Flight Tracker Maps
Flight tracker maps are a fascinating mashup of near real time online mapping of commercial flights.
The flight tracker maps on the Flight Stats web site are delayed five minutes for security reasons. Simply enter a flight number and departure date to view the status of the flight on a Google map. If you just want to experiment with the flight tracking software there is a “Track Random Flight” button.
Random Flight Tracker Maps
Clicking track random flight button brings up a Google Map with an airplane icon indicating the position of the flight. The tracked flight path is traced between the flight departure location and its current position.
In addition to the flight tracker maps the Flight Stats website also displays the Latitude and Longitude, altitude, speed, bearing, distance from departure and distance from arrival. The flight tracker maps page also has information on scheduled and actual flight arrivals.
The flight tracker maps area also has a side panel that toggles between a map showing current airport delays, local weather and much more information.
The flight tracker maps mashup using Google maps on Flight Stats mashup is so fun to use I find myself tracking flights just out of curiosity.
Toronto Real Estate Maps by Realosophy
Real Estate Maps Plus
Real Estate maps are not new news but a company called Realosophy strives to map homes for sale with all the information you need about communities and not just about the house.
Realosophy is a Toronto based company that bills itself as the fresh thinker in real estate and in real estate mapping. Its housing maps come loaded with data including neighborhood profiles, school performance, and a real estate homebuyers guide available online. Everything from nearby entertainment to food, fitness, education and health are mapped with clickable icons that give you more information.
Housing Maps with Community
The Realosophy real estate maps mashup website contains handy charts and graphs with housing stats including price, housing type, number of bedrooms per home, and more. This multiple data approach to mapping real estate parameters means you can compare neighborhoods and housing down to minute detail.
Checking neighborhoods using the real estate maps gives you a sense of what each community is about. Does it seem to be family oriented? Professional? Retirees? Try getting that information from ordinary real estate maps on most realtor websites.
Explore Using Real Estate Maps
Even if you are not on the market for real estate, the Realosophy maps make for very interesting exploring. Try clicking around a neighborhood to discover amenities you may have never noticed. Keep tabs on your neighbors and find out the value of the home they have on the real estate market.
This is possibly the best Housing Maps mashup I have seen using the Google Maps web mapping service. Before you buy a home in Toronto be sure to check out the Toronto real estate maps mashup by Realosophy.
California School Finder Maps
The California School Finder mapping application gives you information on California schools and the ability to compare performance curriculum. School Finder uses MicroSoft Virtual Earth as its web mapping service. Data comes from the California Dept of Education.
To use the School Finder mapping application you can search by school type, city, zip code, region and radius. Virtual Earth maps the area of interest showing color coded pushpins representing the types of school. Simply click a pushpin to view a detailed virtual earth aerial image of the neighborhood with a plethora of information for that school.
A comments section to the California School Finder maps seems to be missing. If implemented the map would be of even greater service. Perhaps the comments themselves could even be mapped by neighborhood to get a more personalized view from those who live nearby each school.
Another excellent use of Virtual Earth, California School finder plots decision making information onto an easy to use online web mapping service of great use to the community.
Google Transit Labs Integrated with Google Maps
Google Transit Labs has public transit maps for over twenty cities in the US, plus all regional and national rail networks, domestic airlines and ferries in Japan. These Google Transit Maps are now integrated with Google Maps. If your city is currently covered, you will see a “Take Public Transit” option on the top panel that will get you started.
Google Transit Maps with Options
Google public transit maps give you detailed directions on how to use public transit systems in a number of cities. You receive suggested methods of getting from point A to point B with arrival and departure times. But that is not all. There is an options tab that gives you the ability to choose your own departure and arrival times or get reverse map directions.
The Google transit maps interface also has links to local agencies for last-minute news, service changes or interruptions to the transit route you have chosen.
An interesting feature of the Google transit maps is the cost comparison between driving and taking public transit. This is often quite significant. In addition, taking public transit is usually easier than fighting traffic and seeking out places to park your vehicle.
You can also map public transit trips with your own itineraries. As additional cities are added to Google transit maps I see this as becoming one of the major web map services Google has so far put online.
Socially Responsible Mapping
These maps also serve as an important reminder of how small inputs can have far reaching and lasting effects. With Google Maps being used by millions of people throughout the cities of the world, I expect the Google Transit Maps to introduce many to the benefits of public transit that include cost and time savings as well as a greener earth.
NYC Subway Smell Map
Finally someone is mapping the wonderful subway smells of New York City.
I have always said that as I approach large cities I can smell the urine from ten miles out, the emptying of ten thousand bladders in alleyways on a daily basis. The Gawker New York City Subway Smell Map attempts to map the origion of that smell and more as it traces the odiferous paths of the NYC subway lines as detected by those who ride them.
When you mouse over a station the subway smell map displays the station name, subway lines, and smell types encountered there. Mapped color coded smells include the usual array of alcohol, body odor, feces, urine, and vomit that help make the city what it is. Click on a subway station to view a popup with subway smell reports sent in by smell map enthusiasts.
The NYC Subway Smell Map is a visual aid to the oft insulted sense of smell. Now you too can track the origions of NYC smells right down to a specific latitude / longitude. Another fine use of Google Maps for mapping the senses.
Virtual Video Map
Now you can explore the world almost as though you are at these locations yourself. For the most part this simple web map service mashup is using videos gleaned from YouTube.
I especially enjoyed the video mapped street scenes in South East Asia, with hustle and bustle of everyday life. The Virtual Video Map shows a great deal of promise and I hope its developers choose to go further with the idea.
Technology Job Market Maps
The Odinjob website has a series of mashup maps using its “most relevant technology job search engine” combined with Google Maps. Job data is both mapped and displayed in handy charts and graphs.
The job market map can be toggled according to a variety of parameters including median salary, job demaind, metro and state level stats, salaries, and even a total jobs heat map. You can also update the jobs map by clicking on job skills links.
You can use the technology jobs map to find employment in the field and location of your choice. The technology job market map is a handy way to view salaries for the various technical jobs and get an idea of just where they are.
Google Maps vs Open Source Maps
The open source mapping community is large and thriving. Over at Charlie Savages Blog he discusses whether or not open source maps can ever compete head to head and win out over web mapping services like Google Maps.
As Charlie points out, open source mapping can compete with the big map services only in some areas. For example, open mapping software has a chance because of the huge number of mapping programmers willing to donate time, energy and resources.
The problems open map services face against the likes of Google Maps and Google Earth is the massive infrastructure it takes to distribute millions of map renderings across the internet.
Perhaps the most formidable open map service problem is the acquisition of vast amounts of imagery data that is not only difficult to accumulate but also often very expensive.
In my opinion the big online web mapping services like Yahoo Maps and Google Maps complement the efforts of open source mappers. Both have their merits and much can be gained by using both for a wide variety of mapping projects.
Join in on the web mapping discussion Can Open Source maps Dethrone Google Maps? One day the geospatially correct answer may just be “Yes”.
New Google Earth High Resolution Satellite Imagery
Google Earth high resolution satellite imagery has been newly published for large areas. The new satellite images cover portions of some 130 countries and will soon also be available on Google Maps.
Higher Satellite Image Resolution
The Google Latitude Longitude Blog states the satellite image resolution is 60 centimeters. This is a significant improvement over the previous image data for these areas and I look forward to the time when the entire world has free high resolution imagery online.
The Google lat-long blog also has a fun post on cool places to explore using the new Google Earth satellite images.
