WebProNews » Roads http://www.webpronews.com Breaking News in Tech, Search, Social, & Business Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:06:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Google Earth Update Hits Odds And Ends http://www.webpronews.com/google-earth-update-hits-odds-and-ends-2007-12 http://www.webpronews.com/google-earth-update-hits-odds-and-ends-2007-12#comments Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:31:39 +0000 Doug Caverly http://www.webpronews.com/?p=42481 Updates to Google Earth are always fascinating, but sometimes, that’s all they are; there aren’t any obvious practical benefits.  The latest update should be pretty useful, though, as Google has added roads and business listings in a number of countries, and also updated its Transit symbols.

]]> Updates to Google Earth are always fascinating, but sometimes, that’s all they are; there aren’t any obvious practical benefits.  The latest update should be pretty useful, though, as Google has added roads and business listings in a number of countries, and also updated its Transit symbols.

The business listings came in a couple of European clusters – Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden in the north, and Austria and Switzerland in a more central area.  These presumably represent an organized and significant step on the path to Google’s “total information” plan.

Roads, on the other hand, appeared on rather random and distant ends of the earth – Poland and South Africa are about 6,000 miles apart and on opposite sides of the equator.  It seems that Google might have tackled a big job with the business listings, and a rather easier one in this case.

The Google Transit update should amount to yet another far-reaching revision, however.  “Our Transit layer has also been enhanced with new colors and icons,” announced Wei Luo on the Google LatLong Blog.  Google Transit is available for parts of Japan, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, the UK, and the US.

Finally, Luo’s post was called “December Updates in Google Earth,” so while we can’t rule it out, it might be best not to expect anything else prior to January.

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]]> http://www.webpronews.com/google-earth-update-hits-odds-and-ends-2007-12/feed 0 Google Transit Spreads To New Cities http://www.webpronews.com/google-transit-spreads-to-new-cities-2007-09 http://www.webpronews.com/google-transit-spreads-to-new-cities-2007-09#comments Wed, 19 Sep 2007 14:32:35 +0000 Doug Caverly http://www.webpronews.com/?p=40511 It’s fun to “ooh” and “aah” over Google’s most interesting products and services, but it’s also frustrating to note their limited availability.  Street View, for example, doesn’t picture a road within 600 miles of my home.  But Google Transit has just added coverage in a handful of areas.

]]> It’s fun to “ooh” and “aah” over Google’s most interesting products and services, but it’s also frustrating to note their limited availability.  Street View, for example, doesn’t picture a road within 600 miles of my home.  But Google Transit has just added coverage in a handful of areas.

Dallas, Las Vegas, California’s Humboldt County and Thousand Oaks, and the San Francisco Bay Area have been included in the update.  They’re all quite some distance from Lexington, Kentucky (the home of WebProNews), but, well, whatever.  People in those locations should be pleased, anyway.

Chris Harrelson, a Google Transit software engineer, is also happy.  “As you may know, Google Transit began its life as a 20 percent project,” he wrote on the Google LatLong Blog.  “Now, the fine folks at BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit] have furthered their collaboration with us in BART 1 percent time which is like 20 percent time, only, as our friends at BART explain, ‘it’s one person and 19 percent less time.’”

And if you’re interested in seeing the results of this effort, Harrelson continued, “This data is available for anyone who wants to access it in the Google Transit Feed Specification, a creative commons-licensed data format we’ve developed to help facilitate sharing of data within the transit community.”

That technology (and the fact that the project doesn’t depend on a fleet of camera cars) should help Google Transit continue to spread.

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