Friday Fun With Google Maps

Google France have created a number of 'flip books' using the street view imagery from Google Maps in France. The video below shows the 143 km journey from Etampes to Paris in 26 minutes. There are 20 more of these videos in the Google France YouTube channel.


Street View Car Sees Double
One of the street view cars in France gets a glimpse of itself in a parallel universe as a wormhole briefly opens up in the Rue du 11 Novembre, Figeac. Either that or Google own more than one street view car.

Street Cities - Free Mapping and Street View Tools

In the UK Neatorama has photos and information about the Google street view car being stopped by the police.

Every Country's Google Map Web Address (dead link removed)
The MMMeeja Blog has compiled a list of every country's web address for Google Maps. Google Maps developers who use geo-coding might want to have a look at this list.

When you use the Google Maps geo-coding API Google biases the results towards the country the request came from. MMMeeja give the example of Perth, which could be the Scottish town to a user in Britain or the Western Australian capital for a user down under.

Spying on Google Street View Cars
Ekstreme.com (dead link removed) have captured some close up pictures of the Google street views cars and claim to have had a quick impromptu interview with one of the car drivers (who strangely objected to having his picture taken).

Blaming Google Maps for Jeep Accident
The Salt Lake Tribune has a story of a driver who rolled his Jeep after he claims he used Google Maps to find alternative directions. Stuck in traffic the driver claims he called up Google Maps to find an alternate route. Google Maps satellite view showed a dirt track that might provide an alternate route.

The fact that the dirt track had gates saying the road was restricted was of little consequence to our hero and he drove on anyway. As he tried to navigate the track the driver managed roll the Jeep off the dirt surface. Charges have not been filed.