This is a map I saved online from my desktop.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)Google Earth made a splash when it spun onto the iPhone last October, giving users the capability to explore the virtual globe for free from virtually anywhere with an Internet connection. But without some practical mapping features, like turn-by-turn navigation and street maps, Google Earth was largely a discovery tool that didn't have much real-world impact.
This week, Google Earth 2.0 for iPhone gets more useful by pulling those Google maps you saved in the My Maps section of the Google Maps Web site into the app's mobile orbit. In Google Earth, you'll tap the settings icon (the "i") and sign in to your Google Account. Just below the login field, there's any entry for My Maps. Tap it to view your saved maps, and tap again to select the map you'd like to zoom to. While you can view a saved location or route in Google Earth, the app doesn't replace Google Map's directions-dispending feature.
Google Earth for iPhone still spins its digital globe each time you switch locations, so if your maps are halfway around the world, expect a delay. It's also still slow to load each time, and the 2.0 model only makes the app larger, growing about 3MB in size since the first edition. But it has also gained other subtle features in version 2.0, including support for thirteen additional languages (listed below) and icons that glow as confirmation that you've tapped them.
Google Earth 2.0 for iPhone is available in 31 languages and dialects: English (U.S), English (UK), French (France), German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Arabic, Thai, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malaysian, Romanian, Slovak, and Croatian.
Download: Google Earth for Windows|Mac.
Wikipedia killed the encyclopedia business, in print and online, as it's hard to make a revenue model work that involves paying people to create content when there are hordes of enthusiastic experts around the world willing to do the job for free. The business of mapping may be similarly doomed, as indicated by PublicEarth, a new wiki-style database of places launching Monday, and by the continued improvement in authoring tools at the crowdsourced mapping service OpenStreetMap.
PublicEarth
PublicEarth is an open database of places. Michael Rubin, who was an architect of Netflix, wanted to bring the same "element of delight" of connecting people to things they enjoy. Netflix did it for movies, and Public Earth is doing it for locations.
As with other crowdsourced place databases, anyone can insert a location. And as with most of the other products, PublicEarth uses Google base maps. The difference in PublicEarth is in the execution: It's slick, in a good way. For map users, PublicEarth lets you quickly find categories of locations -- romantic, kid-friendly, historic, for campers, etc. -- for places you are going. When you're looking at a map of places, you can get a lot of data by just rolling your mouse over hot spots, without clicking. "We learned how expensive a click is," Rubin says.
PublicEarth is a good system for a crowdsourced database of places.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)The system will have a recommendation engine that learns what you like. So if you've been using the system and then head to a new town you can just see the "recommended for you" locations.
The real value to PublicEarth is that it can find places that aren't, as they say, on the map. It's very easy for users to create a point of interest, draw a boundary line around a park, or trace a route to walk or hike. If enough people get into this system it could be a great resource for travelers. Which is the business model.
The PublicEarth team wants to make this service the go-to database of unusual places, and to partner with standard booking sites like Hotels.com, OpenTable, and travel solutions like TripIt. Getting traffic from those sites will get people into the system, and then sending booking and ticket traffic out to venues will generate revenue.
PublicEarth is also being marketed to activity groups like RV and sports clubs, parents groups, birdwatchers, and so on. It can be used by social networks to collect and collate locations aimed at specific interests, which can help people with those interests when they visit a new region.
Of course, success hinges on contributions, and it's not easy to create a user-maintained location database that sticks. There's also competition: Wikimapia and Yelp come to mind. But if PublicEarth can affiliate with other travel resources it could work out. It is a very strong product. It has the potential to compete with the guidebook market.
OpenStreetMap
PublicEarth is an open database of items on top of a map. OpenStreetMap is a crowdsourced map itself. The project was started before Google Maps came on to the scene, and while the search juggernaut's global road map is certainly more popular, there's a lot to be said for the OpenStreetMap approach. The fact that anyone with an interest in an area can create, correct, or update a map means you can get a lot of very specific data onto the map, created by people with very specific, nearly microscopic, knowledge of their regions.
And since the OpenStreetMap data itself is open, developers can do anything they wish with it. With a commercial map like Google's you have to push everything through one API, but with a truly open system you can create your own maps from the data, perform calculations on map points, and so. OpenStreetMap would be a great mapping database for the calculation engine Wolfram Alpha.
The MapZen iPhone app will help you map on the go.
(Credit: CloudMade)Later this month a new map editor, MapZen, is coming to the system from CloudMade, a company that commercializes the OpenStreetMap project. MapZen will make it easier for mappers to create and correct roads and points of interest. An iPhone app, currently in approval limbo, will also make it easier for anyone to walk and map. And new social tools should be good for to help groups of "map buddies" coordinate their work.
The MapZen/OpenStreetMap combo also lets you do very specific and modern cartography. There's a junction editor, for example, that lets contributors specify turn restrictions by time of day.
CloudMade will monetize the system by offering search features and routing (with awareness of the junction turn restrictions), and possibly by working on location-based advertising.
OpenStreetMap currently matters more to people in less-mapped regions than to dwellers of hyper-mapped U.S. cities. But ultimately the system may enable new location-based apps and services thanks to its wide-open system.
The crowded map
Google has already added a form of crowdsourcing to its mapping services: Its traffic system gets location and speed data from its mobile users. (Users can get their own raw data through Latitude, if they wish.) But Google relies on its own private mapping data, and its own servers to deliver maps to users. It's an expensive model and it doesn't serve all users in all locations equally. The crowdsourced mapping model is a serious competitor to the proprietary map business. I wouldn't have thought it could work, but Wikipedia shows that it's a mistake to dismiss the power of millions of individuals, each willing to chip in a little bit, to create great reference works.
The full MapZen app lets you re-route roads. Please be careful.
(Credit: CloudMade)
Stalqer locates even friends who don't use the service.
(Credit: Stalqer)The developers of the iPhone app GasBag, which helps iPhone users find the cheapest gas for their cars, are working on a new mobile friend locator service, Stalqer. This clever and aptly named service has two technologies that are unique, as far as I know, to help it get around two of the big problems found in other friend locators like Foursquare, Loopt, and Google's Latitude.
Problem 1: On the mobile platform that matters, the iPhone, there's no way to do real-time location reporting without running an app all the time, and the iPhone doesn't allow background processes. And even if it did, it would draw down the battery. The Stalqer solution is to create a dummy e-mail account that pings the Stalqer servers whenever the phone polls for mail, which is, by default, every 15 minutes.
When the phone hits the Stalqer e-mail servers, it sends along Internet gateway data, which can be used to locate the phone. It only works when the phone is connected via Wi-Fi, not GSM. It also doesn't get data from the phone's GPS sensor, but it's a clever hack on the way to the creation of more robust location reporting features.
Competing mobile social apps require the app (Foursquare, Loopt) or site (Latitude) to be open for the user's location to be reported. Or they require a phone that supports background processing, like an Android device.
CEO Mick Johnson told me there is another company that has this idea, but nobody has yet released a product based on it.
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Google is notoriously slow and calculating about changing it the user interface of its services.
In fact, Google hasn't made any major changes to the look and feel of Google Maps since its launch in 2005.
On Friday, the company launched several refinements to Maps--the biggest changes to its look since launch. While you might not notice these changes immediately--unless you are a hardcore Google Maps user--they are designed to enhance the readability of the maps.
As seen above, the thick street outlines that can make maps harder to read have been eliminated.
Google describes the update here:
(L)ocal and arterial roads have been narrowed at medium zooms to improve legibility, and the overall colors have been optimized to be easier on the eye and conflict less with other things (such as traffic, transit lines and search results) that we overlay onto the map. Hybrid roads have gained a crisp outline to make them easier to follow, and the overall look is now closer to an augmented satellite view instead of a simple overlay.
A first shot from DigitalGlobe's WorldView-2 satellite shows the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas.
(Credit: DigitalGlobe)
The Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center San Antonio, Texas, where DigitalGlobe is showing off its first images for the GeoInt 2009 conference.
(Credit: DigitalGlobe)Twelve days after it launched WorldView-2 into orbit, DigitalGlobe has released its first images from the satellite, which will supply high-resolution photography for Google's and Microsoft's online mapping services.
The first images are of two locations in San Antonio, Texas, where the company is showing off its work at the GeoInt 2009 Symposium this week, and of Dallas Love Airport.
The quality of the images should improve over these first shots, taken Monday. "More refinements to early-stage images can be expected as the ongoing check-out and calibration continues," DigitaGlobe said.
Microsoft and Nokia sponsored the WorldView-2 launch, but the former's Bing and the latter's Navteq won't be the only services to get the imagery. They'll share it with Google, which has been the sole online beneficiary of images from GeoEye-1, a satellite launched last year by DigitalGlobe rival GeoEye.
The new satellite is able to capture imagery with a resolution fine enough to detect features as small as 0.46 meters, or 1 1/2 feet, on the ground, though federal regulations permit DigitalGlobe to offer images with only a maximum resolution of 0.5 meters for general commercial use, the Longmont, Colo.-based DigitalGlobe said. Other DigitalGlobe satellites with sub-meter resolution in orbit already are QuickBird and WorldView-1.
"WorldView-2 is expected to improve the speed and rate of imagery delivery to the government and commercial markets with large-scale collection capacity and daily revisit rates," meaning that the satellite can photograph the same site multiple times during the same day, the company said. The satellite can capture multispectral imagery--eight bands of light, or more than what's visible to humans--though at a lower resolution of 1.8 meters.
Dallas Love Airport as photographed by WorldView-2.
(Credit: DigitalGlobe)
A Boeing Delta II 7920 launches DigitalGlobe's WorldView-2 satellite.
(Credit: Bill Hartenstein, Boeing)In 2008, Google got its logo on the rocket launching the GeoEye-1 satellite for collecting space-based imagery. This year, it's Microsoft's turn.
The Bing logo appeared on the side of a Boeing Delta II 7920 rocket that launched DigitalGlobe's new WorldView-2 satellite last week from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. But where Google got sole online rights to the GeoEye-1 imagery, Microsoft will be sharing access to WorldView-2 images with Google, a Digital Globe representative said.
Bing and Nokia sponsored the rocket launching DigitalGlobe's newest imaging satellite.
(Credit: Bill Hartenstein, Boeing)Another sponsor of the rocket is Nokia, whose Navteq subsidiary also supplies digital maps.
Bing today offers aerial and satellite imagery that looks straight down on some locations and a birds'-eye view that gives an angled view. Still, Microsoft touted its DigitalGlobe partnership as greatly expanding what's available online.
"We now have access to one of the highest resolution global satellite imagery and aerial photography collections (460 million sq. km. + 1 million sq. km. per day moving forward) through a deal we've just struck with DigitalGlobe," said Microsoft's Chris Pendleton in a blog post. "We'll finally be able to backfill areas around the world where people have come to my blog and complained about Virtual Earth not having good imagery or photos in their countries--Poland, Hungary, Russia, Taiwan, Mexico, to name a few--I've heard you loud and clear. And, now, we're fixing that problem."
Google, which already had a DigitalGlobe partnership, was more understated, merely offering congratulations on the launch in a blog post Monday.
In the last year, though, Google slurped up a lot of GeoEye-1 imagery--about 500,000 square kilometers, according to Google spokeswoman Elaine Filadelfo. By comparison, Texas is about 678,000 square kilometers.
Among new areas in Google Earth and Google Maps photographed by GeoEye-1 are Zhangye, China; Perth, Australia; Tangier, Morocco; Como, Italy; Dublin, Ireland; Curitiba, Brazil; Leduc, Canada; Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of Congo; and the formerly closed city of Sevastopol, Ukraine.
DigitalGlobe expects WorldView-2 will double the company's capacity to collect imagery. The satellite's top resolution can detect features as small as 0.46 meter, though U.S. government regulations permit general commercial sales of imagery only of 0.5-meter resolution.
Ball Aerospace built the satellite and, as with GeoEye-1, ITT's Space Systems Division supplied its image sensor.
Launching satellites is an expensive business, but there's at least some funding available: GeoEye secured $400 million in a sale of debt last week.
H1N1 influenza, better known as the swine flu, is guaranteed to make an impact across the U.S. and the rest of the world in the coming months. But knowing what to expect, and how to determine if H1N1 is impacting where you live, should be the first step in your evaluation of the swine flu.
And that's where this roundup comes in. Listed below, you will find several resources that will help you not only track the swine flu, but probably help you learn a little something about it as well.
Find out about that swine flu
Centers for Disease Control -- The Centers for Disease Control has some of the best information on the swine flu of any site in this roundup. Everything from its causes to its symptoms are available.
Information on the swine flu from the CDC is the best I've seen on the Web. The site offers basic information for those who want an overview. It quickly digs deep into treating family members afflicted with swine flu, why a vaccination might be useful, who the flu is most likely to affect, and more. It also produces videos and podcasts. Overall, I liked the CDC's presentation on the swine flu. It's extremely informative.
The Centers for Disease Control is a great resource.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)FluTracker -- Rhiza Lab's FluTracker app is one of the best ways to track the swine flu on the Web.
When you get to the site, you'll see several colored circles around a map of the world. The color of each circle denotes the severity of the outbreak in a given location. Inside those circles are numbers, giving you a tally of confirmed outbreaks in a particular country. Perhaps most importantly, the site allows you to zoom in to see how many outbreaks have affected your area. You can even see how many deaths have occurred. If you're looking for in-depth but easily understandable tracking of the swine flu, FluTracker is your best bet.
FluTracker tells you where the swine flu is.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)
The Accuterra topo map will get a slide-out control panel in version 3.1.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)As a wannabe weekend warrior, I'm happy to see topographical maps for mobile phones gaining ground on decidedly consumer devices. Interactive trail maps like Accuterra for iPhone make a lot of sense, especially with cellular reception and baked-in GPS chips strong enough in so many local hills and national parks that you can actively record your steps, share photos, and track your stats.
At CTIA Fall 2009 (see all stories), we got a sneak peek at the next version of Accuterra that will hit the iPhone app store. Version 3.1, which is expected in a few weeks, doesn't layer on a ton of features, but there is a new slide-out panel we like that makes the controls much more accessible. With a well-aimed swipe and a tap, you'll be able to toggle between the Accuterra topo maps and Google's maps. The app will also contain a simpler library organized around a search bar up top and traditional iPhone tab menu buttons below.
By the end of the year, you should be able to purchase extra content within the app, such as a video of your location or a historical Civil War walking tour. Accuterra costs 99 cents in the App Store; with local maps selling for about $3 each.
Google's Street View is now live in Canada.
(Credit: Google)Google announced on Wednesday that it has launched its Street View service to 11 cities in Canada, including Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa, among others.
Google Street View, which originally launched in May 2007, allows users to virtually navigate neighborhoods in 14 countries around the world. When the service first launched, it was only available in five U.S. cities.
Street View has come under some fire since its debut for the service's alleged potential to infringe the privacy of those people found in its images. To address that issue in Canada, Google said in a statement that it "has gone to great lengths to ensure Canadians' privacy."
The company said that all the images in Canada's Street View are already visible from public roads. Identifiable faces and license plates were blurred to ensure no one in the images could be identified. As with its other Street View services, Google's Canadian Street View features a "Report a problem" link, allowing concerned users to request images be taken down.
Whether Google would ever be able to bring Street View to Canada was very much up in the air not too long ago. In September 2007, Canada's Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart wrote to Google saying that she was concerned that the service might violate her country's privacy regulations. She believed that Street View could infringe Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which went into effect on January 1, 2004.
For its part, Google said in the statement on Wednesday that it "consulted with Canada's federal and provincial Privacy Commissioners in developing Street View and its privacy safeguards." Evidently, that has helped the company bring Street View to the country.
My Phone's Web dashboard resembles an in-box.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)In step with the release of Windows Mobile 6.5 phones, Microsoft also graduated its My Phone syncing service for Windows phones (6.0-6.5) from beta to a full release. As we reported earlier this morning, most of the new features are premium additions to help you find your phone if it gets lost or stolen. We'll get to these later on. For the most part, the My Phone service acts as we expect it to--as a small app you download onto your phone, with the bulk of the management taking place on your dashboard online.
Sure enough, after downloading My Phone and signing in with your Windows Live ID (or signing up for a new one), you'll pick from a list of data types you want to sync. These include contacts, calendar items, notes, tasks, memos, photos, and videos, songs and text messages, and documents.
Syncing took over a half hour the first time around, but we were on a terribly weak EDGE connection. Let that be a lesson to all. In the style of our times, the online dashboard resembles an e-mail in-box. From it, you can view the contents of your phone, and to some extent manage certain aspects. for instance, you can add a new calendar item and comfortably edit contact info from the desktop keyboard, but we haven't found a way to add a contact or create a new text message. You can upload songs from any desktop to remotely load onto your phone, but My Phone missed the smattering of songs we already had on the phone. The photo sharing feature is more fleshed out, with options to publish images to Windows Live, Facebook, Flickr, and MySpace.
We're bummed that Microsoft hasn't broadened the syncing and sharing capabilities since My Phone's beta days. With so many other start-ups creating fuller featured in-boxes and management dashboards than My Phone, it seems to us that Microsoft has unnecessarily reinvented the wheel.
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