mapping

Would Google Maps Street View be legal in Canada?

The privacy commissioner in Canada says Google Maps' new high-resolution images in its Street View feature could violate Canada's privacy laws because citizens may not know they have been photographed, according to The Canadian Press.

Street View isn't available yet in Canada, but has been rolled out to nine major cities in the U.S. since May. The maps show close-up, high-resolution images in San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area only. After initial criticism about privacy concerns, Google quietly changed its policy to allow anyone to notify the company when a recognizable face or license plate number has been captured, … Read more

Map your sweetie's progress with a flight tracker

One of my favorite Google Earth apps is FBOWeb's commercial airline flight tracker (review). Enter in the details of a commercial flight and you can see exactly where it is. If you're a real geek, with Google Earth's new built-in flight simulator, you can also zoom into the flight and see what it'd be like to fly it youself.

The easiest way to access this feature is to just type in the flight code in Google. For example, search for "AA 34" (American Airlines flight 34), and click on the "fboweb.com" … Read more

Plan trips and find things to do with TripCart

For vacationers in the United States, time off is serious business. Most folks only get two weeks of playtime, and planning what to do and where to do it can be a serious pain. TripCart is a do-it-yourself trip-planning service that's a cross between Yelp and AAA's TripTik service. The site employs a mix of Google Maps, and local attraction ratings--user and editor generated--to let you browse and find interesting things to do. Instead of slurping in content from other services (similar to what Yahoo Local has done with Yelp), the reviews and ratings are site-specific.

The real … Read more

MySpace to get popular Facebook travel app

Soon you can brag about your travels to your fellow MySpace friends as well as your height, weight and looks.

Where I've Been aka WIB, an application for sharing a map on places you've visited, lived in or want to visit, will now be available for MySpace users, the company plans to announce Friday.

The mapping application allows users to color-code the world by where they have visited or lived and where they would like to go. The U.S. is broken out by states while the rest of the world is broken out by country.

The Chicago-based … Read more

New iPod gets Wi-Fi iTunes Music Store, YouTube, Web browsing

This morning, Apple unveiled the iPod Touch, this year's latest must-have gadget that's the first bona fide iPod to have built-in Wi-fi, the Safari Web browser, and the YouTube app iPhone owners have come to love. That's not the most groundbreaking aspect, though--this thing's got a full version of the iTunes Music Store that you'll be able to use for shopping right on the device. You can preview and buy songs that will sync up to your iTunes library when you plug it in back at home. The idea is similar to the Music Gremlin, … Read more

Amung.us launches cool Web site visitor map

There's a new widget from the team at Amung.us: A mapping plug-in, maps.amung.us, that you can add to your site to show you where your site's visitors are coming from, updated in real time. At first it looks to be more fun than useful, but underneath the widget, Amung.us collects interesting stats. You need only to click through from the widget to check them out.

I have a love/hate relationship with widgets like this (see also Feedjit and MyBlogLog). Site managers who are thinking of adding these need to be aware that they … Read more

Cool Easter egg: Google Earth's flight simulator

This is so cool: Google Earth (download) has a slightly hidden flight simulator. Press Ctrl-Alt-A (on a PC) to bring it up the first time. After that, Ctrl-A or a selection from the "Tools" menu activates it.

It's no Microsoft Flight Simulator in terms of controls, flyability, or features (no sound, no weather, no autopilot, only two aircraft choices... I could go on), but since the Google flight simulator has access to Google Earth's streaming database, the visuals are awesome. In most areas, it looks fantastic when your plane is more than about 2,000 feet above ground level. Get down low and it becomes a lot less believable, except in cities with good 3D building coverage.

Cool Easter egg: Google Earth's flight simulator

This is so cool: Google Earth ( download) has a slightly hidden flight simulator. Press Ctrl-Alt-A (on a PC) to bring it up the first time. After that, Ctrl-A or a selection from the "Tools" menu activates it.

Is the sky the limit?

The unpredictable Aurigid meteor shower might happen over the weekend, or it might not. But whether you're in foggy San Francisco or balmy Iraq, you can use the latest Google Earth update to check out the stars above your head, day or night.

Google, Yahoo to direct your Mercedes

Mercedes-Benz USA has an answer to complaints that car navigation directions don't measure up to those from sites like Yahoo, Google and Ask.

The automaker has partnered with Google and Yahoo to allow users to send customized Google Maps and Yahoo Local Maps directly from a computer or Web-enabled cell phone to their car computer.

A new "Send to Car" icon that will appear on both companies' mapping sites will allow you to send customized directions, maps, addresses and points of interest to your Mercedes' GPS navigation system.

Once you get in your car, pushing the "… Read more