Google Australia engineers have created a Flash map to keep track of the deadly bushfires ravaging the southeastern part of the country and help reduce the traffic burden to the official sites coordinating emergency services.
The fires, which have reportedly claimed more than 100 lives, are being tracked in real-time with information provided by the State of Victoria's Country Fire Authority via an RSS feed. The numbers on the map markers indicate the number of fires at that location and the colors represent the current containment status of that site (green represents safe, yellow for controlled, orange for contained, and red going).
"We hope that it's of some use to people who may be affected, to emergency services personnel, and that it takes some load off other websites which are being inundated," the team wrote in a blog posting. "The map certainly makes the scale of this disaster immediately apparent."
The team says it is working to incorporate additional information into the map and also offers tips for Web site operators who want to embed the map on their sites.
Additionally, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has posted a Google-powered map on its site.
The blog Liako.Biz has posted an examination of how data portability allows for these maps to be created.
Street View, the driver's-eye view on Google Maps, made its debut in the United States, but it's now available in Australia and Japan, too.
Sydney, Australia now can be explored with Google Maps' Street View, shown with blue lines where available. (Click to enlarge.)
(Credit: Google)The Street View service has raised privacy hackles in some quarters, but it's helped me navigate in areas I've never visited: What does the house I'm visiting look like? Or the street corner where I'm supposed to get off the bus? Or where exactly is that big-box retailer?
Google also is extending Street View to Europe, and in the process is gathering data that will let it create 3D models as well.
To alleviate privacy concerns, Google blurs faces in Street View.
Update 3:30 p.m. PDT: The Google Lat-Long blog said the Japan imagery covers Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, and other cities in Japan, while Australia gets Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, and others.
Extra bonus: There's also a Street View Easter egg that Google apparently tucked into the service--a photo of what appears to be a gaggle of Street-View-loving Googlers.
(Via Google Blogoscoped.)
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