Google Maps Navigation coming to Android 2.0

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I’ve been saying for a while that I think Android will overtake iPhone in 2010, and recent news seems to be pointing that direction.  First you have the impressive-looking Verizon Droid, which comes out in early November.  By all accounts it will be an awesome device.  It will be the first phone running the Android 2.0 operating system.  Now Google has sweetened the deal even more.

Today they announced that Android 2.0 devices (starting with the Droid) will come with Google Maps Navigation.  This is similar to TomTom and other devices, but with a few big advantages.  The main one, of course, is that it’s free.

Not only that, but it has some cool features:

  • POI and road data loaded on the fly.  Always up-to-date, no need to run “updates”.
  • Search in plain English.  Don’t type the address (unless you want to).  Just type the name of your destination and go.
  • Search by voice
  • Traffic view.  They’ve integrated the traffic data, which makes obvious sense.
  • Search along route.  I’ve always wanted a feature like this on my Garmin.  Very cool
  • Satellite view.  I’ve always wanted this, too.  It’s weird on most GPS devices when you’re in a parking lot — it’s just like you’re in a field.  This will help.
  • Street View.  This is slick.  To get a preview of what your next turn looks like, just double-tap the map and it’ll zoom you in there to take a peek.

All in all, this sounds pretty sweet.  Not only does it sound like possibly the best GPS software out there, it doesn’t cost a thing.  Being Android-only will certainly hurt it in the short-term, but long-term it will provide a big boost.

Will they ever bring this software to the iPhone?  I’m sure they’d love to, but I doubt Apple will allow it.   Time will tell.  Check out the video below for a bit more info:

Place Pages for Google Maps could be great for small businesses

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golden-gate-bridgeGoogle has just released Place Pages for Google Maps, and the potential impact on small businesses is quite large.

According to Google, a “Place Page” is:

a webpage for every place in the world, organizing all the relevant information about it. By every place, we really mean *every* place — there are Place Pages for businesses, points of interest, transit stations, neighborhoods, landmarks and cities all over the world.

With so many small businesses still lacking a website (around 44%

), this gives them a great way to help control their reputation on Google.  The URLs are built to be very friendly, and small businesses can edit the pages to make sure they’re completely up to date.

While this certainly won’t be better than having your own site, it’s another great way for small businesses to own more of the search results for their name.  It’s got some bugs to work out (mis-matched items), but all in all it should be a great enhancement to the search results.

Japanese StreetView is facing a variety of complaints

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japan-streetviewThe Japanese version of Google StreetView is facing an increasingly higher number of complaints

, about a variety of topics.  Along with the usual complaints (faces, license plates), there is the issue of people using the images on secondary sites for the purposes of discrimination and bullying.

To help combat this, Google has set up a new system that makes it easier for users to report problems.  They even allow users to report problems with secondary sites, which Google will then deal with (ask for removal, legal action, etc).

The concern now is that this action might not be enough

.  I guess only time will tell.

College Football, Monopoly and Towson University

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A handful of cool things today:

college-football

College Football Stadiums: The Google LatLong blog has posted a KML that flies you to all of the NCAA football stadiums — 246 in all!  You can read about the file on their site, or download the KML here.  I did something similar on EarthSwoop last year and built a “swo0p” for all of the stadiums in each major conference:  ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC 10 and SEC.  The majority of them are rendered in 3D and look pretty sweet.

monopoly

Google Maps Monopoly: Starting on September 9, Hasbro is launching a giant Google Maps-based game of Monopoly.  The folks at Wired got a sneak peek of the game, and they’re cautiously optimistic.  The rules don’t seem to explain what the goal is (buy stuff near you, and maybe sell it later?), but the concept has potential.

towson-university

Map of Towson University: Towson University has built a slick custom Google Map of their campus, thanks to their Geospatial Research and Education Lab.  There are shaded polygons of each building, which click to reveal more information/links about that building.  You can select building types (Academic, Dining, etc), parking areas, and other transportation information.  It’s very well done.  (via Google Maps Mania)

Google ties business listings to StreetView

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Google has just released a nice evolutionary trait to Google Maps — linking businesses to StreetView.

When searching for a business in Google Maps, you’ll now often see a link for “StreetView” in the description bubble.  Clicking that takes you to a StreetView of that location.  When in StreetView, you’ll see the familiar red placemark icon, which is even clickable.  Better yet, it’ll show your other placemark icons in StreetView as you pan around.

What I’d like to see now is a way to show ALL markers on the map while in StreetView.  It’d be nice to be able to move around in there and have everything clearly identified.  I imagine that’s on the list of things to come.

The video below shows a bit about how this new feature works:

Nessie found in Google Earth?

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loch-ness-monsterThe Sun is at it again.  First they claimed to have found the lost city of Atlantis in Google Earth

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, now they think they’ve found the Loch Ness Monster.  Or maybe it’s a boat.

It’s obvious they’re just trying to (successfully) draw attention to their site, but they sure look stupid.  I love the response that Keir at GoogleMapsMania gave — he posted a bunch of UFOs found in StreetView, then a time traveling dinosaur! 🙂

You can view the image to the right, check it out on Google Maps, or in the Google Earth Plug-in

via EarthURL.org.

Improved traffic info on Google Maps: See the side streets and contribute

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Google has just announced that arterial traffic is now available on Google Maps

.  I’ve noticed more and more roads showing traffic data over the past few months, but today seems to be the day of the big announcement.  In fact, there are certainly more roads in my area with traffic data, which could be very useful.

Arterial traffic on Google Maps

In addition, Google is now looking to use crowdsourcing to keep the maps even more up to date.  By using Google Maps for Mobile on your device, you can choose to have it send anonymous speed data back to Google’s servers to help them update the current traffic levels in your area.  This works on virtually any mobile phone that can run Maps for Mobile with a GPS, but sadly won’t work on the iPhone.

Google Maps Mobile - Arterial Traffic

A big question people will have about this new feature is privacy.  Google tackles that on their blog by saying:

We understand that many people would be concerned about telling the world how fast their car was moving if they also had to tell the world where they were going, so we built privacy protections in from the start. We only use anonymous speed and location information to calculate traffic conditions, and only do so when you have chosen to enable location services on your phone. We use our scale to provide further privacy protection: When a lot of people are reporting data from the same area, we combine their data together to make it hard to tell one phone from another. Even though the vehicle carrying a phone is anonymous, we don’t want anybody to be able to find out where that anonymous vehicle came from or where it went — so we find the start and end points of every trip and permanently delete that data so that even Google ceases to have access to it. We take the privacy concerns related to user location data seriously, and have worked hard to protect the privacy of users who share this data — but we still understand that not everybody will want to participate. If you’d like to stop your phone from sending anonymous location data back to Google, you can find opt-out instructions here.

It looks to be some great features.  I’m hoping they get the crowdsourcing aspects of it over to the iPhone, though given the recent fighting between Apple and Google lately, that seems unlikely to happen.

A ghost town from space

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Earth is Square has a neat post today

about viewing Centralia, Pennsylanvia using fresh Bird’s Eye imagery on Bing Maps.  Centralia was an active town of about 1000 residents back in the early 1980’s, but now is home to only nine people.  The reason is due to an underground coal fire that’s been burning since the 60’s, and will continue burning for as many as 250 more years.

In 1984, congress provided $42 million to relocate residents out of town.  Once gone, most of the buildings were demolished.  A recent episode of Life After People (an excellent series on the History Channel) featured Centralia as an example of what happens 25 years after humans leave a city (building decay, etc).

I was hoping that Google’s Historical Imagery feature would show aerial footage from a time when the city was populated, but it only goes back to 1993.   Below are some before and after photos.  Check it out on Google Maps (with StreetView imagery) or Bing Maps

to explore further.

centralia-beforeBefore the evacuation

centralia-beforeafterThen and now

centralia-ge-1993Centralia 1993, as seen in Google Earth using the Historical Imagery slider

centralia-bingCentralia today, in Bing Maps Bird’s Eye

centralia-streetviewCentralia today, in Google Maps Street View.  The fog makes it even creepier.

Swiss want StreetView Disabled

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It’s only been up for a few days, but the Switzerland Data Protection office is asking Google to remove the StreetView imagery they’ve shot in the country.  Their primary concern seems to be that “many faces and vehicle number plates had not been covered up or were insufficiently blurred”.  If memory serves, that’s not even something Google is legally obligated to do — they simply do it to avoid outcry from privacy advocates like this, though I’m sure the laws vary from country to country.

Hanspeter Thuer from the Data Protection team plans to meet with Google next week and help them “improve” the service.  It’ll be interesting to see if anything comes of this.

New “Smart Navigation” in StreetView

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Google has just released a new feature for StreetView that looks pretty simple, but it actually quite complex and intuitive.  When viewing anything in StreetView, you’ll notice your is in the shape of an oval or a rectangle.  When it’s an oval, you can double-click to quickly move to that location. When it’s a rectangle (usually on building facades), you can double-click to be taken to the best view of that area.

Google was able to accomplish this using some slick methods, as explained on the Lat Long Blog:

We have been able to accomplish this by making a compact representation of the building facade and road geometry for all the Street View panoramas using laser point clouds and differences between consecutive pictures.

For more info, check out the Google Earth Blog, watch this short video below, or go try it for yourself.