What's interesting around here?

Posted by Doug Ricket, Software Engineer, Google MapsSince the launch of our map-creation tools, we've seen some fantastic content created by people around the world, ranging from places to visit in Kyoto to isolated populations in Western Europe to photos of Americana. We wanted to share these maps with you, so we created a Mapplet for browsing popular user-created maps. This makes it easy to find public maps created by other users via the My Maps...

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Browsing geotagged photos from Picasa Web Albums

Posted by Ping Hsin Chen, Software Engineer, PicasaAbout a month ago, we added a new feature to Picasa Web Albums that makes it easy to geotag your favorite photos. With the "Map My Photos" option, you can literally just drag and drop your pictures onto a map. Already, the Picasa Web Albums community has added map information to millions of photos from all over the world.Now we have a new Mapplet that lets you search and browse all of the geolocated...

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In-car Google Local Search with BMW ConnectedDrive

Posted by Thomas Wuertele, BMW ConnectedDrive & Jeff Zabel, BMW Technology Office USAIn March, BMW introduced Google Maps Send to Car in Germany. As of today, we've expanded this service to all of our European BMW Assist customers. In addition to Google Maps Deutschland, you can now send businesses from Google Maps, Google Maps Italia and Google Maps UK directly to your in-car navigation system. This means that instead of printing out or writing down information before you go, you can find what you're looking for and send...

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Track and explore real-time earthquakes and volcanic activity

Posted by Scott Haefner and Dina Venezky, Geologists, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)The USGS monitors, assesses and issues warnings of natural hazards, including earthquakes and volcanoes. In the past month alone, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake shook Peru, Alaska’s Pavlof Volcano began erupting and lava started to flow from a new vent that formed in Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano. Now you can track both real-time earthquakes and volcanic activity on Google...

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Sky: The final frontier

Posted by Lior Ron, Product ManagerSince ancient times, people have looked at the sky and tried to find order in the chaos of stars and planets. Ancient sky maps and astronomical computers were created alongside maps of the earth. With Google Earth, we try to provide you with the best mapping experience possible, enabling you to virtually explore our planet. But wouldn't it be great to be able to explore the stars and galaxies as well?Today, I'm...

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YouTube-style Embeddable Maps

Posted by Jess Lee, Product Manager, Google MapsToday we're excited to announce a new feature on Google Maps that allows you to add maps to your blog or website just by copying and pasting a snippet of HTML. And once you embed the map, it has all the same functionality of the Google Maps you know and love; it's clickable, draggable, and zoomable.Adding a map to your website or blog is now as easy as embedding a YouTube video. No programming skills...

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Real time Traffic in Google Earth

Posted by Mark Tsui, Software EngineerToday we launched a new feature in Google Earth that provides that same real time traffic information that people have come to rely on in Google Maps. By enabling the "Traffic" layer in Google Earth, you can see a real time picture of traffic conditions to help plan a route or just check out how bad traffic might be in a city that you're exploring. It's useful information to have at your fingertips whether you're house hunting or just browsing. So come on over and check it o...

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Google Book Search in Google Earth

Posted by Brandon Badger, Product ManagerDid you ever wonder what Lewis and Clark said about your hometown as they passed through? What about if any other historical figures wrote about your part of the world? Earlier this year, we announced a first step toward geomapping the world's literary information by starting to integrate information from Google Book Search into Google Maps. Today, the Google Book Search and Google Earth teams are excited to announce the next step: a new layer in Earth that allows you to explore locations through the lens...

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Planning a trip using Google Maps

Posted by Thai Tran, Product Manager, Google MapsI just returned from a vacation in Europe, and I found two Mapplets invaluable for planning my trip:Wikimapia Layer --Wikimapia.org is a website where people have have annotated millions of places all over the world, and you can now view these annotations on Google Maps using their Mapplet. After zooming in on a location such as [Prague], I would then go to the "My Maps" tab and turn on the Wikimapia Layer to find out where interesting sights such as the Old Town, Prague Castle, and the Charles...

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Maps for Educators

Posted by Liz Xu, Software Engineer, Google MapsDavid Bellel, a semi-retired computer coordinator from the New York City public school system, has created a series of video maps that can be used by social studies teachers to educate kids on the history of various neighborhoods in New York City. Queen's Jazz Trail -- Homes of Jazz Greats and other notables in Queens, NY. Famous & Infamous Manhattan: East Village -- A tour based on "A Colorful Walking Tour of New York's Most Notorious Crime Sites" by Andrew Roth. In David's own words:...

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The 59 Mile Drive

Posted by Jess Lee, Product Manager, Google MapsThe original "49 Mile Drive" was a route created in 1938 by the San Francisco Downtown Association to highlight the city's beauty and to promote it as a tourist destination. The route has changed several times in the last 70 years, but most recently a user on Google Maps has plotted his own version of the 49 Mile Drive. The original route has been modified to avoid highways and to include scenic views such as the Painted Ladies at Alamo Square and Lombard Street (the "crookedest street the in the...

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More Street View Cities

Posted by Stephen Chau, Product Manager, Google MapsSince the launch of Street View we've been working hard on extending the service to more cities.We're excited to announce that Street View is now available in San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston and Orlando. Like the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego features high-resolution imagery.I've been waiting to visit Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA for some time now. Now I can see it in Street...

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Minnesota Bridge Collapse

Posted by Jess Lee, Google Maps product managerYesterday the I-35W Bridge connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul collapsed during rush hour. Here are some user-created maps that we hope are useful to those affected by the tragedy:35W Bridge - Photos, links to news articles, meeting point locations, contact information for nearby hospitals, and prayer service schedules.Roads closures & detours - Traffic information such as closed lanes and exits.More information can be found by searching for terms like "35W detour" within the user-created content...

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How long will it take at rush hour?

Posted by Eli Brandt, Software EngineerLet's say you want to leave from Berkeley to catch the sunset from the beach at Half Moon Bay, to relax on the sand and watch the sun sink into the Pacific. We all know Google Maps will tell you how to get there. Now it's better at helping you decide when to leave to catch your sunset on time. When you ask Google Maps for driving directions, the directions say "about 59 minutes". But they also say something...

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