A slew of cool innovations have been unleashed when Google opened its Google Maps API to the public.
Some useful hacks of the Google Maps here:
- Housing Maps (posted previously)
- Iraq War Casualties Map
- Google Weather Map
- Chicago Crime Map (kinda scary)
- Google Maps plugin for Mac OSX
- Camp Ground Finder map (only covers Oregon for now)
- Nevada/E. California Earthquakes
- Florida Sexual Predators (convicted and released)
- Star Wars Invades Palo Alto (kinda funny)
- gWifi
- Gmaps Pedometer
- Greasemap
- NYC Subway Map
- NYC Subway Stations
- Bookmarkable Google Maps
- People in the Neighborhood
- Cheap Gas finder
- Earthquake Map
- Cell Phone Reception and Tower Search
On a related note, Yahoo Maps apparently also launched its Maps API. Amazon.com‘s very own search engine, A9, also launched its A9 Maps Beta. A9 Maps has a few new tricks not available in Google Maps or Yahoo Maps, which is not a big surprise since A9’s search page also sports a few innovations not available in its rivals’ sites. Too bad some of the features are not available to Mac users (or that they simply crash Safari!).
The race to dominate the online mapping service is on. I wonder where Microsoft is in all this mess…
Another cool app that Google launched was Google Earth. It’s a standalone application that displays almost any location in 3D. But it’s only available on Windows. 🙁 It’s based on an application developed by Keyhole (Google cache), which was bought out by Google not too long ago.
Here’s a guide to Google Maps Hacking for reference. Another link here.
UPDATE: Someone’s obsession over Google Earth: Google Sightseeing.