It’s been a busy past couple of months for me as I’ve had to go back to punching a clock ( 
) and just this past Sunday, November 29, I became a father for the first time with the birth of my daughter Ryleigh ( 
). This evening I’ve finally had a chance to sit down and plow through my feed reader for bit and was astounded at the changes in both Google and Bing Maps over the past month. That said, I think I’ll do a quick roundup for both you and me now.
One of the most significant announcements for me was the addition of Google Street View in Winnipeg, Manitoba where I currently live. My hometown was added yesterday along with 8 other Canadian cities including Victoria, Nanaimo, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Sudbury, London, Sherbrooke and St. John’s. Today some new imagery was added to both Google Earth and Google Maps and a cool new partnership with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) was mentioned that will have World Heritage sites such as Stonehenge and the Louvre to Street View. On a smaller feature-based note, starred favorite places which have been available for Google Maps for mobile and desktop Google Maps separately for some time, now can be synced. This means you can do handy things like mark points of interest on your home computer with Google Maps in preparation for a business trip, and then access those favorites during your trip at a later time.
Finally (from a Google Maps perspective anyway), Google has launched a new contest aimed at encouraging Google SketchUp users to build 3D buildings for Google Earth. Called Google Model Your Town Competition, the contest is open to everyone including teams, will reward entrants that provide a good look at their town or city from a character or historical perspective. (Any interested Winnipeggers, please shoot me an email at justin@gpsobsessed.com!).
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Bing Maps platform which has been playing catch up for a while now, just pushed out a huge upgrade with the inception of Streetside photography (much like Street View) and a beta Silverlight version.This looks pretty good though I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet. Hopefully this weekend I’ll have the chance to do a more comprehensive review.
Quickly switching gears, Natural Earth launched today as well. Providing public domain vector and raster mapping data, the website is to provide high quality geographic data for small scale map makers.
Major map updates: Microsoft Streetside and Silverlight maps, Google Street View Canada, Natural Earth Data, and much more is a post from: GPS Obsessed
