A week or so ago, Google announced that it would be partnering with traintimes.org.uk in order to provide live real-time maps of London’s Tube (that’s their public railway system for you non-British). By visiting the above site, you can get a glimpse of where each train is and, by mousing over each of the pins on the map, see an estimate of the train’s arrival time.

Additionally, if you visit the actual Google Maps UK site and enter your directions, by choosing the option for directions via public transportation you’ll see pins on the map of each Tube station that also includes arrival and departure times for different train lines.

Finally, Google has paired up with the London and Wales government in order to apply crime statistics to Maps so that residents and travelers alike can see the types and density of crimes that have been committed in certain postcodes. Users can distinguish between what kind of crime stats they want to see (I guess so that people can assess their risk of becoming arson victims or burglary or the ominous “anti-social behaviour”).

Given that it’s just now January, I expect that Google will continue to enhance their Maps data for London as the Olympics approaches, such as interior floor maps of stadiums and well-populated hotels.

Yandex is using maps from NAVTEQ from around the world, including in Europe, North America, Australia and developed countries in Asia. The maps include roadways, traffic networks and buildings.

Maria Orlova, head of production and quality control on the Yandex.Maps service, says, “Our users have already appreciated high-quality detailed maps of Russia and Ukraine with the search function and other useful features such as routing, traffic information, satellite images and panoramic views. We continue to enhance our map services for Belarus and Kazakhstan.”

Yandex has actually already been using NAVTEQ maps for Turkey at yandex.com.tr. The company also partners with other map providers to license content for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. In 2010, the company purchased GIS Technologies for city maps.

“NAVTEQ’s content will help us make Yandex.Maps a comprehensive, all-purpose mapping service that can answer users’ questions about countries throughout the world,” she adds.

Yandex says it will gradually add content to both its desktop version and mobile app to support all major platforms.

There’s an API available for sites to utilize, and embed maps.

Now, when you visit a business’ Foursquare page, you will see all of the locations that are nearby your own location. For instance, say you’re in Lexington and don’t know where you can find a Starbucks to get your caffeine fix – just head on over to Starbuck’s Foursquare page and you’ll be presented with a map of all known locations:

The “nearby map” is on hundreds of business pages and Foursquare says that many more are on the way. Currently, you can check out all of the MoMA locations while visiting New York, or find the nearest 24HourFitness to get your workout on in any city you might find yourself.

If you are a business and want your locations to be listed like this on your Foursquare page, you can follow these steps.

Earlier this month, Foursquare brought their “explore” engine to the web, meaning that it’s no longer a mobile-exclusive feature. Foursquare Explore is powered by check-ins and tips to give users personalized recommendations about their surroundings.

From the official Google Blog:

The Google Earth globe is made from a mosaic of satellite and aerial photographs taken on different dates and under different lighting and weather conditions. Because of this variance, views of the Earth from high altitude can sometimes appear patchy.

Also, there is now a feature that allows you to share an image from within Google Earth.

Evan Parker, a software engineer working on Google Maps, made the announcement today. Screenshots were posted on the official Google Blog, including some side-by-side before-and-after shots of the old Google Earth vs the new.

Join me now in celebrating views from outer space courtesy of the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards.

Call of Duty Elite, of course, is the gaming network built around Modern Warfare 3′s release. It allows players to access detailed statistics, as well as various social options involving clans, matchmaking, and video sharing. Call of Duty Elite Premium is the $49.99 package that provides players with bonus features – early access to DLC obviously being one of them.

Today’s DLC kickoff contains two news maps, Piazza and Liberation. Here’s a description of the maps from Major Nelson:

Elite Drop 1: Piazza Map

This seaside Italian getaway is anything but idyllic, as tight corners and branching pathways pose great risk at every turn. Close-range combat dominates, and the team that best utilizes flanking routes will most often come out on top. Attacks from behind, above and below are an ever-constant threat. Keep up your awareness and don’t get taken by surprise.

Elite Drop 2: Liberation Map

A militarized Central Park stretches across a vast landscape, ripe for long-range sniper and LMG fire. Mounted turrets on either end lend power to anyone brave enough to expose themselves in exchange for deadly firepower. Plan out your movement and always be aware of nearby sightlines to avoid becoming fodder for the enemy.

Call of Duty Elite Premium members won’t need to shell out any extra cash for these two new maps, as they are included as part of the premium subscription.

Check the lead video for a walkthrough of how to access the new DLC and check out the videos below for some gameplay from the new maps, courtesy user Matroix.

Google’s remedied that problem (to an extent) with the addition of 45° views to 24 cities (14 in the United States, 7 throughout the rest of the world) that give you a much more recognizable view of the cityscapes. With this new 45° imagery, Maps users can now see the architecture of buildings with much more stunning detail. For instance, let’s compare the 45° and 90° views of Ulm Minster, a Gothic cathedral in Ulm, Germany. Here it is seen at 90°:

And here it is in greater splendor (at the same magnification) at 45°:

The difference in quality is jarring. Like, how did any of us make any functional use of Google Maps in that 90° rendering? The beauty and depth of that cathedral is breath-taking in the 45° angle, whereas that 90° angle looks like the remains of some boot-squashed techno-beetle.

You can still toggle between 45° and 90° via the menu in the upper-right corner (but after demonstrating the dramatic difference above, why would you want to?). Google seems to know that you will want to primarily use the 45° view because if a city is included in the update, the satellite view will automatically switch to the 45° view once you’ve zoomed in far enough. Also, before you get ahead of yourself, you won’t be able to orbit around objects – you only get one 45° view of cities.

Satellite view on Maps, have to zoom in so far before it automatically toggles to 90 degree to 45 degree view. You can adjust this in the options menu that hangs in the upper-right corner of the map.

For instance, this is you flying over Baiona, Spain:

View Larger Map

This is you flying over Ulm, Germany:

View Larger Map

Here’s Memphis, TN – try to find Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel:

View Larger Map

If this is the direction that Google Maps is going with their their near-earth satellite views, then I can’t until they’re able to expand the imagery to cover the rest of the planet.

Key takeaway: If you really love trees, just stay away from the middle of the United States.

Although most of you probably already knew that little tidbit, I bet you’ve never seen a map of the U.S. based on “woody biomass” before.

This tree density map, released by NASA, is a product of a collaboration between Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker of the Woods Hole Research Center, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. As a lover of woodlands, I must say, it’s nice to live near the Appalachians. Check it out below:

The visualization above was created with data from the National Biomass and Carbon Dataset. What you’re really seeing is concentrations of organic carbon, which is stored in the trees. More carbon concentration = more trees.

Here’s how NASA describes the effort:

Over six years, researchers assembled the national forest map from space-based radar, satellite sensors, computer models, and a massive amount of ground-based data. It is possibly the highest resolution and most detailed view of forest structure and carbon storage ever assembled for any country.

Forests in the U.S. were mapped down to a scale of 30 meters, or roughly 10 computer display pixels for every hectare of land (4 pixels per acre). They divided the country into 66 mapping zones and ended up mapping 265 million segments of the American land surface. Kellndorfer estimates that their mapping database includes measurements of about five million trees.

Bonus Takeaway: the tree density map really looks like a population density map of the U.S. Go figure.

But that’s neither here nor there. For now, at least.

For now, Google is still doing some pretty awesome stuff with their Maps technology in order to improve the quality of life for many, many people. Their Flu Trends is helping hospitals stay better prepared for influenza outbreaks and today Google announced that they are partnering with World Bank to collaborate on ways to make Google Maps an effective tool for developing countries to prepare for disasters. The announcement from Google’s Lat Long blog offers up the goods:

Under this agreement, the World Bank will act as a conduit to make Google Map Maker source data more widely and easily available to government organizations in the event of major disasters, and also for improved planning, management, and monitoring of public services provision.

The free, web-based mapping tool called Google Map Maker enables citizens to directly participate in the creation of maps by contributing their local knowledge. Once approved, those additions are then reflected on Google Maps and Google Earth for others around the world to see.

The Google Map Maker data includes detailed maps of more than 150 countries and regions, and identifies locations like schools, hospitals, roads, settlements and water points that are critical for relief workers to know about in times of crisis. The data will also be useful for planning purposes, as governments and their development partners can use the information to monitor public services, infrastructure and development projects; make them more transparent for NGOs, researchers, and individual citizens; and more effectively identify areas that might be in need of assistance before a disaster strikes.

The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery will helm the project, Google says, and will build upon prior mapping efforts to “create comprehensive maps of schools, hospitals, and other social infrastructure” in new, developing countries via Map Maker technology.

The control was built on top of the beta version, meaning that all of the features of Bing Maps will remain, such as various map styles to toggle through, pan and zoom keyboard controls, and Microsoft Surface (the touch-enabled facet with support for Surface v 2′s Pixel Sense technology). Honestly, I will admit, I do really prefer the look of the terrain on Bing Maps than Google Maps. Bing’s version reminds me more of the classic map I’d expect to see clutched in the hands of Indiana Jones as he escapes from a burning library.

Bing’s Plate:

Google’s Plate:

Just look at the difference. I feel like Microsoft just ate Google’s lunch money with this Bing Maps launch. Google might be more focused on, and therefore still better at, maps that are fun (and fun again), but if you have any appreciation for aesthetic quality then Bing Maps is the one posted up in the pro zone (i.e., winning).

Today’s blog post from Chris Pendleton, the Lead Program Manager for Bing Maps, continues:

Per community feedback on the Bing Maps MSDN Forums we added the following features (and fixed a few bugs):

Support for tile layers – you can now overlay your own tile layers atop the map control.

Turning off the base tile layer – this is useful for when you don’t need/want to use our base map tiles and instead would prefer to use your own without overlaying them atop of ours. The control won’t request the tiles which reduces downloads and improves rendering performance.

SSL Support – since many of you are using the WPF control in secure applications, you can now make tile and service request over SSL without issue.

Hiding the scale bar – if you don’t want a scale bar (perhaps your map is small and the scale bar clutters the map) you can turn it off. In fact, the only elements you can’t turn off are the Bing logo and the copyrights.

New copyright service – provides accurate copyright for our data vendors.

Additional inertia – inertia is now enabled for the mouse and is on by default for touch.

Miscellaneous bug fixes – thanks for the feedback on the MSDN Forums, the Bing Maps Blog, e-mail and Twitter. Good finds people.

Pendleton seems aware of the fact that he’s got a winner on hand, too:

I have to give it up for my (small) crack team of people involved in the making of the WPF Control. This was one of those 10% projects that we all really had a passion to get done because it was the right thing to do for the Microsoft Developer Community. So, we found the time, slipped the release a month (for quality) and, as the guys over in Surface said, “just got it done.” Our internal motto kept stoking the fire to push this bad boy out the door…”WPF, FTW!”

Looks like passion and dedication came up roses for Pendleton and Microsoft this time. Nicely done.

In a blog post this morning, Google announced that they’re including indoor maps of several Las Vegas hotels in order to help tourists in town for CES find their way through Sin City’s enormous hotels (although I’m sure you don’t have to be in town specifically for CES in order to benefit from these maps):

Today, we’ve expanded the list of places with indoor maps by partnering with MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment and others, to provide indoor maps for Caesars Palace, Bellagio, The Venetian, The Palazzo, MGM Grand and many more.

We hope that these indoor maps will come in handy when finding your way through the slots and to the shops. And for those of you who catch gadget-fever with CES in town, we’ve also partnered with a number of Best Buy stores in the Las Vegas area.

(Click here for a larger view of the image.)

Check out the maps in action in the video that Google provided to accompany the blog post:

So that’s that. Other than deploying Google babysitter drones that will cradle you in their huge metallic nanny arms and literally carry you from place to place, you really have no excuse to get lost this week while you’re in Vegas. Not now, not ever again. One question remains unanswered in Google’s blog post, though: since they’re trying to make the cultural experience of Las Vegas as agreeable and navigable as possible for tourists this week, when do we get to see an indoor map of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch up by Carson City. C’mon, Google – if there’s one place a person doesn’t wanna get lost in, it might be there.

Well. Maybe.