Couple sues Google because their home is on Google Maps Street View

A couple in Pennsylvania has decided to try to cash in on Google's wealth and sue the California-based company for putting images of the couples house online at Google Maps Street View. Since the images were taken from a public road I'm not sure they even have a case but it will be interesting to see how it develops.

A Pittsburgh couple has sued Google because photos of their house are now on Google Maps Street View. They allege that ever since the photos have appeared on Street View, the value of their property has plummeted. Property records indicate that the domicile was purchased for a cool $163,000, which, I’m pretty sure, wouldn’t buy a garbage can in any livable city in this country.

They want some $25,000 in damages from The Google. (source)

Google Maps adds street view for 13 cities + 1 national park

Google Maps has added 13 cities and 1 National Park to the already crowded layer of Street Views.  Yosemite National Park in California gets the nod as the first 'non-city' element to be added to Street View.  Nearby Nashville, Tennessee, was added but as you all know I'm still waiting on my Knoxville addition since I've seen them here twice in the last 3 months.  

I'm hoping with the addition of National Parks to the mix we'll see the nearby Smoky Mountains added since it's the most visited park.

Google Maps Street View new cities:

• Albuquerque, NM
• Anchorage, AK
• Austin, TX
• Cleveland, OH
• Fairbanks, AK
• Little Rock, AR
• Madison, WI
• Nashville, TN
• Rockford, IL
• Richmond, VA
• Spokane, WA
• St. Petersburg, FL
• Tampa, FL
• and Yosemite National Park

Google Maps

Google Maps

A Modern “Where’s Waldo” on a Google Maps

Were you one of those kids that could sit in a corner with a giant “Where’s Waldo” book and pour over it for hours? Eventually you realized that Waldo was likely to appear in different areas on each page, and was always smiling (usually walking), and always wore that goofy outfit. And eventually the Waldo creators attempted to make the act of finding Waldo increasingly difficult by surrounding him with similarly clad geeks, and other tactics.

Nevertheless, the novelty wore off, and our kids are left with increasingly difficult video games that require years of logic and acts of deduction in order to achieve a winning status. But if you don’t mind still staring at a digital screen instead of paper, there’s a new geography game that’s a bit reminiscent of the Waldo books of yore. The new game is called placeSpotting, and it’s a Google Maps mashup.

Google Street View Maps Update

The Google Street View Maps has updated with new cities this last month. I saw a few cities pop up in the middle of the month including Milwaukee, Wisconsin, while I did my weekly look for the Knoxville, Tennessee, layer of Google Street View Maps.

The Google Street View layer is starting to get crowded as they seem to add a handful each month. I found by mistake (after zooming out) that somewhere along the line they added Juneau, Alaska. Time to start looking for some moose.

Google Map Builder: Good, but good enough?

Being able to show people where things are on a map has become increasingly important as online mapping has improved. With the rise of services such as Google Maps and Microsoft Live Search Maps it has become relatively simple to send someone a map of a location and even directions on how to get there, which has increased the perceived value and has thereby increased the value of mapping and so on.

But setting up maps particularly complex ones for business use is still somewhat daunting. A new service has appeared that aims to simplify this task: Google Map Builder.

Mother Stunned To Find Daughter On Google

A Garden City mom was surprised and outraged to find pictures of her children on a Google Map Search Internet page.

"I have rules when my daughters are on the Internet," said Toni Rizkallah of Garden City. "They don't give their address, their names, no personal information."

Rizkallah said she and her daughters discovered the pictures when the children decided to "Google their address." To the girls' surprise, and Rizkallah's dismay, the search turned up a virtual tour of their neighborhood, which includes a picture of the girls, in bathing suits, in their backyard swimming pool. (source)

Google Maps Terrain Layer

I was playing around with the post below about the black bar in Alaska when I noticed that Google Maps has added their terrain layer. This terrain layer is highly detailed and a rather pleasant addition to the already superior Google Maps. If you zoom out far enough on Yahoo! Maps you'll see a small attempt by them to incorporate a terrain layer. However, once you zoom in it shifts out of that style.

I Wonder What's Hiding Here...

Google Maps has an odd black bar on the Alaska/Canada border that has caught my attention. Is it just not mapped? Censured? Electricians tape?

Google Maps Street View Expands Again

Fabulous Detroit!

Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, Fort Worth, Boston, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Providence have their cities added to the Google Maps Street View. It's only a matter of time before Knoxville, TN, gets added as I found out I wasn't the only one that saw the mapper here. (see:Google Maps Street View Hits Knoxville, Pictures of Chevy Cobalt) All I can say is that they could've left Detroit to the last of the updates. That's one of the ugliest cities in North America.

• Google Maps Street View >

Google Maps Street View Hits Knoxville, Pictures of Chevy Cobalt

Before the Thanksgiving weekend I was running around Knoxville, TN, doing some shopping when I ran into the familiar Google Chevy Cobalt. The Cobalt fleet was commissioned by Google to run around the country and map out parts of the U.S. for the popular Google Maps Street View.

The Google Maps Street View car looks like it was fixed up by one of our Shadetree mechanics here in the South. A wooden mount sits in the passenger seat that hold the monitor for the driver. The cameras are mounted on a metal rig on the roof held down by straps. The wires run through the window and into the back seat of the car, which is folded down, and then into the trunk where the data is stored.

The straps on top hold the camera rig down. You can make out the monitor in the passenger seat. The straps hold down the rigging with the GPS unit mounted on the rear of the structure. The cables from the roof run into the back seat which is folded down and into the trunk. The rear GPS system on the "high-tech" mounting rig. Another view of the cables running into the trunk. The Dell Monitor strapped to a cut fence post. Seriously, it's strapped to a 4x4 chunk of wood. The Google Maps Street View Chevy Cobalt from rear.

Google Earth Heading Towards Extinction?

Google has announced two new features for Google Maps that mimic features in Google Earth, begging the question: is Google Earth on borrowed time?

The first new feature is the additional of terrain in Google Maps. The terrain fly over feature has long been available in Google Earth, but now you can fly over a map and see the contours of the land, all without the need to download Google Earth.

The second new feature mimics the community contribution feature of Google Earth. "Our Maps" brings wiki-style collaboration to Google Maps, with users able to annotate places and share those notes with friends or the greater public.

• Google Earth Heading Towards Extinction? >

Geography Awareness Week (Nov. 11th-17th)

My Wonderful World, a National Geographic-led campaign for geographic literacy, and Google are working together to provide an interactive educational experience about our world. We are proud to celebrate Geography Awareness Week (Nov. 11th-17th), an initiative by National Geographic that promotes the importance of geography.

Each year, Geography Awareness Week has a different focus area. For 2007, the theme is "Asia: Continent of Contrasts." So whether you're a teacher, student, or armchair geographer, it's a great way to polish up your skills and learn all about Asia's fascinating cultures, natural wonders, animals and more.

• Geography Awareness Week >

San Francisco Oil Spill Maps

San Francisco Bay Oil Spill November 7, 2007. The Chinese-flagged Cosco Busan strikes the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, gashing the 65,000-ton ship's hull and spilling a estimated 58,000 gallons of fuel oil into the Bay.

• San Francisco Bay Oil Spill November 7, 2007 >

Aftermath of the oil spill. See the areas affected by the 58,000 gallons of fuel that spilled into the bay after a container ship rammed the Bay Bridge.

• Aftermath of the oil spill >

Google Maps Street View Adds 9 More Cities

Google Maps Street View roll call has added a few more cities.

1. Portland, Oregon
2. Tucson, Arizona
3. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
4. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
5. Chicago, Illinois

Google Maps Street View is a great way to kill time in your favorite cities. However, the quality of the images in most of the cities has been less than stellar. There's a great difference in quality when you view the higher resolution of San Francisco compared to Denver.

Luckily, the images in Phoenix, Tucson and parts of Chicago are all in high resolution. Check out the Sears Tower on Google Maps to get an example of the higher quality and the added bonus of being able to pan upwards to view the entire building.

View Google Maps Street View>

More Street View cities to explore>

GIS Sites News

Space Shuttle Endeavour

How the world really shapes up

We all know what the world looks like. But a new series of extraordinary maps shows our planet in a very different light. Rather than defining each country by size, these computer-generated modified maps - or cartograms - redraw the globe with each country's size proportionate to its strengths, or weaknesses, in a whole series of categories. For instance, when it comes to military spending, the U.S. appears bloated, but Africa is huge when HIV prevalence is mapped. The cartograms were produced in a unique collaboration between the universities of Michigan in the U.S. and Sheffield. Here are images and more details on some of the most fascinating... [more]

Earth From Space - Amazing Photos

A nice gallery of pictures of our Earth as seen from above. It is a rather large gallery of various NASA picts and satellite imagery. [more]

World Drinking Map

A quick graphic that shows the drinking age from around the world. A few lucky countries clock in below our age of 21 but I really enjoy how the mapper labels the areas with no information. [more]

One of the worlds most puzzling mysteries: the moving rocks of Death Valley

Deep in the heart of the California desert lies one of the natural world's most puzzling mysteries: the moving rocks of Death Valley. These are not ordinary moving rocks that tumble down mountainsides in avalanches, are carried along riverbeds by flowing water, or are tossed aside by animals. These rocks, some as heavy as 700 pounds, are inexplicably transported across a virtually flat desert plain, leaving erratic trails in the hard mud behind them, some hundreds of yards long. They move by some mysterious force, and in the nine decades since we have known about them, no one has ever seen them move. [more]

China to map ‘every inch’ of moon surface

BEIJING - China aims to chart every inch of the moon’s surface, the chief scientist of the country’s first lunar exploration program said in comments published on Friday. China, which plans to launch a lunar orbiter called ”Chang’e One” in the second half of 2007 to take 3D images, would aim to land an unmanned vehicle on its surface by 2010, official news portal Chinanews.com quoted Ouyang Ziyuan as saying. “Currently, our country’s lunar exploration program is divided into three phases—orbiting the moon, landing on the moon and returning back to Earth,” Ouyang said. [more]

Google Maps Street View Adds Houston, Orlando, Los Angeles, and San Diego

Google Maps Street View added Houston (including the Astrodome, left), Orlando, Los Angeles, and San Diego to its ever popular Street View layer. To my knowledge this just came up in the last day or two. With its fleets of Chevy Cobalts equipped with camera mounts, Google set out to tackle more big cities for the Street View layer of its Google Maps.

I figured they would either announce new layers with fanfare or wait till the end and do them all at once. Google took us a little by surprise by sneaking the new layers in but I'm not complaining. Hopefully, these new layers will be as much fun as the original layer in finding people doing odd things.

Get caught up on the Google Maps Street View:

• Fleet of Google Mappers Seen
• Google Maps Already Censored ?
• More Google Maps Streetview?

Fleet of Google Mappers Seen

Earlier I noted that Google had assembled a large team of Chevy Cobalts decked out with camera equipment capable of adding new data to the popular Street View layer on Google Maps (more here).

One guy followed some clues a few weeks back to find around 30 new Chevy Cobalts in the Google parking lot getting ready for their new camera gear. It seems vans were originally used for most of the first layers of Street View but to tackle more cities Google went out a bought a bunch of cheap cars.

Seems there's going to be a rather hefty addition of new cities to the Street Views as people are spotting the camera equipped vehicles and sending in their own photos. So far, some of the cities that have noted the vehicles are Boise, Idaho; Chicago; Whitemarsh, Maryland; Southern California; Evanston, Illinois; and Redwood City, California. [ ...more ]

More Google Maps Streetview?

Google is ready to attack the Streets again with what looks like a fleet of brand new Chevy Cobalts awaiting their special 360° cameras to mounted on their roofs.

If this is any indication of what awaits viewers of the Streetview layer on Google Maps, we can definately expect a ton of worktime to be missed everyone will be looking through the maps to find that one person doing something embarassing! [ ...more ]

Google Maps: Invading Your Privacy? (Not Anymore!)

The famous picture from Google Maps Street View layer of the woman wearing a thong is now off of the Google system. Someone tattled and had the Google take down the image for being "inappropriate." [ ...more ]