Virtual New York City Tour via Google Map mashup

Forget about the New York City transit strike and take an amazing tour using this clever google map mashup. VirtualNYC lets users select specific areas to take a tour. A complete description/historic is provided courtesy of mashing the Wikipedia. Then, a map, with place markers is displayed. Toping it off, photos of the area are offered with an amazing panning option with frames snapped at specified intervals... this mashup is AWESOME! See www.virtualnyctour.com

Governments Concerned about level of detail provided via Google Earth Imagery

The New York Times has run a lengthy piece of the latest concerns over the public access to high-resolution imagery. At issue is the detail and presence of government buildings and other sensitive areas within the widely accessible imagery.  See more at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/technology/20image.html

2006 National Spatial Data Infrastructure Cooperative Agreement Program (CAP) Announced

Announced officially December 8, 2006 - The 2006 CAP program. Under the latest agreement, a total not to exceed $1,150,000 is available for funding innovative geospatial projects - in particular, those affecting the geospatial data community. Award notification will be made on or about March 1, 2006. More info about funding opportunities provided here http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/7704/28/

Google Masher Adrian Holvaty Launches Post Remix at Washington Post

Remember Adrian Holvaty of google masher fame? Well, Holvaty is now in his new office at The Washington Post and has started publishing his official Wahington Post Mashup Weblog - See http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/post_remix/. Holvaty will keep readers informed of developments from Google, mashers, and other mashups around the Globe. No doubt he'll be developing some innovative mashups for the Post as they are needed as well. His space is officially known as the Post Remix. As a sampling, the latest tip from the author is this API for its homepage widgets - http://www.google.com/apis/homepage/. This lets you create and distribute mini applications that sit on Google's homepage. Check out the Post Remix at http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/post_remix/

Mapping Long Island Fire Districts using Google Earth

Another story about a mainstream publication (Newsday) using Google's APIs to help tell a story.  This mashup has stories, audio, photos, and a Google Earth tool that lets users plot firehouses, or  download a pdf with data on LI fire districts. See http://business.lihistory.com/firefighters/index.html

Faneuil Media Provides Google Mashups to New York Times and Forbes

Faneuil Media has carved out a nice niche with the development of some innovative web services, most noteworthy, a couple of google map mashups for The New York Times and Forbes. NY Times has published a traffic route alternative mashup - see http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20051220_STRIKE_MAP.html?8dpc and Forbes first used the company to publish a cool gas price mashup - see http://www.forbes.com/home/energyspecial/2005/11/15/energy-gasoline-costsl_cx_1116energy_map.html. Faneuil MEdia is a company developed by 2 savvy professionals from NYU. See http://faneuilmedia.com/

NORAD Tracks Santa Using Radar for 50 Years Now via NoradSanta

Using the North Warning System, a system of 47 radar system installations across Canada's North, NORAD will once again track the movements of Santa Claus as he sets out on his journey across the Globe on Christmas eve. NORAD uses four high-tech systems to track Santa - radar, satellites, Santa Cams and jet fighter aircraft. This year NORAD celebrates 50 years of tracking Santa... congrats to the Colorado Springs-based NORAD crew and volunteers at Cheyenne Mountain and Peterson Air Force Bases on doing a fantastic job! Note: the site is published in 6 languages for all to enjoy. For more on this see the article at http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/7696/ of jump directly to www.noradsanta.com

 

How about a Google Earth Earth Contest

It's billed by the creator as... "The world's first Earth Contest offers exciting new online gaming experience" For users who are interested in more advanced game play (or simply become addicted to Earth Contest) the BIG GAME, scheduled to launch at midnight January 2006, is a completely virtual world with thousands more locations to discover. To win, players must solve mysteries, complete puzzles, and travel around the globe to defeat The GameMaster. For more information on the Earth Contest experience, please visit www.earthcontest.com.