Offer Shelter with Google Maps

Sparkrelief: Housing

Sparkrelief: Housing is a Google Maps based system for offering and finding shelter in times of emergency.

Due to the recent tornadoes in America and the earthquakes in Japan images of displaced people seem to be never far from our television screens. Sparkrelief have created this Google Map so that people can offer spare rooms in their houses to those who have lost their homes because of natural disasters.

It is possible to search the map by relief efforts. For example, at the moment you can search the map by the 'Alberta wildfire', the Mississippi flood, the Alabama tornadoes, the Texas wildfire and the Japanese earthquakes.

It is also possible to search the map for available shelter by location and the number of people needing shelter. If you wish to offer your rooms in your house as shelter you can do so by completing a short form.

_________________

2012 London Olympics Street View

Olympics Street View

I strongly suspect that when the Olympics Park for the 2012 London Olympics opens next year the Google Street View trike will be one of the first visitors.

However at the moment there is no Street View available for the site of next year's Olympics. I therefore decided today to create my own Street View map of the Olympics construction site in east London.

I have to apologise for the poor quality of the photography. I created the Street View panoramas for this map using a free Android app from 360 VTcreator, which, whilst it is a brilliant free app, doesn't really create photographs of a high enough definition for Street View. I advise you not to zoom in!

_________________

What the Space Station Astronauts See

Current Position of the ISS

The opportunity for space tourism is probably still a little way off for most of us. Whilst we all wait for Richard Branson to make space travel a lot more affordable we will have to make do with this Google Map showing the current location of the International Space Station on Google Maps.

The map shows the current view from the ISS looking down at the Earth. So you can fire up this map and pretend that you are a space station astronaut watching the Earth spin beautifully beneath you.



If your imagination needs a little more help then you should also check out NASA Astronaut Ron Garan's photo stream on Twitpic. Garan is currently posting photos from the space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station.


Hat-tip: @MPegg and @Renalid

_________________

Sortie Minecraft 1.6 : Mercredi ou Jeudi au plus tard

Après avoir annoncé la sortie de Minecraft 1.6 pour cette semaine, Notch donne un peu plus de précision sur la date. La Beta 1.6 devrait sortir Mercredi, ou Jeudi au plus tard. Reste plus qu'à patienter.

Minecraft 1.6 : Herbes hautes

Un tweet de Notch tend à penser que les Herbes Hautes seront présentes dans Minecraft 1.6. Les différents Mods inspirent décidément le créateur de Minecraft... On ne s'en plaindra pas.

Voici à quoi cela pourrait ressembler.

French Shopping Deals on Google Maps

This year there has been a spurt of English language websites using Google Maps to show you nearby shops and restaurants offering daily deals and coupons. Coupon sites are also proving very popular in France.

Ohmydeal

Ohmydeals is a French website for daily deals and coupons. Ohmydeals uses Google Map to allow users to find their nearest deals.

It is possible to search the map by location and by category of deal. The categories include 'restaurants and bars', health and beauty', 'sport' and 'travel'. As well as searching for deals by Google Map it is possible to receive deals via Twitter, Facebook and mobile phone.

Plyce

Plyce is another French website that delivers daily deals and coupons. Again Plyce lets you search for the latest deals by location and by category.

If you share your location with Plyce you can then search for the nearest deals in a number of categories, including 'restaurants', 'technology', 'fashion' and many more. Once you select your location and category the deals are displayed in list form. When you select a deal Plyce shows you the location of the selected shop / restaurant on a Google Map.

_________________

SS Endeavour on Google Maps

Endeavour Image Maps

Microformats.dk has created a couple of interactive image maps from two spectacular photos of the space shuttle Endeavour.

The two images are Endeavour Passing Over the Rhine and Endeavour Docking with the International Space Station.



The maps were created with the CASA Image Cutter.

_________________