If you are worried about the spread of swine flu into America, then keep an eye on this Google Map, created to show where the infected cases are being treated.
View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map
Tuesday 28 April 2009
Friday 24 April 2009
Spread the word on online map of the world
Want to tell everyone how great Anna Maria Island is? Why not get on to MapVivo and spread the word.
Online start-up MapVivo has unveiled a web application enabling users to share travel experiences by linking destination information, images and video to a pin on a map.
The company, which received funding from a private investor in February, is planning to use the tool as the springboard to a social travel platform enabling users to plan trips, meet up and share travel information.
The application available from the Mapvivo website and users can also post their travel itineraries directly into Facebook or Twitter or share them via e-mail.
Co-founder Mark Seall declined to reveal the level of investment but said it had enabled the company to employ a small development team to work on future site enhancements and content.
He added that investment would go towards further improving the social elements of the site by allowing members to comment and ask questions about journeys and generally interact more.
A mobile application is also in the pipeline for users to update their details on the move as well as trawl the trips database for existing relevant information.
Further enhancements are also planned for the journey creation and search functionality.
The company sees opportunity in social travel tools to influence purchase decisions as sites such as Facebook gain ground over Tripadvisor in the UK in terms of upstream booking referrals.
Online start-up MapVivo has unveiled a web application enabling users to share travel experiences by linking destination information, images and video to a pin on a map.
The company, which received funding from a private investor in February, is planning to use the tool as the springboard to a social travel platform enabling users to plan trips, meet up and share travel information.
The application available from the Mapvivo website and users can also post their travel itineraries directly into Facebook or Twitter or share them via e-mail.
Co-founder Mark Seall declined to reveal the level of investment but said it had enabled the company to employ a small development team to work on future site enhancements and content.
He added that investment would go towards further improving the social elements of the site by allowing members to comment and ask questions about journeys and generally interact more.
A mobile application is also in the pipeline for users to update their details on the move as well as trawl the trips database for existing relevant information.
Further enhancements are also planned for the journey creation and search functionality.
The company sees opportunity in social travel tools to influence purchase decisions as sites such as Facebook gain ground over Tripadvisor in the UK in terms of upstream booking referrals.
Tuesday 21 April 2009
New Zealand, new names
Here's an interesting story from the other side of the world. It concerns New Zealand, or rather it concerns the two islands which make up the large part of New Zealand.
According to the Telegraph newspaper, a discovery by officials that the existing names had never been adopted in law has increased pressure from Maori nationalists for the names to be dropped.
However, some opposed to the idea criticised the suggestion as "political correctness of the worst kind".
The New Zealand Geographic Board, the statutory body charged with gazetting placenames, said it stumbled on the anomaly after a member of the public proposed changing the name of South Island to Te Wai Pounamu, the Maori alternative.
The Maori name means "place of greenstone" after the island's outcrops of jade, from which tribes traditionally crafted weapons and jewellery.
Maori know North Island as Te Ika a Maui or "the fish of Maui", based on a legend about how the god Maui hauled the island up from the sea while fishing.
"The English names North and South Island are not official," said Don Grant, the board's chairman.
"They had appeared in maps for a long time, but they were not official."
Dr Grant said the board would consult Maori tribes in the next few weeks, then put up suggestions to the wider public in 2010.
He said the Maori names might run in tandem with today's or could even replace them altogether.
Hone Harawhira, an outspoken Maori Party MP, said: "It's time to drop the North Island, South Island. Those names don't have any connotation except these people are too dumb to work it out for themselves."
According to the Telegraph newspaper, a discovery by officials that the existing names had never been adopted in law has increased pressure from Maori nationalists for the names to be dropped.
However, some opposed to the idea criticised the suggestion as "political correctness of the worst kind".
The New Zealand Geographic Board, the statutory body charged with gazetting placenames, said it stumbled on the anomaly after a member of the public proposed changing the name of South Island to Te Wai Pounamu, the Maori alternative.
The Maori name means "place of greenstone" after the island's outcrops of jade, from which tribes traditionally crafted weapons and jewellery.
Maori know North Island as Te Ika a Maui or "the fish of Maui", based on a legend about how the god Maui hauled the island up from the sea while fishing.
"The English names North and South Island are not official," said Don Grant, the board's chairman.
"They had appeared in maps for a long time, but they were not official."
Dr Grant said the board would consult Maori tribes in the next few weeks, then put up suggestions to the wider public in 2010.
He said the Maori names might run in tandem with today's or could even replace them altogether.
Hone Harawhira, an outspoken Maori Party MP, said: "It's time to drop the North Island, South Island. Those names don't have any connotation except these people are too dumb to work it out for themselves."
Friday 17 April 2009
Long arm of the Latitude
Here's an interesting tale from the mobile phone review website www.phonesreview.co.uk which is keen to point out the benefits of Google's controversial Latitude application.
A few months ago Google Maps launched Latitude, and apparently according to a report over at techcrunch, this piece of Google software has helped a San Francisco lady regain her purse which had been stolen by thieves.
Janina Valiente’s Google Maps sporting BlackBerry Bold was in her purse when it was stolen, so Janina called her sister who had permission to see her Latitude position and the info was passed to the police who were able to track down the thief.
So, just goes to show having Google’s Latitude installed on your smartphone can come in handy in more ways than you’d expect.
They might have a point. Of course the flip side is that for those of us who are not criminals, the police and everyone else can know where we are all the time as well. Like most things Google does, Latitude seems to be either loved or hated. Which side of the fence do you sit on?
A few months ago Google Maps launched Latitude, and apparently according to a report over at techcrunch, this piece of Google software has helped a San Francisco lady regain her purse which had been stolen by thieves.
Janina Valiente’s Google Maps sporting BlackBerry Bold was in her purse when it was stolen, so Janina called her sister who had permission to see her Latitude position and the info was passed to the police who were able to track down the thief.
So, just goes to show having Google’s Latitude installed on your smartphone can come in handy in more ways than you’d expect.
They might have a point. Of course the flip side is that for those of us who are not criminals, the police and everyone else can know where we are all the time as well. Like most things Google does, Latitude seems to be either loved or hated. Which side of the fence do you sit on?
Tuesday 14 April 2009
A sign of the times...
It's always nice when your town's local tourism agency recognises your importance to visitors to the area. Not nice, then, when they completely leave you off the map given to those tourists as happened to a small town in Scotland recently.
But then, another blow.
Just weeks after a town was left off a regional tourism map, its fragile sense of identity has suffered another blow. A sign welcoming visitors to Saltney has mysteriously vanished, apparently stolen to be sold off for scrap.
Saltney mayor, Cllr Klaus Armstrong-Braun, said: "This time it seems we have physically disappeared from the map."
Cllr Armstrong-Braun recently attacked tourism chiefs behind the North Wales Borderlands Wander and Wonder attractions guide map.
He branded the decision to leave Saltney off the map "lame, idiotic, diabolical and pathetic".
The brochure has been produced jointly by Flintshire, Wrexham and Denbighshire councils.
A spokesman for the publication said: "The main intention of the map is to give visitors general assistance in locating a specific attraction and is not designed as a definitive road map.
"Not every settlement is located on the map and in general we include places which have a known attraction or accommodation provision."
Well, funnily enough, all this publicity has probably put Saltney on the map more than it could have possibly imagined. Every cloud has a silver lining then.
But then, another blow.
Just weeks after a town was left off a regional tourism map, its fragile sense of identity has suffered another blow. A sign welcoming visitors to Saltney has mysteriously vanished, apparently stolen to be sold off for scrap.
Saltney mayor, Cllr Klaus Armstrong-Braun, said: "This time it seems we have physically disappeared from the map."
Cllr Armstrong-Braun recently attacked tourism chiefs behind the North Wales Borderlands Wander and Wonder attractions guide map.
He branded the decision to leave Saltney off the map "lame, idiotic, diabolical and pathetic".
The brochure has been produced jointly by Flintshire, Wrexham and Denbighshire councils.
A spokesman for the publication said: "The main intention of the map is to give visitors general assistance in locating a specific attraction and is not designed as a definitive road map.
"Not every settlement is located on the map and in general we include places which have a known attraction or accommodation provision."
Well, funnily enough, all this publicity has probably put Saltney on the map more than it could have possibly imagined. Every cloud has a silver lining then.
Tuesday 7 April 2009
Google Earth maps quake effects
Thankfully we don't suffer with them in Florida as they do in, say, San Francisco, but the people of Italy have again been at the center of another earthquake disaster in the past few days.
More than 200 people have died after a powerful earthquake hit central Italy on Monday. The quake, with a magnitude of 6.3 on the Richter scale, hit the city of L'Aquila, 60 miles from Rome. Thanks to an application using Google Maps, you can see a map of the area showing the epicentre and where several of the aftershocks have hit.Not only that, you can also see how earthquakes are taking place around the world and be amazed at just how many there are.Check out the website here
More than 200 people have died after a powerful earthquake hit central Italy on Monday. The quake, with a magnitude of 6.3 on the Richter scale, hit the city of L'Aquila, 60 miles from Rome. Thanks to an application using Google Maps, you can see a map of the area showing the epicentre and where several of the aftershocks have hit.Not only that, you can also see how earthquakes are taking place around the world and be amazed at just how many there are.Check out the website here
Friday 3 April 2009
Bucks village bucks the trend
Google Maps rules the world, right? Well, wrong. For the residents of Buckinghamshire village of Broughton, in England, they don't.
Apparently not everyone wants to feature on Google's world-changing application, Street View. Here's the story in full from the Guardian website www.guardian.co.uk For the full story click here
Maev Kennedy writes:
Any villains inspired to check Google Street View to see whether a personal visit to the Buckinghamshire village of Broughton might be profitable, have been confounded. The residents formed a human hoarding to block the camera's view of their streets, then forced its vehicle into ignominious retreat.
In the satellite images on Google maps the village looks jolly nice: back gardens the size of small parks, swimming pools, tennis courts, two cars parked outside most of the large houses, a smart pink parasol behind one house on London Road.
But a note on the Google website says, of Broughton, "no street view", a sign that usually means the area has not yet been added to the millions of photographs that now reveal aspects of towns across nine countries and three continents - in brick-by-brick detail.
In fact, once Paul Jacobs spotted the Google camera when he glanced out his window on Wednesday, the photographers did not get far. The car was an unmarked black Opel, but the 360-degree camera on the roof was a bit of a giveaway. Jacobs rushed round banging on neighbours' doors, and soon had a posse surrounding the driver. When one of the residents called the police, there was a swift U-turn. Jacobs said there had been three burglaries in the last six weeks: "If our houses are plastered all over Google, it's an invitation for more criminals to strike."
Google was inundated with complaints of privacy being invaded in the days after it launched the British street view service.
A Google spokeswomansaid householders were entitled to request their property be removed from the site, and that the site blurred faces and car number plates, so did not break privacy laws.
Apparently not everyone wants to feature on Google's world-changing application, Street View. Here's the story in full from the Guardian website www.guardian.co.uk For the full story click here
Maev Kennedy writes:
Any villains inspired to check Google Street View to see whether a personal visit to the Buckinghamshire village of Broughton might be profitable, have been confounded. The residents formed a human hoarding to block the camera's view of their streets, then forced its vehicle into ignominious retreat.
In the satellite images on Google maps the village looks jolly nice: back gardens the size of small parks, swimming pools, tennis courts, two cars parked outside most of the large houses, a smart pink parasol behind one house on London Road.
But a note on the Google website says, of Broughton, "no street view", a sign that usually means the area has not yet been added to the millions of photographs that now reveal aspects of towns across nine countries and three continents - in brick-by-brick detail.
In fact, once Paul Jacobs spotted the Google camera when he glanced out his window on Wednesday, the photographers did not get far. The car was an unmarked black Opel, but the 360-degree camera on the roof was a bit of a giveaway. Jacobs rushed round banging on neighbours' doors, and soon had a posse surrounding the driver. When one of the residents called the police, there was a swift U-turn. Jacobs said there had been three burglaries in the last six weeks: "If our houses are plastered all over Google, it's an invitation for more criminals to strike."
Google was inundated with complaints of privacy being invaded in the days after it launched the British street view service.
A Google spokeswomansaid householders were entitled to request their property be removed from the site, and that the site blurred faces and car number plates, so did not break privacy laws.
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