EDvent Calendar: Day 6 (Open street map)

If you're slightly concerned about how nicely Google has woven itself into anything on the web that requires a map, there is hope. Open Street Map is a wiki-based mapping site that allows people to participate in crowd-sourcing the creation of maps. Have a look at OSM. Is your street there? If it's not, log in and add it. Add points of interest like schools, hospitals and parks.

This video shows a time-lapse of the creation of the map covering the greater London area. It's a lovely metaphor for a community of people creating knowledge out of darkness.
London OSM Edits 2005-2010 from ItoWorld on Vimeo.

EDvent Calendar: Day 4 (Google Streetview)

Have some fun courtesy of Google Streetview. Explore the ruins of Pompeii:
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...or take a stroll through the Colosseum:

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 ...while Google Art Project takes the power of Streetview to the world's best art museums:

Have fun!!

Streetview or Skiview?

Like skiing? Are you stuck at your desk but feel a burning desire to sail down the slopes of Breckenridge and Whistler? Streetview may be able to help:

From the streets to the slopes, Street View in Google Maps recently updated its special collections to include a number of new ski resorts, so you can tour some of the world’s most beautiful ski terrain right from your browser. Whether you’re planning your annual trip to your favorite resort or hunting for an exciting new adventure, Street View can transport you to your desired destination. Tour a few of our favorite ski resorts below.

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http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/street-view-special-collections-ski-and.html

Google Maps goes indoors

"Where am I?” and “What’s around me?” are two questions that cartographers, and Google Maps, strive to answer. With Google Maps’ “My Location” feature, which shows your location as a blue dot, you can see where you are on the map to avoid walking the wrong direction on city streets, or to get your bearings if you’re hiking an unfamiliar trail. Google Maps also displays additional details, such as places, landmarks and geographical features, to give you context about what’s nearby. And now, Google Maps for Android enables you to figure out where you are and see where you might want to go when you’re indoors."

From http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-frontier-for-google-maps-mapping.html

Google Street Viewer comes to Pompeii

This is stunning. Whether you've visited the ruins at Pompeii or not, spend a few minutes wandering around them using Google Streetview. It's one of many historic and cultural sites that have been opened up recently by Google's clever map people.

Open Street Map

This is a cool project: a wiki-based street map of the world to compete with Google's maps. It's quite amazing how dependent we are on Google to provide mapping mash-ups for the web: geocaching, real estate sales, finding our way to places, business directories etc. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a community-owned alternative that couldn't be turned into a revenue stream at a future date? Well, yes that would be nice. Oh wait.. there is one: OpenStreetMap.org