A New Way to Follow the Google Maps API Google+ page

To the Google Maps Developer Relations team, the most exciting feature of Google+ is the opportunities it gives us to connect with Google Maps API developers from around the world. That’s why today we’re very excited to announce the launch of the Google Maps API Google+ page.

The Google Maps API Page will be used to give helpful tips about using our APIs, announce our office-hours hangouts, and point you to new cool maps that we find. We’ll also use the page to tell you about upcoming events, highlight announcements, link to helpful articles, and a lot more. It’ll also give us a stronger means to connect with our valued developer community. For instance, today we announced the next Google Maps API Office Hours, in which you can connect to the Maps Developer Relations team through Google Plus Hangouts.

Over the past couple of months, the Maps DevRel team has been connecting with Google Maps API developers through our personal accounts. We’ve now created a new circle that you can follow that has all of us in it.

For years, this blog has been the primary way for developers to keep up to date about the goings-on in the Google Maps API world and that isn’t going to change. We see the new Google+ page as adding a new way for you to connect with the Google Maps API team.

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Google Earth New Imagery – March

It’s been a little while since the last update, but it appears that Google Earth has pushed out some fresh imagery! Thanks to GEB reader ‘Andreas’ for letting us know about it.

zion.jpg

Due to the new imagery, it’s more difficult to spot fresh imagery. Also, in the time since we first spotted this new imagery it’s also arrived in Google Maps, which makes it even more difficult to determine what is new and what is old. Despite that, we’ve found quite a few areas that have been updated and here is the list so far:

 

  • Italy: Catania — thanks ‘Munden’
  • Malta: Valetta — thanks ‘Munden’
  • New Zealand: Otorohanga — thanks ‘Munden’
  • Poland: Gdansk, Gdynia, Hel, Poznan, Warsaw — thanks ‘Munden’
  • Serbia: Belgrade — thanks ‘Munden’
  • Russia: Arkhangelsk, Monino, Murmansk — thanks ‘Munden’
  • Slovenia: Ljubljana — thanks ‘Munden’
  • Ukraine: Kurpaty — thanks ‘Munden’
  • United States: California (Beales AFB, Linda, Palmdale, Rosamond, Yuba City), Florida (Apalachicola, Daytona Beach, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Kissimmee, Panama City, Pensacola), Georgia (Valdosta), Illinois (Findlay, Galesburg, Neoga, Taylorville), Louisiana (New Orleans), Mississippi (Jacksonville), South Carolina (Charleston, Hartsville, Lancaster), Texas (Beaumont, Corpus Christi, Freeport, Galveston, Texas City), Utah (Halchita, Mexican Hat, Zion National Park) — thanks ‘Andreas’ and ‘Munden’
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Nokia is going to leverage Microsoft’s tools

Now I’m not Nokia user, in fact I think I’m pretty sure I’ve never owned a Nokia phone. But since Nokia owns Navteq, I pay attention to them. When I saw this announcement on Nokia’s website about Ovi Share being discontinued, I figured I’d look closer. Since I don’t user Ovi Share, the graphic that Nokia had on their blog post caught my eye.

Ovi Share

It appears Ovi Share uses Google Maps to display the picture locations. How crazy is that? Nokia doesn’t use Ovi Maps/Nokia Maps on their own products. Of course maybe it is because their users prefer Google.

I’m guessing with the Microsoft Phone integration, Nokia is going to leverage Microsoft’s tools (and probably Bing Maps) to share your “experiences” with others. Can we add Nokia to yet another company leaving Google Maps?

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The New Google Earth Imagery – February

Google has just pushed out a fresh batch of new imagery to a variety of places around the world.

dubai.jpg

Due to the new “Pretty Earth” imagery, it’s more difficult to spot fresh imagery. Also, the imagery this month arrived in Google Maps before Google Earth, which threw us off a bit. In any case, here are some of the locations that GEB readers have identified as having fresh imagery. Many of them were made aware of the new imagery via the Follow Your World notifications, which we certainly encourage you to sign up for.

Here is the list of updated areas we know about so far:

  • Canada: Villeneuve
  • Italy: Vernazza
  • Romania: Deva
  • Spain: Villacariedo
  • United Arab Emirates: Dubai
  • United States: California (Chino, Eureka), Illinois (Decatur), Louisiana (Alexandria), North Dakota (Minot), Tennessee (Johnson City, Kingsport)
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Google Maps – The Game

In about a month, Google is going to release a game on Google+ based on Google Maps and built using WebGL (Sorry IE users).

…there’s a video preview of a new Google Maps for Google+ app – shown below – which uses WebGL and apparently user-location to collect points as you travel around floorplan maps. Full details haven’t been shared, but the game will apparently arrive in February.

Now the video doesn’t show much about the details for the game but navigating a 3d mapping world (using the Google Maps API) in a WebGL application in a browser is pretty awesome.  Plus going inside and outside the buildng?  Sign me up!

Looks like fun to me, but we’ll have to wait a month.

It is a shame about WebGL support not being exactly cross-platform, but with a little work you can get it enabled on any browser.  Cools stuff is on the horizon with 3D web mapping applications.

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