Webware

Updated July 24 to fix London walking map

There are some online mapping news tidbits on Tuesday.

First, Google has expanded its walking directions feature from a test for a limited number of users to a public beta covering everywhere that driving directions are available, according to the Google LatLong blog.

For directions that are 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) or less the walking directions option will appear. "We'll try to find you a route that's direct, flat, and uses pedestrian pathways when we know about them," the blog posting says.

You can use Google's walking directions to help earn money for charity. Google has a program running through October 25 where people who complete a 15-week "Walk for Good" program can vote for a charity

to share a $100,000 contribution from the company.

And over at Microsoft they've greatly expanded the coverage of Virtual Earth, according to a Virtual Earth evangelist's blog.

The site's Orthoimagery feature, which are images taken from directly overhead, and its 45-degree bird's-eye view, now include tons of additional cities in the U.S. and Europe. Meanwhile, a bunch of new countries around the world can now be seen in satellite images.

In a separate announcement, Urban Mapping, which provides location-rich content for interactive applications, said it had surpassed the 50,000 mark for United States neighborhood boundary collection. Its system lets someone search the Internet to find a coffee shop in New York's SoHo neighborhood, say, instead of having to know the zip code or address.

(Thanks to Search Engine Roundtable for the Google walking directions tip.)

Members of an industry group called the Open Geospatial Consortium have approved Google's KML technology as an open standard for describing some geographic data.

KML is used to manage the display of geospatial information in Google Earth, the company's software for flying over the surface of a virtual globe. With its 3D coordinate-based system, people can create models of city buildings, draw a line showing where they hiked, or overlay their own custom place names on a generic map.

Google already shared its KML format openly, and others had used it in software products, but Google now hopes that its status as an official standard will decrease barriers to further adoption.

"What OGC brings to the table is...everyone has confidence we won't take advantage of the format or change it in a way that will harm anyone," said Michael Weiss-Malik, Google's KML product manager. "The goal is to prevent market fragmentation," in which different technology uses different standards.

File formats may sound mundane, but they can give strategic value to those who control them as a gateway to the data held by people and companies. In one high-profile example, open-source allies launched an attack on Microsoft's Office stronghold with the OpenOffice.org software, which could mostly read Microsoft's file formats.

One front in that war was an effort to set OpenOffice's file formats as an industry standard called ODF (OpenDocument Format), a move Microsoft countered with its own OOMXL effort, which Google opposed.

It didn't seem like there was powerful reluctance to use KML. For example, the latest Virtual Earth and Live Maps technology from Google rival Microsoft can use KML to let users export user information to navigation devices. And the Microsoft site can overlay KML files from the Internet onto its Live Maps--here's a (slow-loading) link to one from the National Resources Defense Council that describes expected effects from global warming to various national parks, along with the park boundaries.

But standardization will make KML more palatable, Weiss-Malik said. "Governments like to say they can publish to OGC KML instead of Google KML," he said.

And he expects to see a new era blossom of personal map publishing, all powered by KML. "We're just starting to see the birth of map publishing," he said.

KML stands for Keyhole Markup Language. It initially was developed by Keyhole, the satellite imagery company Google acquired in 2004. Keyhole's technology was built into the Google Maps site and the Google Earth software.

The standard, which geographic information system (GIS) software specialist Galdos Systems helped bring to the standardization process, is based on KML 2.2. The official KML standard can be downloaded from the OGC Web site.

Microsoft and Dassault Systemes have released a 3D building application for the Virtual Earth mapping program, the companies said Friday.

Virtual Earth-3DVIA will let people create 3D structures with textures and colors and share them with one other online. The models can also be tagged with real-life addresses or town information so that they can be viewed in Virtual Earth as they would be on a map.

The application is being released as a "technology preview," according to the companies, in order for them to get feedback for its next release.

The program could be a rival to Google Earth's 3D Warehouse, which was released in January and was recently opened to Multiverse Networks users. That partnership lets people use 3D objects from 3D Warehouse to create virtual worlds.

Ever since the first time I saw Lt. Frank Bullitt thrash his Ford Shelby GT around San Francisco, I have longed for a chance to drive the streets of this city unhindered by traffic restrictions, pedestrians, and other such annoyances. Thanks to a Microsoft application, my dream has virtually come true. The Virtual Earth Local Technology Preview makes use of streetside-view photographs similar to those used by Google's Street View application.

With the Microsoft service you get the added bonus of navigating the maps in either a yellow race car or a blue sports car. Drivers get a view out of the front windshield and out of the two side windows as they use the computer arrow keys to cruise around. Currently, only the downtown areas of San Francisco and Seattle are drivable via the service, which is still in beta, but we figure that will be enough time-wasting entertainment to get you through to the end of the work day. Try out Virtual Earth for yourself.

On Tuesday, Microsoft began releasing photographic 3D renderings of landmarks in New York and a few other cities via its Live Search Maps site.

In November, the company released Virtual Earth 3D in beta, along with the API and a software developer kit for people who wanted to create 3D renderings for Live Search Maps. At the time, people could also view 3D terrain and some three-dimensional buildings in a few cities. The release of New York in virtual 3D marks the first major effort by Microsoft to create an almost complete rendering of a recognizable city.

Microsoft's attempt at 3D views of famous landmarks is a little more manageable and realistic-looking than the one offered by Google Earth.

For one, the 3D view will work through your Web browser, and that includes Firefox as well as Internet Explorer. You will have to download a Microsoft Virtual Earth add-on and restart for Firefox, but after that, you're good to go. Anytime you go to Live Search Maps you will be able to switch to a 3D view.

Another contrast to Google's rich-media versions of famous places is that Microsoft's 3D objects are photo-based.

In addition to the new 3D views, Microsoft has also launched real-time maps of traffic and construction. The maps show construction areas as hazard signs that offer detailed explanations for the holdup when you click on them, in addition to a color-coded system for identifying minor to major traffic congestion.

As with the Google Earth project, only certain cities and landmarks are currently available in 3D, though Microsoft says it plans to add more.

Vayama is a new airfare-ticket-finding service the likes of Expedia, Priceline and Travelocity. However, instead of focusing on domestic travel, Vayama is marketing itself as a provider for international flights. The service is also beginning to build what looks like a people-powered travel tips section to help newbie travelers with the post-airport journey into foreign cities that can often be confusing.

To begin any travel search, users can enter their data as usual, or use Vayama's neat touch-and-go map, which lets you zoom into various parts of the world to select arrival and departure cities. The map is powered by Microsoft Virtual Earth and is a nice way to see where airports are geographically located without having to look them up elsewhere. Each airport's dot is also proportionately sized for how big it is in real life. Large international airports such as LAX and JFK have big dots, whereas some of the stateside and municipal airports get tiny ones.

Once you've found your tickets, you can pick out your seat with Vayama's seat finder, which is presented in a slightly angled 3-D image. Seat finders for plane travel is certainly nothing new, but it's fairly simple to visually see the open and full seats--and even cooler to click an open seat and see yourself appear.

Before buying any tickets, you can also do some brief research on any city, which will show you how much it costs (in U.S. dollars) to get to and from the airport, as well as around selected cities using private or public transportation. To make those numbers a little more accurate, Vayama is building out its own people-powered reviews network, where users can dish on city information in exchange for discount credits on airfare.

In my brief testing this afternoon, some of the fares I searched for were very competitive with those I found on some of the major providers. Vayama was also a little faster in the search, although not nearly as comprehensive as my personal favorite flight-finder, Kayak.com, which found the lowest prices of the bunch.

One of the big things missing is a way to check if you're currently getting the best deal on your ticket, or whether it's worth waiting for a price drop; something you can do with Farecast, although not for international flights. Like any Internet shopping experience, ticket services like this are useful, but it never hurts to check the competition--especially when their mascots are gnomes and William Shatner.

To see a shot of the 3-D seat finder, keep reading.

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