A travel companion with Lonely Planet's favorite places

Favorite Places was a project we launched a few months ago to celebrate local businesses and places around the world. This month we worked with a few travel editors and authors from Lonely Planet to share their favorite places in New York, London, Melbourne, and Vancouver.

We were also lucky to get Tony Wheeler, one of the co-founders of Lonely Planet, to take a break from his travels and share his favorite places around the world with a map and a Google Earth tour:

Here are some of the highlights from some of the Lonely Planet writers:

Robert Reid, US travel editor in New York- reveals one of the city's "secret" bars, the USA's largest mausoleum, and the newest park built on old rail lines in his favorite places.


Tom Hall, Travel Editor in London shares where you can find London's best hangover cure, a smuggler's pub, and a tunnel under the mighty Thames.


Vivek Wagle, Travel Editor in Melbourne recommends the Chocolate Buddha, exploring a four-story monument to movies, and where to go to find the best crepes.


John Lee, Travel Writer in Vancouver shows what to do in this Olympic host city whether its boozing at a cave-like back alley wine bar, eating at a sustainable seafood shack, or a jogging a nature hugging park trail with beautiful views of the skyline.

I'm used to keeping a Lonely Planet guide in my backpack when traveling, relying on its local knowledge of a big mix of things to see and do, but now I can access its great content through my mobile device or a nearby computer. In fact, when you browse the Lonely Planet website, you'll find that they're using the Google Maps API. This is one example of how our mapping technology is used to help our users plan their trips by allowing them to explore new places and see what other users are saying. After a trip of your own, you can share your adventures and experiences with My Maps, highlighting your favorite places to sightsee, sleep, eat, and explore.

Whether you're a global traveler like Tony or a local expert like Tom Hall, it's always nice to have a friendly travel guide to point you in the right direction. If you want to see more favorite places from local and global experts, visit www.google.com/favoriteplaces.

Posted by David Kim, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Activating Activists

Last week, the Google Earth Outreach team went to the Patagonia's Tools for Grassroots Activists Conference up in Lake Tahoe, California, and the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.

At the Patagonia's Tools Conference, all types of activists came together -- individuals such as Tim DeChristopher, who stood up against America's dependency on oil and non-renewable energy by disrupting a BLM oil and gas auction, to organizations like Surfrider and Trout Unlimited. Inspired by speakers such as Brian O'Donnell from the National Conservation System Foundation and Owen Bailey of the Sierra Club, these groups learned about campaign strategy, fundraising techniques, and internet tools for getting their message out. Patagonia founder and lifelong environmental activist and inventor Yvon Chouinard and Oberlin University's Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies, David Orr, were the special guests who wowed the audience with inspiring stories of grassroots environmental activism.

The Bioneers Conference welcomed, as a plenary speaker, one of our close partners, Chief Almir of the Amazon Surui Tribe. We visited the Surui in the Amazon last year to train them, and several other indigenous tribes, on using Google tools like Picasa and Blogger to share their culture and their way of living in the rainforest with the rest of the world. They were also using Google Earth to show where illegal logging is taking place. Chief Almir was in the Bay Area with his non-profit partner, Amazon Conservation Team, to celebrate the opening of Denise Zmekhol's film, Trading Bows & Arrows for Laptops, at the Mill Valley Film Festival. At Bioneers, the Google Earth Outreach team also taught two Google Earth and Maps workshops, including one focusing on indigenous mapping.


Non-profit organizations who didn't attend one of these events can view complete tutorials online at http://earth.google.com/outreach. We had a great time working hands-on with non-profits at both these conferences, and are looking forward to next year!

Posted by Tanya Keen and Karin Tuxen-Bettman, Google Earth Outreach

Street View: We can trike wherever you like

[Cross-posted with the Official Google Blog]

With Street View on Google Maps, you can take a virtual drive over the Golden Gate Bridge or see the bustle of Times Square from the comfort of your own home. But some of the country's most interesting and fun places aren't accessible with our Street View car. What if you want to tour the campuses of prospective universities, scout a new running trial, or plan the most efficient route to your favorite roller coasters in a theme park?

I first started thinking about this question around two years ago. My day job is working as a mechanical engineer on the Street View team, but I do a lot of mountain biking in my spare time. One day, while exploring some roads less traveled, I realized that I could combine these two pursuits and build a bicycle-based camera system for Street View. The result? The Street View trike:

I've already had a chance to take the Street View trike out to photograph some hard to reach places for Google Maps, like the Arastradero Open Preserve and LEGOLAND California. When I'm out riding — and once people understand what exactly I'm up to — I'm often asked if we can come to their alma mater, local bike trail or favorite beach boardwalk. Now, we're giving everyone a chance to tell us exactly where in the U.S. they'd like the trike to go next.

At www.google.com/trike, you can suggest interesting and unique spots in six categories:

• Parks & Trails
• University Campuses
• Pedestrian Malls (e.g., outdoor shopping areas, boardwalks)
  
• Theme Parks & Zoos
• Landmarks
• Sports Venues (e.g., golf courses, racing tracks, stadium grounds)

Nominations will be open until October 28. We'll then comb through all of the suggestions and let all of you cast your final votes on a winner from each category for the Street View trike to visit. For any privately-owned or operated location, like a campus or theme park, we'll work directly with the relevant organization prior to collecting the imagery.

When we unveiled the Street View trike in the U.K., we received more than 10,000 nominations and 35,000 votes; Stonehenge and Warwick Castle were two of the top vote-getters. We can't wait to see what you'll come up with in the U.S. — head to www.google.com/trike to submit your most inspired ideas.

Posted by Dan Ratner, Senior Mechanical Engineer

Go Mobile with Google Maps

It's "Go Mobile" week at Google, and across all of Google's blogs, we're giving insight into our philosophy about mobile versions of our products.  If there's one product amongst all of Google's that was destined to "go mobile", it is without a doubt Google Maps.

I still remember when I moved to San Francisco several years ago -- before the advent of smartphones -- and I didn't know may way around town.  Driving up and down the city's crazy hills was sometimes a fun adventure, but other times an exercise in frustration.  When I knew where I wanted to go before I left home, I'd usually print out driving directions beforehand.  But any time I left home without directions, or if I decided to go somewhere spur of the moment, all I had was a clumsy paper map.  It's not easy pulling over to the side of the road on a 40 degree hill to try to make out the tiny streets on a paper map.  And if you've spilled coffee on your map, or it's become tattered... forget it, it's much less useful. So I rarely looked at the map, and I got lost.  A lot.

When I think about these experiences, I realize why I remain so passionate about Google Maps for mobile.  You get all the power of Google Maps that you use at home, but you can carry it around like you can a paper map. Actually, easier than a paper map since there's no folding, and it connects you to more than just information about where the streets are. Now that I know the city a little better, I can be spontaneous not just when I take a wrong turn. Google Maps on my phone lets me decide to go somewhere spur of the moment, with no preparation and pre-printing directions. The addition of a business directory (remember those giant books?) is liberating as well. If I get a craving for something like "burgers" or "pizza", I just type my craving into Google Maps, which returns all relevant results nearby, and presto, hunger abated.  With features like transit and walking directions, I can now figure out how to get there without a car.  Street View even helps me recognize the place when I get there.

So if you still haven't got a smartphone, now is a great time to go out and get one.  We've got a lot of engineers building Google Maps for all the major mobile operating systems: Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Palm, S60, and Windows.

Once you take the plunge into smartphones, then getting Google Maps for your phone is easy.  Just visit m.google.com/maps in your mobile browser, or go here to send a link to your phone. And if you have any questions for us on our mobile products, submit them here by 11:59pm Pacific time on Tuesday 10/13, and we'll answer some of the top questions on Wednesday on the Google Mobile blog.

Posted by Steve Lee, Product Manager for Google Maps for mobile

Introducing Google Building Maker

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

Some of us here at Google spend almost all of our time thinking about one thing: How do we create a three-dimensional model of every built structure on Earth? How do we make sure it's accurate, that it stays current and that it's useful to everyone who might want to use it?

One of the best ways to get a big project done — and done well — is to open it up to the world. As such, today we're announcing the launch of Google Building Maker, a fun and simple (and crazy addictive, it turns out) tool for creating buildings for Google Earth.

We like to think of Building Maker as a cross between Google Maps and a gigantic bin of building blocks. Basically, you pick a building and construct a model of it using aerial photos and simple 3D shapes – both of which we provide. When you're done, we take a look at your model. If it looks right, and if a better model doesn't already exist, we add it to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth. You can make a whole building in a few minutes.

Our early beta testers insist that Building Maker is more like a game than a tool. Check out this video to see Building Maker in action:



For now, you can choose to make buildings in any of about 50 cities. We'll keep adding more cities, but don't feel left out if we don't have your hometown yet — modeling in a place you've never been is a fantastic way to discover more about it. Teachers might find that Building Maker is a great way to get students interested in geography. Armchair tourists can not only visit an unfamiliar city; they can engage with it. It's amazing what you learn when you look at something really closely.

Here are some more things you should know about Building Maker:

• Building Maker is an online tool, and it runs entirely in your web browser (Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc.)
  
• Before you can add a building to Google Earth, you need to sign in to your Google Account (so you get credit for what you contribute).
• Models you create with Building Maker "live" in the Google 3D Warehouse (a giant, online repository of 3D models).
• You can use Google SketchUp (our free, general-purpose 3D modeling tool) to edit or otherwise modify anything you make with Building Maker.
• Make sure you have the latest version of Google Earth installed on your computer.
• If you're on a Mac, you need to download the Google Earth plug-in directly.
  

Building Maker is free and available in 14 languages. Go to www.google.com/buildingmaker to join the worldwide mapping community. Have fun!

Posted by Mark Limber, Product Manager and Matt Simpson, User Experience Designer

Random Hacks of Kindness

We've posted several blogs about the various ways Google geo tools have contributed to disaster relief efforts. Last year, Direct Relief created a KML of health centers in the wake of Cyclone Nargis. More recently, UNOSAT used Map Maker data during the western Africa floods.

Mapping technologies may be central to understanding and responding to disasters, but many other technologies--such data-feed mechanisms, people finders, and reporting & communication tools--are necessary as well. With this in mind, we're partnering with The World Bank to host the first-ever Random Hacks of Kindness codejam.

The ultimate goal of Random Hacks of Kindness is to save lives. Random Hacks of Kindness will bring technologists and relief workers together to develop technologies that enable disaster victims to help themselves and give first responders and aid workers the tools they need to better help victims--to reduce loss of life and to speed recovery.

Over the course of two and a half days, speakers like FEMA Chief Craig Fugate will expound on the mission, subject matter experts will brief self-organized teams on specific problems, a great deal of coffee will be consumed, and code will be written. Teams will have the opportunity to port their solutions down to Camp Roberts near Paso Robles, CA, where it will be tested in field simulations to provide real-time feedback for multiple iteration cycles.

We hope RHoK generates software solutions that help users predict, prevent, and respond to disasters—but, realistically, we know that coding over a single weekend is only a start. That’s why the codejam in November is the first RHoK, but not the last. In and effort to encourage the developer community to adopt disaster response as a mission, we’ll hold a RHoK event every six to twelve months—sharing learnings from actual events, building on ongoing efforts, and collaborating on promising new technologies.

Join us! The codejam will take place from November 12-14 at the Hacker Dojo, located in Mountain View, CA. Invitations to developers will go out shortly, so if you're interested in coding, serving as a subject matter expert, or sponsoring the event, please visit www.randomhacksofkindness.org.

Posted by Jeff Martin, Google Crisis Response Team

3...2...1... Congratulations

To keep bringing you new, high-quality imagery in Google Earth & Google Maps, we work directly with several commercial satellite imaging providers. Last week, our partner DigitalGlobe successfully launched their next generation satellite, WorldView-2, aboard a Boeing Delta II 7920 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The successful launch of WV2 is another important step forward in making more high resolution, accurate, current imagery available. You can read more about the launch on DigitalGlobe's site or see it for yourself here:

Congratulations to DigitalGlobe!

Posted by Dylan Lorimer, Geo Content Partnerships