On May 5th, Yahoo announced that it has increased the functionality of Yahoo Maps by adding a lot of new local information.

Some of the improvements to the Yahoo Map search engine include:

• Specific local information added to 12,000 new neighborhoods in over 300 cities.

• Increased worldwide city information, especially in the Eastern European region.

• An increase in city label and tag information to help users find local services and locations more easily.

Source: Yahoo.com

IHT.com is reporting on a new public service that will be offered in Paris, France next month that will allow users to find open parking spaces with their cell phones or GPS enabled devices.

If this is successful, no doubt similar programs will pop up around the globe.

From the article –

A service starting in Paris next month is designed to make life somewhat easier for harried drivers by allowing them to find out, in real time, whether there are parking spaces available nearby by using their cellphones or GPS navigation devices.

The system will monitor the status of about 120 public parking garages across the French capital. From their phones, drivers will be able to find out whether a nearby garage is open and has places available.

Source: IHT.com

These “before” and “after” satellite images published by the New York Times online show the remarkably powerful information tools that satellite imagery and networked computers have put in the hands of the general public.

You can click on the “July 12″ button to see what Beirut looked like before the conflict with Israel began and click on the “July 31″ button to see what the area looks like after the conflict started.

You can view the satellite images @ Destruction in Southern Beirut.

Google maps now allows users to view traffic data from their web-enabled cell phones for over 30 major U.S. Cities. You can view traffic and congestion information on your mobile devices for these U.S. metropolitan areas to estimate delays.

The traffic-enhanced Google maps software for mobile devices can be downloaded @ Google Maps.

Technology Review is reporting on a Microsoft project that would allow map searches in real time. The advanced Microsoft mapping service would use sensors and public input to create up-to-the-minute map searches.

From the article –

Researchers at Microsoft are working on technology that they hope will someday enable people to browse online maps for up-to-the-minute information about local gas prices, traffic flows, restaurant wait times, and more. Eventually, says Suman Nath, a Microsoft researcher who works on the project, which is called SenseWeb, they would like to incorporate the technology into Windows Live Local (formerly Microsoft Virtual Earth), the company’s online mapping platform.

By tracking real-life conditions, which are supplied directly by people or automated sensor equipment, and correlating that data with a searchable map, people could have a better idea of the activities going on in their local areas, says Nath, and make more informed decisions about, for instance, what driving route to take.

The entire article is available @ Microsoft’s Plan to Map the World in Real Time.

Much to the dismay of governments, nations and military leaders, the next generation of commercial imagery satellites will be even faster and more powerful than before, making public mapping sites like Google Maps and Google Earth even better for the general “spying” public.

From a March 17, 2006 article on Wired.com –

Critics of overhead imagery services like Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth generally fall into two categories: government agencies who say the services show too much, and users who lament they can’t see more.

As the next generation of commercial imaging satellites moves closer to launch, the first camp may be out of luck.

Forthcoming features such as enhanced zoom capabilities, higher-resolution views and faster updates of stock imagery will reveal far more detail of Earth’s surface than anything visible on a computer screen today. While satellite imagery won’t be real-time, or capable of distinguishing individuals, it will be good enough to pinpoint ground-level details too blurry to identify using today’s technology.

“We’re just starting,” said Matthew M. O’Connell, CEO of GeoEye (formerly Orbimage), which plans to launch a satellite in early 2007 that can show images of objects as small as 1.3 feet across. “At that resolution, we can literally count the manhole covers in Manhattan.”

Just a few years ago, the idea of zooming in from a PC screen to any point on Earth would have seemed like the stuff of fantasy. Now that it’s reality, satellite and aerial mapping applications are drawing millions of addicted users. Hardly a week goes by without news of some strange or scandalous finding: Last week amateur astronomer Emilio González of Spain used Google Earth to find what might be a previously unknown impact crater in Chad.

You can read the entire article on Wired News @ Satellites Will See More, Faster.

This registered sex offender map search, provided by Orbizon Inc., is a great example of how the Google Map software is being customized by individuals and private companies for all sorts of unique and useful purposes.

The registered sex offender map can be used to map and locate sex offenders by address, city or zip code in 42 U.S. states. You can also register to have sex offender alerts and updates for your zip code sent to you by email.

You can use the registered sex offender map for free @ Map Sex Offender Registry.

A9 Maps is an amazing street-mapping site that allows you to search maps in over 20 major U.S. cities and view street-level pictures of the addresses. A9 is owned by the popular online retailer Amazon.

An interesting article in Business 2.0 by Eric Schonfeld discusses the way that A9 goes about creating these maps as well as their plans to do this for the entire U.S.

From the article -

A9 also powers its own stand-alone search engine (www.a9.com), where Dorfman and his colleagues are trying out all sorts of ideas for improving search. One of these ideas — the one that has us prowling Manhattan, block by block — is to drive around the country and take a street-level picture of every building, geo-code each picture by latitude and longitude, and marry the images with an address database to create the ultimate local search engine.

You can read the entire article by Eric Schonfeld on Business 2.0 @ Where the Web Meets the World.

Here is a freely browsable database of crimes reported in the city of Chicago and plotted by location on a customized Google Map.

You can search the Chicago crime database by crime type; street; date; police beat; zip code; ward; location; city map or route.

You can search the Chicago crime database at Chicago Crime

Google Maps are now available as downloads for your web-enabled cell phones.  Although the map service is free, your cell phone must have web access, which is typically an additional charge on your cellular phone service.  The Google mobile phone map features include:

1. Detailed Directions
2. Integrated Local Search Results
3. Movable and Interactive Map Displays
4. Google’s Famous Satellite Imagery

You can read the specifications and access the Google Mobile Maps at Google Local For Mobile .