most expensive shopping streets in the world, selling t-shirts. Stop and think about that for a minute. He built a virtual shop where a real one already existed. His shop was accessible via a mobile phone, while the real one was accessible through, well, being real. Real space and its virtual overlay are being used by different people. There will be lawyers."

This is more of an "end of year" geonews in batch mode! Everything pertinent found in the last two weeks that we haven't shared yet. I wish you an excellent holiday break. We'll be back in January. You can still send in your contributions.

From the Google front:

• A summary entry on everything Google Maps/Earth and Santa Claus and another one on holiday trees in 3D
• More details on Google Maps 5.0 for Android
• Paris gets major 3D enhancements in Google Earth
• Google Kills (beta) Location Alerts Feature in Latitude
• Google now offers a 3D Body Browser
• There also was an imagery update in the middle of the month

From the ESRI front:

• ESRI Confirms 400 million user-genenerated maps on ArcGIS.com in October

From the open data / open source front:

• Via the geodata list, I learned about the 2010 U.S. Census TIGER/Line Shapefiles starting to become available, and it's also available from WeoGeo
• OpenLayers gets a new Bing Tiles layer
• Natural Earth map data in the public domain
• An entry on Geocoding Github: Visualizing Distributed Open-Source Development
• An O'Reilly article on Ushahidi enabling crowdsourced journalism and intelligence
• rgeo, a new geo library for Rails
• Here's a new project named GeoApt Spatial Data Browser
• The OpenGeo Suite Community Edition 2.3.2 released
• An entry on QGIS 1.7's vector rule editor and polygon line styles

From the Microsoft front:

• Bing Maps REST Services now supports transit routes

In the miscellaneous category:

• SS informs us Russia Launched a Geospatial Data and Earth Imagery Portal
• V1 offers their geospatial top 10 of 2010, DM also have their own geospatial top 10
• Here's a new augmented reality app that translate text that you see
• Still in the AR topic, an entry on how Kinect democratizes augmented reality
• Two Slashdot entries on 3D printing: MakerBot Thing-o-Matic 3D Printer Assembly and Cheap 3D Fab Could Start an Innovation Renaissance
• Still on the 3D topic, Researchers Develop Genuine 3D Camera
• TanDEM-X is now operational

In the maps category:

• Here's visualization of Wikileaks mirrors around the world
• A colleague sent me a link to the BBC Facebook connections map the world
• An Interactive Map of Diabetes in the U.S.
• Don't we all dream, here's an Atlas of Remote Islands

And the almost-off-topic link of the week, an amazing 4-minutes animation of the last 200 years of global history