Archive for May, 2007

GoogleDevelDay: part 2

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

Have how been to the two ‘Geo’ sessions, nothing new to report I don’t think that can’t be got from gearthblog.com and the Google Maps API Group (where I had already heard of these), but anyway a quick round up of the main announcements (in no particular order)

  • Maps API – Can now do Directions :) – don’t yet know how flexible the API is tho, or if it even supports UK
  • Maps API – hint that the Geocoder might work (or soon) in the UK, but this could just be the questionee doesnt know yet.
  • Google Maps – Mapplets – porting a mashup to Google Maps
  • Google Earth – New KML 2.2 – as far as I gather its the KML spec only, the viewer is not released yet – but will check.
    • Support for Photo Placemarks – of particular interest to Geograph – tried something like this with models but never got it nice enough to release.
    • Add ‘atom’esque, link and author tags to Placemark
    • Update: just found the Camera tag, YAY!
    • http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/kml_tags_beta1.html

    More as I find it out (I think I am missing some anyway…), I’ll also verify the facts and flesh out the features with links to more information.

    Update: forgot to mention Ed Parsons also used the Geograph Mapplet demo in his Keynote speech this morning. (see previous posts)

    @Google Developer Day

    Thursday, May 31st, 2007

    I think forgot to mention this before … just arrived in London for the Google Developer Day and waiting for it all to begin, hopefully will post a followup later one, once have something to report (other than might be a video about the event !)…

    oh… and jusw saw in the comments that the mapplet just posted was used in Google’s talk at Where2.0 ;)

    Google StreetView

    Tuesday, May 29th, 2007

    A very quick post, as quite liturally I don’t know what else to say but WOW.

    See for yourself: http://maps.google.com/?&gl=us

    Click the “StreetView New!” tab, by the map type switcher. Click one of the Camera icons to zoom to a supported city,  and drag the little guy onto a blue outlined road, and well enjoy!

    … so when they going to bring that vehicle over here then?

    (via GEarthblog – link above from the comments as it doesn’t seem to be rolled out fully yet)

    Google Maps – Mapplets; a quick Geograph demo…

    Tuesday, May 29th, 2007

    Wow, Google have again gone and introduced an almost draw-dropping new feature to Google Maps – Mapplets. Put simply they allow you to create mini-map-mashups, but as they run on maps.google.com, visitors can view your content along side the normal content of Google Maps – but even more interestingly visitors can load more than one Mapplet at a time, combining the data from each mashup onto ONE map!!!

    And it turns out they are really easy to code for been based on Google Gadgets (which I haven’t used before) and Google Maps API (which I have :) ), but I also congratulate Google on including in the package ‘Developer’ mapplets that make developing relatively painless.

    Anyway onto the demos, just visit http://maps.google.com/preview (it’s a Developer orientated demo for the moment), click the ‘Mapplets’ tab, goto ‘Add Content’ and see what takes your fancy. To try out my (very humble!) demo, use the ‘Add by URL’ and paste in the following URL: http://www.geograph.org.uk/stuff/gmapplet0.xml

    (more about maplets in the post linked in the first paragraph!)