Google

Census Data on Google Maps

This entry was posted in Google Information on by

Have you ever wondered why someone would spend the time to create something with no apparent reward? Well, this new site, gCensus.com, which overlays US Census data on Google Maps was fall out from a college class:

Specifically, the course focused on scientific data collected in such fields as fluid dynamics, physics, and weather. The class was small, about a dozen people, and this allowed the class to be somewhat informal in nature. We read two or three published research papers per week and discussed the papers in round table discussions during class meetings.
One of the assigments we were given was open-ended. The assigment was to “do something interesting with a large data set”. I looked around at possible datasets and came across the census data. At approximately ten gigabytes, I thought it qualified as a large data. At the same time, spring 2005, Google had just released its map technology. I thought the two were a perfect match and gCensus is the result.

Philip at Google Blogoscoped hints that the author may be at risk of Google closing him down. Is anyone aware of Google shutting down any other sites using overlays on Google Maps?
Modulator previously noted chicagocrime.org which overlays Google Maps with Chicago crime statistics.
Via The Presurfer.

Google Web Accelerator

This entry was posted in Google Privacy Technology on by

This is something I won’t be using!
First, pages download just snappily on my broadband connection, thank you.
Second, just why would I want to give these folks even more information about my browsing habits than they already get when I use them for searches? Their privacy disclaimer is particularly disingenuous:

5. How does using Google Web Accelerator affect my privacy?
Google Web Accelerator receives much of the same kind of information you currently send to your ISP when you surf the Web:
* Google will receive your requests for unencrypted pages (those with “HTTP:”, not “HTTPS:”, at the beginning of the URL), along with information such as the date and time of the request, your IP address, and computer and connection information

As you all know this can be a lot of information and they conveniently do not say anything about not gathering the info in the cookie they left on your system the last time you used anything Google.
You do delete your Google cookies regularly, don’t you?
Via beSpacific.

Mapping a Phone Number

This entry was posted in Google Information Marketing Technology on by

Ursula is not real happy with one aspect of Google searching:

I use Google everyday, but I am not digging their new feature that allows you to enter a phone number and get a map to the address

These capability with or without Google has been around a long time. Just go to any of the various white page services, key in the number, and they will do a reverse look up and provide an address. Take the address to your preferred map site and, presto, you have the same thing Google is doing.
Me, I’d like to see the kids at Google talk to each other! Really, shouldn’t they at least be listing the Google map?

My New Map and Directions Site

This entry was posted in Google on by

It took just 30 seconds to make up my mind. Google’s new map, driving direction, yellow page site is good! I have used Yahoo Maps for years but neither it nor Mapquest hold a candle to this. Julie puts it succinctly:

DHTML-driven (IE/Firefox only right now, I believe, but YMMV) maps service. Driving directions, yellow pages, etc. Drag-the-map with your mouse, DHTML controls, no more of that click-wait, click-wait, click-wait, click-wait never-quite-right map manipulation.

Try it out. Change now!
Update: Barry provides some usage tips and suggests that this might be a good front end for Keyhole, another Google product.
Update II (2/9): Via Zomboyboy here is a more technical look at this tool.