Airship Ventures Airship Ventures provide Zeppelin tours of the San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles and the Monterey Coast. They also provide a live tracking Google Map that shows the current position of the airship.
When the airship is in flight its position and speed is updated every 30 minutes. The most recent flight is currently displayed on the map, with the ship located at the red map marker. Each of the red dots represent one of the half hourly updates. Hovering over a dot will reveal the flight data reported at that update.
You can also click anywhere on the map to see how far that point is from the airship's current location.
Aviatlas Aviatlas is a Google Maps mashup for exploring and sharing information about birdwatching hotspots around the world. The map provides birdwatchers the opportunity to explore and add hotspot descriptions, photographs, recent visits and sightings anywhere in the world.
Aviatlas have produced this introductory video to the site,
The information for each location can include a description, details about the habitat and the type of birds likely to be observed. There is also a tab for photographs and a feature to rate the location.
Global Vision Last week I speculated a little about Google's plans for video Street View. Global Vision have produced something very similar to what I imagine Google are planning.
Global Vision is a Google Maps mashup that lets the user explore Geneva via a number of video Street Views. It is a little like Google's Street View only it uses panoramic videos rather than still panoramic images. Have a look at the screencast below to see Global Vision in action:
It is possible to select a particular street view video by clicking on any of the roads marked in red. As the video plays you can see the location update live on the map. Here's a good tip, right click on the video and select stereographic, the stereographic image is much better quality.
This site has only just been released so I imagine there may still be some features to be added. It would be great if there were unique URL's for each Street View (for example my brother's road in Geneva has a video street view and I would love to be able to send him a direct link to the video street view).
Another more advanced feature would be to stitch a number of the videos together to create video driving directions for a requested route (which is what I think Google may be planning with their own video street views).
But I'm being picky. This is an awesome site. It definitely shows an exciting future for street view and Google Maps.
MapThisFish.com MapThisFish.com allows you to map and share your catches, research fishing destinations and find fishing friends in your area. The site contains two Google Maps, one allows you to show the location of your latest catches and the other shows the location of all MapThisFish.com members.
The catches map lets you search for recent catches by location, fish length, fish weight, water depth, catch depth, water temperature and air temperature. The friends map shows MapThisFish.com members and shows details about the number of that angler's catches.
Fileradar.nl Developed by two students at the Technical University of Delft, Fileradar.nl shows real-time traffic information for the area in and around Rotterdam, Netherlands.
The map combines a traffic model with different measurement sources to show the current road conditions. Unlike many traffic models Fileradar.nl does not use past traffic patterns to predict the present road conditions. Instead they look at the present road conditions and use their own algorithms to predict how the traffic will develop.
The Google Map shows in red the areas that are showing traffic congestion. The map animates through from the present time to an hour and a half later to show you how the traffic is likely to develop.
Surface Currents Google Map This Google Map from the Central and Northern California Ocean Observing System is a near real-time map of surface currents off the California coast.
The small arrows on the map depict the current speed and direction of the surface currents. The colour of the arrows shows the speed. The arrows are all selectable and, if clicked, reveal the speed and direction of currents at that location.
Links are provided in the left navigation bar to zoom to particular coastal areas. There are also links to select from hourly or daily averaged currents and to view past currents.
It is possible to turn the currents on and off under the map and to select a layer that shows the locations of HF Radar stations.
Plarker Plarker is a social sharing Google Maps based web site. With Plarker it is possible to add your favourite locations to a map,view your friends' maps and even add their saved locations to your map.
Every map created comes with its own unique URL and code to embed the map in your own website or blog. Plarker has a number of suggestions for how you could use the site:
Create a personal map and share your places with friends
Setup a corporate account to let people add your business locations to their map
Create an account for your town and tell others what's cool
