Google Maps Satellite Art

Jenny Odell - Satellite Collections

Artist Jenny Odell creates beautiful collages from Google Maps satellite images.

"In all of my prints, I collect things that I've cut out from Google Satellite View -- parking lots, silos, landflls, waste ponds. The view from a satellite is not a human one, nor is it one we were ever really meant to see. But it is precisely from this inhuman point of view that we are able to read our own humanity, in all of its tiny, reliably repetitive marks upon the face of the earth."

Pong Socket - Earth Art

Pong Socket's exploration of the planet in Google Maps has concentrated on finding the beautiful patterns and textures that can be found in satellite view.

"Earth Art is about showing beautiful natural art from above by looking at incredibly unusual landscapes in places with extreme climate."

Rhett Dashwood - Google Maps Typography

Rhett Dashwood has also scoured Google Maps. Rhett, however, undertook the painstaking task of finding the letters of the alphabet in satellite view.

"Over the course of several months beginning October 2008 to April 2009 I've spent some of my spare time between commercial projects searching Google Maps hoping to discover land formations or buildings resembling letter forms."

Via: Matthew Sammon (G+)

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Dutch Crime on Google Maps

The Dutch city of Utrecht has its very own crime map.

Stopdecriminaliteit.nl. uses Google Maps to show the latest incidents of crime in the Dutch town and surrounding areas. It is possible to search the map by postcode or by type of crime. For reasons of privacy, however, crimes are never plotted to the exact address on the map.

As well as plotting crimes in Utrecht the site also gives general advice on measures that you can be taken to make your house more secure against burglary.

StopDeCriminaliteit.nl

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Loads More Birds Eye View

Mezquita-Catedral

Google Maps today has a lot more aerial view imagery. The update includes new 45° imagery in the U.S., Canada, Germany, Argentina and Spain.


Parliament, Ottawa

Here's a list of the updated cities:

Augsburg, Germany. Barstow, CA. Bartlett, TX. Big Bear, CA. Blackstone, VA. Catalina Foothills, AZ. Córdoba, Spain. Delano, CA. Desert Hot Springs, CA. Richmond, VA. Elgin, TX. Healdsburg, CA. Helendale, CA. Hemet, CA. Houston, TX. Mendoza, Argentina. Midlothian, VA. Napa Valley, CA. New Braunfels, TX. Ojai, CA. Ottawa, Canada. Pensacola, FL. Porterville, CA. Plant City, FL. Rancho Del Lago, AZ. Rosario, Argentina. Santa Clarita, CA. Sarasota, FL. Taylor, TX. Temecula, CA. Treasure Island, CA. Troy, IL. Twentynine Palms, CA. Wakefield, VA. Yucca Valley, CA.


Rathaus, Augsburg

Via: Google LatLong

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Boston's Buses Live on Google Maps

With TransitSpy you can follow Boston's MBTA buses live on Google Maps.

Using the sidebar you can select any combination of MBTA bus routes and view in real-time the position of the buses on those routes. As well as the live buses all the stops on a route are displayed on the map. If you click on a bus-stop's map marker you can see how long you will have to wait until the next bus arrives.

TransitSpy MBTA

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The Google Maps Guide to Hiking in Norway

UT.no is a complete guide to hiking in Norway. The site features hiking routes, cabins, a calendar of events and a hiking map built with the Google Maps API.

As well as the usual Google Map views the map features detailed topographical map tiles. Using the menu in the map sidebar you can select to view cabins, summer trails, winter trails, videos, articles and even current skiing conditions.

Kart - UT.no

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Google Maps at the Fringe

The world's largest art festival the Edinburgh Fringe is due to start on Friday.

With over 2,000 different comedy, musical and theatrical shows taking place in over 250 different events what is needed is a Google Maps guide to the Fringe.

Enter stage right - Gigglemaps.

Using Gigglemaps you can click on any Edinburgh Fringe Festival venue and view the next five performances. The map includes a menu that allows you to filter the venues by category, such as comedy, cabaret etc.

Gigglemaps

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Google Aquires Dealmap

Dealmap's biggest deal of today was selling itself to Google.

Websites offering daily deals and coupons have been one of the biggest trends in the location sector for a couple of years now. Google has been pretty keen to get into this market, which has so far been dominated by Groupon.

However Google has, until now, been painfully slow in rolling out its own Google Offers site. Google Offers launched in April promising daily offers - but the deals were initially only available in Portland, Oregon. Since then Google have rolled out the service to other areas but it is still limited to New York, San Francisco, Oakland and Portland.

By acquiring Deal Map Google can now access Dealmap's deal exchange distribution network and presumably hopes to tap into Dealmap's over 2 million users.

Google is not the only big player to have had an eye on Dealmap. Back in March Dealmap signed a deal with Bing to display deals on the homepage of m.bing.com.

For now Dealmap says it will continue as a distinct service. However my guess is that at some point in the future Dealmap and Google Offers will morph into one product (probably called Google Offers).

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Google Maps meet Maori Maps

This Google Map displays the locations of the tribal marae of Aotearoa New Zealand. A marae is a communal or sacred place, the centre of Maori identity and activity.

Maori Maps is a nationwide map of Aotearoa marae, with photos of each marae, contact and background information, and photographs. Currently the map displays marae in the Tai Tokerau (Northland) and Tamaki (Auckland) regions. Eventually the map will show all of Aotearoa’s more than 800 ancestral marae.

Maori Maps

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Live Shipping Containers on Google Maps

This Google Map allows you to track in real-time the huge shipping containers of Maersk as they travel around the world.

The position of the ships are displayed live on this Google Map. You can click on any of the ship map markers to view a photograph of the ship and read further details, such as the ship's destination and current speed.

This map presumably uses the Automatic Identification System (AIS), an automated tracking system used on ships to plot real-time positions.

Maersk Fleet - Live Map

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Google Maps Picnic

The Guardian newspaper is increasingly working with partners to produce useful Google Map based guides. The newspaper are collaborating with lastminute.com to create their City Guides. They have also worked with Enjoy England to create a Google Map based guide to great destinations in the UK.

The Guardian has now partnered with Country Life Butter to create a Google Maps guide to great picnic spots in the UK.

The map helps you search for a picnic spot by activity, for example spots that are good for hikers, photographers or wildlife fans. You can also search by environment, such as by beach, riverside or country park.

If you have a favourite picnic spot of your own you can add it to the map.

Great British Picnics

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