ScenicOrNot is a new mashup from the good people at mySociety - with the simple aim of finding the scenic spots across Great Britain; I’ve no idea what the super secret purpose of this site is, but they have promised to release the data, so it could be used in lots of exciting ways…
Oh and of course the photos are sourced from Geograph British Isles.
Go rate a grid square now! Also at http://digg.com/u18iG
This is going to be a long and rambley piece about licences and the updated updated Terms of Service of the Google Maps API - if either of those don’t interest you turn away now 
Not that long ago Google updated the Terms of Service on Google Maps API - I guess mainly in responce to issues brought up on the Mail group, and elsewhere. As a result of that edit there where many concerns raised (and more)- and a further edit was made. (note, only linked to some of the blogs etc - follow links to read more) This was over a week ago, but due to non online commitments haven’t really had a time to follow this up. You can read my early reaction here, which has been edited in to Mikes post.
11. Licenses from You to Google.
11.1 Content License. Google claims no ownership over Your Content, and You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Your Content. By submitting, posting or displaying Your Content in the Service, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute Your Content through the Service and as search results through Google Services. This license is solely for the purpose of enabling Google to operate the Service, to promote the Service (including through public presentations), and to index and serve such content as search results through Google Services. If you are unable or unwilling to provide such a license to Your Content, please see the FAQ for information on configuring your Maps API Implementation to opt out.
11.2 Brand Features License. You grant to Google a nontransferable, nonexclusive license during the Term to use Your Brand Features to advertise that you are using the Service.
11.3 Authority to Grant Licenses. You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licenses.
To be honest still unsure how I feel about this section, and finding it very hard to vocalise (well to put to pixels) the concerns. I certain its not compatible with a number of situations where the Maps would otherwise be ideal, but that I guess is real life - just need to move on an find something that is more suitable. But its still gauling to have invested so much in Google Maps API to have it all disappear in puff of legal smoke, I guess its now going to be“Once Burnt, Twice Shy” as they say.
If you use Google Maps API to display data on our website, then beware; new Terms of Service have been introduced. And it doesn’t look good…
Basically its laid out pretty clearly (see section 11.1) that if you use the API to display *your* data, then you grant Google a irrevocable licence to do as it sees fit with your data.
Sure it says “You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Your Content. ” - first, to soften the blow, but then goes on to say “[to] publicly perform, publicly display and distribute Your Content… ” (click the above link to see the full text) - I dont see how that is any different to saying they can do what they like with your data.
It gets worse if you have “business listings data”, as 11.1(b) says: “For example, if you create a store locator application, Google may use the business listings information from the store locator to improve the Google Services such as Google Maps and local search.”
- give your data away free to Google why don’t you!
then as 11.3 says “Authority to Grant Licenses. You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licenses.” - in many cases I* don’t think I can!
So does that mean if I can’t grant the licence demanded, I can’t use the Maps API? It seems so to me, so its with a heavy heart have had to disable some API based maps and Mashups. At least in the short term.
* as the one agreeing to the Maps API Terms Of Service.
As a very rough, but somewhat nifty, proof of concept have created a little page, that answers (or attempts to!) the old age question of “Where is the best place to stop off for pizza along my route?”
as mentioned its very approximate, the search alogorithm is crude, I am certain there are better ways of doing it, anyone fancy taking it on?
Google has just announced a new Google Earth API - which allows embedding and fully functional Google Earth in just about any webpage. Even is easily intergratable with Google Maps API mashups - with very little extra code. (takes a number of seconds for that news to sink in!)
Be sure to checkout the samples, (particularly the milktruck demo!), I’ve also started trying it out with a few demos of my own…
…Windows only btw…
Expect A LOT MORE from this very flexible looking API - the JS interface can quickly interact with objects (API is based around KML) and gets pretty good control of interface options.
Update: mentioned on gearthblog.com which is a good introduction about what this is and what its not!
Update2: and to show it can basically be added to a ‘real world’ Gmaps mashup, in a few lines of code, see here
I dont know when it happened, but the API to search Googles GeoIndex seems to have gone live. The documentation is here (http method) and here (javascript). I actully found this via the recently announced Google Maps API for Flash, which is also good.
/me wanders off to play (but dont have much time at the moment 
)
but before I go, I note that the api doesn’t appear to offer KML output :p
… unless of course the actual GeoSearch API is something bigger!
update: try it out:
Not much to look at, but does show the json in a slightly easier to read format. Of course need to make a Maps API based map to try it out, but not tonight… (but did get as far as KML output - with source code!)
update2: Its been formally announced! (also if you find the ‘blended’ doesnt return results you expect, see this thread
(appologies all, this post is simply a rant, and unfortunatly will almost certainly not reach the people its intended for!)
I just noticed that despite only having a very soft launch via this blog, already gokml.net* has attacted submission bots, which seems to have the sole purpose of seeking out submission forms and sending in their masters details, I guess in the hope of getting that little bit of search engine juice.
I guess need to roll out a captcha and/or email confirmation, or maybe even akismet.com?
(as a sidenote, I have a really old form that was intended for people to submit sites for a geoindex, in the nearby location search, I dont think its even linked anymore but it still gets hundreds of submissions daily, I’ve kept it open basically as a honey pot, but unsure what to do with the data, suggestions on a postcard…)
(* a ‘tinyurl’ site for creating network-links for KML content - must also get round to finishing it off…)
Following part 1 yesterday, have now plotted some maps per individual service.
Flash Earth Layer
Conclusions
Update: In a total forehead slapping momont realised these unprojected whole world images, are exactly what is used in GroundOverlays, so the the pages now include links to view the higher resolution images directly in Google Earth, duh!
Example:
View In Google Earth (don’t forget to try adjusting the tranparency slider!) [Update, to fix broken link, sorry!]
Recently geohash.org was released; the premise: short easy links that encode a location. The website offers instant conversion, but as the algorithm is Public Domain, Lordelph was quick to implement a php class, and I could quickly add the conversion to my existing conversion API. Convert a postcode to geohash anyone?
Updating the documentation noticed the API was last updated in 2005 - gulp, how time flies! Anyway as a celebration have upped the throttling on the API, now three times the previous limit. Running on much improved hardware than when it was launched so maybe the limit can be tweaked even more, will run some analysis of its impact - it already seems the API is a minor part of the overall load on the server - particularly against the Google Earth layers.
Now that Google have just announced a brand spanking new NON JS Maps API, to be able to display maps with a simple img tag, similar to the Chart API. Well I thought it would be fun to re-purpose the
FlashEarth code to create a network link to display Google Maps in a popup balloon on Google Earth. Not totally sure the utility, but sure is fun (until the novelty wears off!)
Hopefully needless to say the map inside the balloon is static and non draggable.
Update to clarify: You get to draw 1,000 maps daily, which is probably plenty, but go over that and the maps will stop working for you.
Update: as alluded to in the official post, you can use the static API to load a quick map, while the rest of the page loads, then at the last minute change it into a dynamic map. A series of demos showing various ways of lazy loading!
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