Google Maps Platform

Fab Friday is Summering

Friday, July 19, 2013

It’s been a while since we posted a Fab Friday post. Naturally, with it being summer and all, I was a little distracted. But it’s not summer in Sydney, and they’ve been busy! You may have seen that we launched Dynamic Maps Engine Layers in the JavaScript Maps API a couple weeks ago. Josh Livni hosted a Maps Live episode on it: Visualizing Maps Engine Data on JavaScript Maps. Check it out:

This week we launched version 1.4 of the Google Maps SDK for iOS. It includes cool new features like Street View, indoor maps, and an updated map style. Check out this Maps Live episode Luke Mahe and I did.
It’s shaping up to be a great summer in the Northern Hemisphere! Thanks Sydney!Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations Team

Fab Friday is Festive

Friday, December 21, 2012

[Mano Marks is away for the holidays, so this week Paul Saxman shares the highlights of the week in this Fab Friday post.]

<Begin Festive Jingle>

On Tuesday, a team of Google engineers launched the Google Santa Tracker site along with a Chrome extension and an Android app. You can visit the site now to play Santa approved games and hunt for some other fun experiences, but be sure to check out the site and Android app on Christmas Eve to track Santa with Google Maps and Google Earth.

The Google Santa Tracker site is pure HTML5 and uses the Google Maps JavaScript API. The Android app uses the recently released Google Maps Android API v2, so be sure to try out Santa tracking in vector-based 3D!

Late last week, I joined Ankur Kotwal and Tony Chan on their ADL+ show to discuss how to get started with the Google Maps Android API v2. We covered the basics of how to get a Google Maps API key, configuring an app’s manifest, controlling the map camera, and using markers and info windows. The slides for the show, which include plenty of code snippets, were posted separately.

If you’re craving even more code, support for the Google Maps Android API v2 was recently added to the the open source My Tracks app for Android. My Tracks uses many of the key features of the API, including markers, camera events, and polylines. If you’re interested in the new API, the MyTracksMapFragment class is a great place to start browsing the code.

Also in the news, Red de Juderías de España has built a website for exploring more than 500 Jewish heritage landmarks in Spain. The interactive map on the site uses the Google Maps JS API and includes custom map styling, overlays, and Street View panoramas. The site is a great inspiration to learn more about Spain’s Jewish history, and for building websites with beautiful interactive maps.

</End Festive Jingle>

Posted by Paul Saxman, Google Maps Developer Advocate and Adjunct Santa Helper

Fab Friday: Feel the Heat

Friday, January 13, 2012

We’ve been talking a lot recently around the Maps Developer Relations Team about heat maps. Heat maps use colors to represent the intensity of occurrence or certain values. Heat maps are a popular way to represent data. People often ask me how to create them themselves. So the other day when I ran across heatmap.js, with it's nifty Google Maps API Heatmap Overlay, I thought it would be perfect to share with you. Heatmap.js uses HTML5 Canvas to render the heatmap on top of the map. Apparently, it’s in early release, so feel free to help the developer, Patrick Wied out with some patches. Here's what it looks like:

On another note, we recently announced that several college campuses are now available in Google Street View, in areas outside roads. That data is now available to you in the Google Maps API. Here’s the Quad at Stanford:Finally, if any of you are going to be at Strata, Chris Broadfoot and I will be presenting a workshop there March 1st called Beautiful Vectors. Check it out or just find us and say hi.Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations team

Fab Friday: Happy New Year!

Friday, January 6, 2012

Inspired by Scott Knaster over on the Google Code Blog, I’m starting a new tradition of Fab Friday on the Google Geo Developers Blog. On most Fridays I’m going to post about something cool going on in the world of Google Maps. Nothing formal! So please don’t wear a tie to read my posts.I’ve got a couple of fun things today. The first one comes from a member of my team, Chris Broadfoot, who put together this great screencast on working with the Styled Maps feature of the Google Maps API:I also found a cool map you might like. The Domesday Book was the result of a survey in England commissioned by William the Conquerer and completed in 1086. It was a survey of all the landholdings in most of England and parts of Wales. Open Domesday maps this survey. And it also has an API in case you want to play with the data yourself.

I originally found it on Google Maps Mania. I also find cool maps on a variety of sites, including Mapperz and the Google Earth Blog.Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations Team

Maps Platform

Fab Friday is Summering

Fab Friday is Festive

Fab Friday: Feel the Heat

Fab Friday: Happy New Year!

Labels

Archive

Feed

Company-wide

Products

Developers