Mapping the Internet of Things

Vista Data Vision - Real-Time Map

Vista Data Vision is an application to help you manage, visualise and analyse sensor data from real word objects. Using Vista Data Vision's applications it is possible to store logged data from devices and display and publish it to the web.

Vista Data Vision also provide an interface that allows users to view the data from logged devices via a Google Map. The demonstration map from VDV features mapped devices from weather stations and environmental sites around the world.

Using the map it is possible to view real-time data from a number of field measurement devices at different locations. The map displays the latest measurements and graphs of the data.

Pachube

Pachube is a service that enables users to connect, tag and share real time sensor data from objects, devices, buildings and environments around the world. The key aim of the site is to facilitate interaction between remote environments, both physical and virtual.

The home page of Pachube features a large Google Map that displays live data feeds from a number of objects and devices around the world. The data feeds vary from weather stations, air quality sensors to domestic monitoring devices.

Tales of Things

The Tales of Things allows you to tag real world objects. After being tagged the objects can then be geo-located on Google Maps and be followed on Twitter.

A free iPhone app allows anyone with an iPhone to scan, comment and add locations to objects. The application lets you take a photo and add a QR code to any object, that can then be followed on the Tale of Things.

If you find an object with a Tale's of Things QR code attached to it you can scan and decode the object on the Tale of Things website and learn more about its history and movements.

Tale of Things is a collaborative project from Brunel University, Edinburgh College of Art, University College London, University of Dundee and University of Salford.

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The Real-Time Toronto Transit Map

TOTransit

TOTransit displays the real-time position of Toronto's streetcars on a Google Map.

You can select which routes you want to view on the map in real-time. The marker for each streetcar displays its current direction and if you mouse-over a marker you can view the streetcar's number.

The streetcars' positions are updated every ten seconds.

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The YouTube Royal Wedding Map

The Royal Wedding Channel on YouTube

If you somehow managed to miss the almost blanket coverage of today's royal wedding you can watch all the video highlights on YouTube's Royal Wedding channel.

YouTube have created a Google Map of the wedding route and are adding video highlights of the royal procession and the wedding. The map also includes videos of some of the landmarks on the wedding route.

If you wish you can even leave your own video message for the royal couple.

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The Royal Wedding on Google Maps

The Guardian's Royal Wedding Map

Left leaning UK newspaper The Guardian has gone all gooey eyed and created a Google Map for the Royal Wedding.

The map features the latest news, photographs, videos and auido interviews from journalist Adam Gabbatt as he braves the flag waving crowds along the royal wedding route.

The map has been created using new map creation tool Kerouapp. Kerouapp is currently in closed alpha testing but from this embedded map on the Guardian we can see that it will provide a cool way to create a Google Map of a trip, with an animated time-line of your photos and videos.

Google Earth Tour

If you really don't have anything better to do today you can check out the royal wedding route in 3D with the Google Earth browser plug-in. Google have created a tour of the royal wedding route from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey.

Following the tour in 3D is almost as bad good as being there yourself. Google also have a Mr & Mrs Pegman decked out in wedding gear if you check out central London in Street View on Google Maps.

Royal Wedding Tweets Map

Mibazaar has created this Google Map to show all the latest royal wedding chatter on Twitter. The map also displays the royal wedding route from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey.

The map displays the latest tweets with the #royalwedding hashtag that have been posted from in and around London. The map animates to show the latest Tweets, so it is possible to just sit back and read how people are reacting to this wedding.

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Road Races in Street View

Swiss Post - Running View

UbiLabs has developed a very nice Google Maps based application for Swiss Post that allows you to view upcoming road races with Street View. Currently you can preview the Grand-Prix von Bern, the Lausanne Marathon and the Schweizer Frauenlauf Bern with Running View.

For each race it is possible to preview the route in Google Street View. All you need to do is press 'play' and you can view an animation of the route using Google Street View images. You can pause and adjust the speed of the Street View animation of the route at any time.

A Google Map with a rotating marker gives you an overview of the current position and an elevation chart shows the elevation at each point of the track.

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A Facebook Check-in Button Generator

CheckinPlugin

CheckinPlugin helps businesses and venues create a Facebook check-in button for their websites. The obvious advantages for businesses of having a check-in button is that it will encourage customers to check-in using Facebook and help promote their venue or company.

Creating a CheckinPlugin is very easy. First you just need to enter your location on a Google Map. CheckinPlugin then displays all the venues with a Facebook place id at that address. You then select your business from the list and create your unique CheckinPlugin.

CheckinPlugin then generates the code for your plug-in and all you need to do then is insert it into your company's website.

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Getting a Job with Google Maps

Maployed

Maployed! is a Google Map that displays job vacancies in the USA.

Maployed provides an initial view of jobs available in each state. The initial view on Maployed gives an interesting overview of the job market and the economy, allowing you to see at a glance how many jobs are available in each state.

You can search the map by job type, company or by salary. For example, if you want to work for Google you can enter 'Google' into the company search field and view all the job vacancies for the search giant across the United States.

If you click on an individual job's map marker you are taken to the job's details on Indeed.

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Design Events on Google Maps

A.N.D.

The A.N.D. project has created a Google Map to show the location of upcoming events in London, New York, Moscow and Tokyo in the fields of contemporary design, photography and architecture.

As you might imagine the A.N.D. project has put some thought into the design of their map. The map markers represent iconic buildings in each of the four cities. For example, New York's map marker is the Empire State building and London's is Big Ben.

If you click on one of the four building markers the map zooms to your chosen city and displays the upcoming events. Each of the event markers includes a label with the name of the event.

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Zombies Attack the Royal Wedding

The Royal Zombie Wedding

There is a Royal Wedding taking place this Friday in London.

As you can imagine the burning question on everyone's lips is:

Can the wedding survive a zombie attack?

Thanks to the makers of Class 3 Outbreak, the Google Maps zombie game, we can now simulate the effects of a zombie attack on Westminster Abbey during the royal wedding and discover the answer to this important question.

After extensive testing of the simulator I can attest that things don't bode well for William and Kate. By my reckoning the happy couple will enjoy about five minutes of married life before joining the leagues of the walking dead.

On a more happy note a zombie attack won't make much difference to the royal family. It has been rumoured that the Queen's husband Prince Philip has been zombified for the last twenty years with very little noticeable effect on his ability to perform his royal duties.


As a reward for their work on the The Royal Zombie Wedding game creators Binary Space have been awarded a permanent room in the Tower of London by the UK government.

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Find Foursquare Deals on Google Maps

Checkin Mania: Check-in Deals

Check-in Deals lets you find all the local businesses offering deals through Foursquare. All you have to do is type in your location and you can view all your nearby deals on a Google Map.

As well as being displayed on the map all the deals are listed in the map sidebar. You can filter the displayed deals by 'Newbie Special', 'Check-in Special', 'Mayor Special' etc. If you click on the sidebar listing the location of the selected venue is displayed on the map.

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More Sweden on Google Maps

Mere Sverige

Mere Sverige (More Sweden) is a tourism promotion site for Sweden aimed at the Danish market. The site is therefore in Danish. More Sweden uses Google Maps to provide Danish visitors to Sweden with all the accommodation and sightseeing information that they will need.

The map includes some very nice features. In particular the numbered marker clustering solution is well thought out. Numbered markers show the number of points of information at a location. If you mouse-over the marker a small information window opens with preview thumbnails of the individual locations. If you click on the marker the map zooms in so that you can view the individual markers.

Markers on the map are divided into the categories of 'experiences, 'accommodation' and 'transport' and each of these categories is further subdivided. For example 'accommodation' contains sub-categories of hotels, B&B's etc.

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Panoramas & Vistas on Google Maps

Generate a Panorama

'Generate a Panorama' lets you click on a Google Map and see a representation of the view from that location.

For example, below is the generated view from the summit of Mont Blanc looking due west. As you can see all the peaks in your view are marked on the created panorama.



To generate your own view you just need to click on the map. You can drag a polyline to choose the direction you wish to view and you can also adjust the span of the view.

Also See

Hey What's That - The original and first Google Maps based panorama generator.

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Google Maps Satellite Views of Chernobyl

Contando Estrelas: Chernobyl 25 Years Later

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine. Google Maps' satellite view gives us a great insight into the devastation of this once thriving area.

Italian website Contando Estrelas has written an informative article on the destruction of the area around the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, which it has illustrated with satellite views from Google Maps.

The article shows images of the power plant itself, the now ghost town of Pripyat (including a Ferris wheel that had been constructed for the May 1st celebrations), abandoned ships in a port to the north of Chernobyl and a graveyard of trucks, tanks, helicopters and other vehicles used after the explosion of 1986 (all of which had to be abandoned because of their exposure to high radiation levels).

The article is in Spanish.

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Driving Directions with Street View

Animated Route Maps

If you have a 'Where Are We' page on your website you should consider adding an animated route map from Map Channels. This handy application lets you create an animated directions map using Street View and Bing's Bird's Eye View.

To create an embedable map you just need to enter a starting point and a destination. Map Channels Animated Route Map will then create the code for you to add to your website. When your users press play they can follow the route in Street View and Google Maps.

The application comes with a number of customisation settings so you can change the width and height of your map. You can also change the speed settings for the animation and choose which map types you wish to display.

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Welcome to the Sounds of Galicia

Escoitar

Escoitar is a collaborative sound map for the Galician region in north-west Spain. Using the map it is possible to listen to the waves washing against the shore in Gijon, the ringing of the church bells in Trives and the ambient hustle and bustle of Ourense at night.

There is something particularly evocative about sound maps. Different categories of sound are displayed on this map with coloured map markers. The categories include nature, mechanical, people and religion.

Other Sound Maps

• Open Sound New Orleans - New Orleans sound map
• Tactical Sound Garden - Tactical Sound Garden has created 'sound gardens' in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, San Diego, CA and Zurich, Switzerland.
• Radio Aporee - Sounds recorded around the world and presented on a Google Map.
• Montreal Sound Map - Sounds from Montreal
  
• Map Your Voice - Map of accents around the world

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Angry Bird Eggs on Google Maps

The Cadbury Creme Egg Cad-apult

Have you ever wanted to plaster your friends' houses with eggs? Thanks to Cadbury Creme Eggs and Google Maps you now can! And you don't have to clean up afterwards.

The concept of this campaign from Cadbury is fairly simple. You have a catapult loaded with a Creme Egg. If you type in an address you can then hurl your egg onto the satellite image of your chosen location.

You are then presented with an animated cut-scene of your egg sailing through the air before having the pleasure of witnessing it land and splatter over Google Maps.

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World's Nuclear Reactors on Google Maps

Voice of America: Nuclear Reactors Map

Voice of America has complied a database of every public record on nuclear facilities from the International Atomic Energy Agency and created a Google Map of the results.

When you zoom in on the map, details of the nuclear facilities are shown in the map sidebar. Voice of America also use the Google Chart API to display histograms of plants built or shut down in any given year, year-by-year power output records from every single facility worldwide and maps showing the power output and number of plants in each country.

Other Worldwide Nuclear Power Plant Maps

• The World's Nuclear Power Reactors
• Nuclear Power Plants and Earthquakes Map
  

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The Most Addictive Google Maps Game Yet

Fleck

Hi, my name's Keir and I'm a Cityville addict. There, I've finally admitted it. I feel happy to admit to my addiction though ... because I've found the cure by becoming hooked to Fleck instead.

Fleck is a a massively-multiplayer online world that actually takes place on Google Maps. In Fleck you can build a house, decorate your neighborhood with plants, shrubs and trees, harvest your plants and, if that all sounds a bit tame, you can even shoot the odd zombie or two.

In the game you can also interact with other players, team-up against zombies, expand your empire by buying restaurants. Restaurants earn you a little extra income and can help other players as well when they buy food from your restaurant to recover a little health.

That's enough for now. I've got an empire to build!

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The Best Google Maps of the Week

Marker / Music

My favourite map this week was probably the simplest. This map is just a handful of markers with embedded videos. However the idea behind it is inspired.

Each of the videos features a different musical instrument. If you open up the videos you can play and mix the sounds being played in each video. You can even adjust the volume of each video / instrument.

Trulia: Price Reductions Map

At the other end of the complexity scale comes this amazing map from Trulia. This map uses the canvas element to create a heat map. As well as being amazing the map is also very useful for house buyers.

The map displays house price change data from live non-foreclosure listings and tracks all price reductions from March 31, 2010 to March 31, 2011. Using Trulia's Google Map it is possible to search by zip-code for the average number of days a house is on the market in that area before sellers make their first reduction.

Plnnr

Plnnr helps you plan your perfect vacation. Using Plnnr you just need to enter your vacation destination and the date you wish to travel and you are presented with a personalised ready-to-use itinerary for your trip.

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The Singapore Election on Google Maps

Singapore Electoral Map 2011

Singapore will be holding parliamentary elections on 7th May.

One quirk of the Singapore electoral system is that constituency boundaries are changed for each election. This can be quite confusing for voters so Singapore Maps has created this Google Map to help voters discover which constituency they are in.

Users can enter an address or postcode to find out their constituency. The constituency boundaries are also clearly displayed on the map. If you click on the map you can also find out which candidates are standing in each constituency for both political parties.

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A Tsunami Model on Google Maps

Tsunami Mapper

Tsunami Mapper makes use of the Google Maps elevation service and a flood fill algorithm to display the likely effects of a tsunami hitting the shore anywhere in the world.

The map allows you to enter a location and then set the parameters of a possible tsunami. These include the wave height, the direction of the wave to travel and the tsunami starting point. The map will then display the areas that are likely to be effected by water damage if such a tsunami hit your location.

Predicting the height and effect of tsunamis is an inexact science and there are of course lots of complex variables at play that can't be predicted. Therefore this application is intended as a general guide not as a true predictor.

Sea Level Maps

• Global Sea Level Rise Map - view the world at different rates of sea rise.
• Flood Maps - also looks at the effects of sea rises on the world.
• EarthTools - if you are worried about rising sea levels then try the elevation finder on this map. Click anywhere in the world and find its height above (or below) sea level.
• Global Flood Map

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Red Wins the Inaugural Google Map Attack

MapAttack

Geoloqi has launched a new Google Maps based location game for mobile phones called MapAttacks.

The first beta test of MapAttack was held at the Park Blocks in Portland, Oregon last week. The game seems to involve two teams of players having to collect points in the real world by following the locations of the points as shown on a Google Map. The map also displays the locations of all the players in real-time.

At the moment Geoloqi have two more games of MapAttack lined up. One will be in Medellín, Colombia later this summer. The other is taking place today at WhereCamp at Stanford University. If you want to follow today's game (or get a sneak peek) you can do so here.

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Friday Fun with Google Maps

Kissing to Petting to F..king

Here are some travel directions that you might want to bookmark. In Germany Google Maps now provides directions to get from Kissing to Petting to F..king. The total journey time is 2 hours and 51 minutes, which is quite fast in my experience.

Street View Over the Rainbow

The Street View cars have captured millions of images around the world. Every few thousand shots or so it comes up with a picture of real beauty. Like this rainbow photgraphed over Dartmoor Forest in the UK.

Yandex Flash Mob

Google isn't the only online map to provide Street View type imagery. For example Russia's map service Yandex caught this weird Flash Mob in the Ukraine.

Two of Our Delivery Vans Are Missing

UK Supermarket giant Tesco track their delivery vans with GPS. Recently when they created a Google Map of their vans' positions they were surprised to find two of them in Poland.

It seems Tesco had sold the vans and forgotten to remove the installed tracking devices. Tesco have now contacted the van's new owners and the devices have been removed.

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Google Offers Open for Subscription

Google Offers

Google's new 'deals' sevice Google Offers is now letting you sign up for its launch in Portland, Oregon.

If you visit the Google Offers website you will find a large Google Map and a drop-down menu that will sign you up to receive e-mails for deals from local businesses in a number of US cities.

Currently you can subscribe to receive deals in New York, San Francisco, Portland and Oakland. However, in this beta release of offers, it seems that only Portland deals will be active.

If you can't wait for the e-mail of offers to land in your in-box you can view the deals available in Portland in this Google Offers gadget for your iGoogle page.

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Ask the Crowd About the Buzz at a Venue

Localmind

Localmind allows you to ask questions of people at specific locations. For example, if you are thinking of heading out to your local bar you could ask Localmind whether the place is buzzing or not. If another Localmind user is at the bar they receive the question on their phone and can respond in real-time.

If you are Localmind user when you check-in with your favourite check-in service (such as Foursquare, Gowalla, or Facebook Places) you become available to be sent a question about that location. If a fellow user has a question about that location, you receive a notification and can respond in real-time.

Localmind users earn karma every time that they contribute something useful. You earn 5 karma points for checking-in at a venue, and 10 karma points for answering a question at a venue.

The Localmind website uses Google Maps to show you where Localmind experts are currently available to answer your questions. Localmind is also available as an iPhone app, which you will need to get the full benefit of the service.

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Taking Geo-Games to the Next Level

Dokobots

Dokobots is a free location-based game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The game is a scavenger hunt that involves finding Dokobots, marking locations and taking photos.

Using the app players can pick up objects shown on a Google Map as they travel around town. Dokobots, batteries and other items can be found with your iPhone as you move around. If you find a Dokobot you can find out all about who has owned it before and add your own record of ownership.

Every Dokobot keeps a detailed record of its adventures in a travel journal. The journal automatically charts its route through the world, tracking map locations, players who have picked it up and user-created photos and notes.

Players can check out the photos taken by each of the previous hosts before adding their own, and a newsfeed keeps players up to date about the latest activities of their favorite Dokobots, highlighting new photos and other entries.

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The Royal Wedding on Google Maps

Royal Wedding Tweets Map

Judging by the number of Tweets with the hashtag #royalwedding I'm guessing that some kind of wedding is coming up. Mibazaar has also picked up on this strange trend and has created a Google Map to show all the latest royal wedding chatter on Twitter.

The map displays the latest tweets with the #royalwedding hashtag that have been posted from in and around London. The map animates to show the latest Tweets, so it is possible to just sit back and read how people are reacting to this wedding.

The map is already showing a huge amount of activity. I hope it can cope with the amount of Twitter messages that will be flying around on Friday 21st.

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How to Calculate the Cost of a Car Journey

MyPetrolPlace.com

This new Google Maps based application allows you to work out the cost for your car or motorbike journey in India based on the current cost of petrol in your city.

To use MyPetrolPlace.com enter a starting point and a destination. Then add the number of kilometres per kilogram your vehicle normally achieves. The application then calculates your daily and monthly fuel expenditure.

Your journey is also displayed on a Google Map. You can change the displayed route by dragging the markers. All the metro cities and state capitals in India are supported by the application.

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Introducing Google Earth Builder

Google Earth Builder


Google are launching a new mapping platform called Earth Builder. News of Google Earth Builder was announced today but the product will be launched to the public in July of 2011.

With Earth Builder businesses will be able to organise their mapping data, upload and manage that data in the cloud and serve that data through the familiar Google Maps and Google Earth platforms.

Earth builder is an enterprise product so there will be a cost to users. The advantage to businesses in using the product will be Google's expertise in scaling data access and presumably its ease of use.

There is no news yet as to the cost of Earth Builder but you can contact the Google Sales team through the Google Earth Builder website.

Via: Google LatLong

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Canadian Gun Ownership Google Map

Global News: Gun Registry Map

Global News has used Google Fusion Tables to create this Google Map of registered gun licences in Canada.

The heat map shows the number of guns registered in an area. If you click on the map you can view details on the population size, the number of registered gun licences and the rate of licences per every 1,000 people.

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Canadian Elections on Google Maps

Canada's General Election is fast approaching (May 2nd) and the Google Maps are coming thick and fast.

The Gazette: Get to Know Your Candidate

If you want to know which candidates are standing in your area then use this Google Map from the Montreal Gazette.

To find out who your electoral candidates are just click on the map or select your riding from a drop-down menu. The candidates standing in your area are then listed below the map.

The map also includes an option to explore the ridings by gender. If you select this option you can view how many female candidates are standing in each riding in Canada.

2008 Election Results

This Google Map from cyberpresse lets you explore the 2008 election results. If you select your district from the drop-down menu you can view the results and the turn-out percentage.

Political Financing Map

Cyberpresse has also created this Google Map that lets you explore political donations to the political parties.

When you click on a dot, an information window will appear with the name of a donor, the date a contribution was made, the donation amount, the party to which this donation was made and the riding association or candidate that received the donation.

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A Google Map of House Price Reductions

Trulia: Price Reductions Map

Trulia has released a Google Map that can help in your search for a new home, helping you work out when house prices are likely to be reduced.

Trulia's Price Reduction Map presents house price change data from live non-foreclosure listings and tracks all price reductions from March 31, 2010 to March 31, 2011. Using Trulia's Google Map it is possible to search by zip-code for the average number of days a house is on the market in that area before sellers make their first reduction.

Using the map it is also possible to view the average price in an area that sellers normally cut by and the probability of a second price reduction within a zip-code area.

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Introducing Street Mosaic

Street Mosaic
Street Mosaic is a great new photo sharing / travel guide app. I liked the app so much that I asked Rich Yang of Street Mosaic to write a guest post for Google Maps Mania introducing the application.

He kindly agreed, so here it is:

Maps and travel go hand-in-hand. Travel, from day trips to gap years, is best when you have the opportunity to experience local flavor and find serendipitous discoveries. However, even the experienced traveler can have difficulty with maps, from orientation to location identification, especially in a new destination. Not to mention traditional paper guidebooks are outdated and horrible with maps.

Street Mosaic reduces time spent mapping so that you can quickly get back to your travel exploration. By integrating the social interaction and photography element of travel, users of Street Mosaic can simply take a picture of their discovery, write a caption, and share with the travel community. Our mobile app is also location aware and guides you to the discovery.

See something exciting? Take a picture and share with your friends and community your serendipitous discovery. Or simply explore around you or across the globe to get an idea for your next travel adventure.

Street Mosaic is still in developing and testing and open for product testers. Look for our free app in the iTunes App Store, twitter us @streetmosaic or on the web at streetmosaic.com.

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Using Canvas with Google Maps

Canvas Bar Charts

In the last couple of weeks I've been experimenting with using the canvas element of HTML5 with Google Maps. The canvas element allows for dynamic, scriptable rendering of 2D shapes on a web page, so I thought it would be perfect for creating data visualisations with Google Maps.

This example map presents the populations of the American states by using the canvas element to draw a bar graph for each state. To view a state's population on the map just mouse-over the state on the map.

With the canvas element it is also possible to animate shapes. This example tweens between the different bar charts as you roll over the states. I didn't particularly like the effect so I gave up on it - hence it will only work for some of the eastern states.

Of course much more complex animations are possible. Tim Poon has created a great particle animation with canvas. When I saw his animation I thought it would look great with Google Sky as a background. And it does.



In my example I have used z-index to overlay the canvas element over the map canvas. The disadvantage of doing this is it makes the map inaccessible so you can't interact with the map. The answer is to add the canvas element as an overlay on the map.

The excellent Mapnificent does this to visualise travel distances on Google Maps. Adding the canvas element as an overlay on the map means that on Mapnificent you can still interact with the map.



Another great use of the canvas element is to create dynamic markers. Using the canvas element to draw the markers rather than using static images means that you can change the size of markers to reflect the size of something you wish to represent.

Monocubed did this with their map of the London Bike Hire scheme. The map used markers drawn in canvas to show the number of bikes being hired by each bike station. The size of each marker represented the number of bikes hired from that station (unfortunately the map no longer seems to work).

If you want to use canvas for your markers a good place to start would be Paul Kinlan's tutorial Using Canvas to Create Beautiful Custom Markers in Google Maps.

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Google Map Maker Comes to the USA

Google has added the United States to Google Map Maker. Google Map Maker allows anyone to edit and add information to Google Maps.



Google claims that since the introduction of Google Map Maker the number of the world's population with accurate online maps of their neighbourhoods has doubled from 15% to 30%. Now users in the United States can correct errors on Google Maps with Map Maker and add detail to areas that are lacking proper map data.

In addition to opening Map Maker for the United States Google have added some new features for users globally. You can now get a street-level perspective on places with Street View imagery directly in Map Maker, see and edit all points of interest, and find exactly what you’re looking for with advanced search options such as displaying all railroad tracks.

Map Maker Pulse

You can view real-time edits to Map Maker with this Google Map. The application uses Google Maps and the Google Earth browser to show you in real-time where people are using Google Map Maker to update Google Maps.

Via: The Official Google Blog

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Instant Search for Street View

Instant Street Viewer

Ever since Google started Instant Search a number of developers have been trying to replicate the feature with Google Maps. This latest attempt brings you instant Street View.

If you enter a word into the search box the map will predict your search as you type and display what it hopes is your requested Street View. I like the default setting on this app, which shows the Street View of a sign to 'Lost' when it has no suggestions for your search.

Google Maps - From 0 to Instant

Released in the same week as Google's Instant Search, this was the first app to try and replicate the feature with Google Maps.

As you type into a search bar the application will recommend locations based on what you are typing and centre the map on that location. The recommended locations appear beside the search box. The map will nearly always centre on your desired location before you have actually typed in the entire name of the location.

ShowMyStreet

This handy Google Maps application also combines instant search with Google Maps and Street View. The map also includes a nice share this view option.

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