The FBI wants to spider social media to prepare for the worst

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is creating a tool that will crawl Facebook, Twitter and more to catch emergencies before they happen.

According to a posting on the Federal Business Opportunities website, the FBI’s Strategic Information and Operations Center (SOIC) is feeling out the IT industry to see if anyone can create a “social media application.” The application should be able to spider through public content posted on social media sites such as Facebook and … Continue Reading

Google creating its own social game using Google Maps

Watch out, Facebook. Google is making its own game for Google+ … and it involves maps.

Yesterday, the company released a video of the new game, which takes advantage of its Google Maps product. The video shows a cube with a map overlay. A small blue ball travels through the map based on the spinning and tilting of the cube. Judging by the video, it seems players will have to move through the map, … Continue Reading

British Telecom targets more than Android in patent suit against Google

Yet another major company has jumped into patent squabbles with Google. British Telecommunications filed suit against the search giant on Thursday for infringing on six patents.

BT is aiming higher than most other companies targeting Google — which at this point include Apple, Oracle, and Microsoft — because it’s not just targeting Android; it’s targeting almost every Google service, including Gmail, Google+ and Google Docs, reports Florian Mueller at FOSS Patents.

“BT seeks damages — … Continue Reading

Google Shoot View is the creepiest use of Google Maps ever

A Dutch advertising firm has created what might be the scariest use of Google Street View ever with its “Google Shoot View” project, which lets you walk the streets of many real-life cities with an M4A1 assault rifle and shoot up the scenery.

Pool Worldwide, the Dutch agency, used the Google Maps API and added an assault rifle and some disconcerting sound effects. When you shoot at people, cars and buildings, nothing actually happens. It’s … Continue Reading

Google Maps 6.0 for Android makes interior layouts 3D (and can find toilets, too)

Google Maps for Android has just launched a new update  that tackles some of the toughest navigation challenges around: the interior world.

With Maps version 6.0, which arrived on Android devices today, users can now find the nearest bathrooms, ATMs and the locations of individual departments inside some of the largest retail stores, such as Ikea, Home Depot, and Macy’s locations nationwide.

The maps update will also provide detailed location information for 18 major airports … Continue Reading

How HiveMind’s Will Wright plans to crowdsource your happiness (interview)

Will Wright’s games from SimCity to The Sims have sold more than 100 million units. That’s why people are paying attention to his new startup and game idea, HiveMind. The Berkeley, Calif.-based company is focused on “personal gaming,” or a kind of title that can customize itself for the individual player, taking into account aspects of a player’s real-life situation as elements of the game.

We talked to Wright about HiveMind earlier this week in … Continue Reading

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Apple buys C3 Technologies — a shot at Google Maps

Apple has apparently acquired a company called C3 Technologies that has sophisticated processing technology that can build 3D maps.

Here’s why: If there’s one thing Apple hates, it’s having to rely on technology from a competitor. And when you navigate or get directions on Apple iOS devices, such as the iPhone, you’re using an application from Google Maps — because Apple has nothing else.

That’s a big sore spot for Apple. And because it concerns … Continue Reading

Google Maps rolls out business interiors in Street View

Google is taking its Street View feature indoors. The company announced last May it would be taking interior shots of stores, but now it is moving out of its pilot phase with more 360 degree interiors cropping up online.

Street View on Google Maps has provided many hours of novel entertainment in looking up houses, friends’ houses, your elementary school, that park you fell asleep in that one time. But satisfying a small bit of … Continue Reading

No plugin required: Google Maps adds hardware-accelerated visuals

Google Maps released a new beta feature today that uses the power of Web Graphics Library (WebGL) to add hardware-accelerated visuals when viewing from a web browser — without having to download additional plugins.

As demonstrated in the video embedded below, the Google Maps experience with WebGL is far more in tune with the highly detailed visuals found in the company’s Google Earth application.

WebGL also adds faster access to Google Map features like Street … Continue Reading

Google Maps update for Android shows one reason Google acquired Zagat

Google quietly updated its Google Maps app for Android this week, a move that helps shed more light on the company’s local search strategy and its decision to purchase reviews service Zagat yesterday.

Specifically, Google Maps version 5.10.0 now lets users add specific photos to Places and automatically shows places they’ve rated 4 or 5 stars on the map, which gives them a better look at places they’ve enjoyed in the past. To illustrate, you … Continue Reading

Google brings voice search to Maps

Starting today, Google is letting users search Google Maps and get directions with just their voices — no typing required.

For now, this new feature relies on Chrome web browser functionality. From the browser, users can simply click the small, blue microphone icon in the search bar, begin speaking and see results accordingly.

The speak-to-search function has also been available in Google Maps mobile interfaces for a while, since hands-free directions are pretty important to … Continue Reading

Google Maps weather layer is strangely disappointing

Google has finally added weather data to its maps, but is this really the best it can do?

Overall, the new layer is somewhat useful, but it doesn’t seem like a very serious effort, and it pales next to the wealth of weather apps and sites already available.

The new weather layer on Google Maps, launched today, displays current temperatures and conditions in cities and towns around the world. Clicking or tapping on the weather … Continue Reading

The end of paper maps: Google Maps goes offline for Android

Today Google declared the end of paper maps. For Android users, that is: Google Labs just launched “Download map area,” an experimental feature in Google Maps for Android.

“You will never need to carry a paper map again,” writes Chikai Ohazama, Director of Product Management, Google Maps for mobile, in the company’s mobile blog. “The ‘Download map area’ lab in Google Maps 5.7 for Android is a step in making that statement true even when … Continue Reading

Google Maps adds helpful My Places feature

Google on Wednesday announced it had added a handy new feature called My Places to its widely popular Google Maps application.

My Places helps visitors keep track of important locations by adding a new tab in the Google Maps toolbar. It will replace the My Maps tab and will let the user view his or her saved maps, starred locations, or rated places, all in a timeline of recent activity. To use My Places, you … Continue Reading

After 200M installs, Google Maps for mobile will soon be bigger than desktop

Google’s Marissa Mayer came prepared with some juicy mobile stats at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York City today.

She revealed that Google Maps on mobile devices has just recently surpassed 200 million installs, accounting for 40 percent of Maps’ usage. Mayer predicts that by June, mobile devices will account for the majority of Google Maps usage.

It certainly makes sense for mobile to dominate Google Maps usage. With pretty much every smartphone packing … Continue Reading

Google Map Maker opens in the US to improve local mapping

Google has opened its Map Maker tool, which lets locals contribute mapping information to Google Maps, in the United States.

Map Maker has previously been open to 183 countries and regions around the world. But Google has presumably held off on introducing the tool to the US market — for which there is already a ton of data available in Google Maps — until it had thoroughly tested the add-on.

Using Map Maker, citizens can … Continue Reading

Google Maps adds electric car charging station locations

Google will display the locations of electric vehicle charging stations on its Google Maps web and mobile applications in an attempt to push potential electric car buyers to take the plunge.

Google Maps users can search for “ev charging stations” plus whatever city they are in. Google Maps then marks all the relevant locations.

Many hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles already have maps with electric vehicle charging stations laid out, but the Google Maps … Continue Reading

Google Earth aerial photos show extent of quake damage

Aerial photos taken over Japan reveal just how bad the devastation is across the affected regions hit by the quake and tsunami. On ABC’s site, these photos show a before and after view of areas such as the Sendai airport pictured above. By moving the center bar across the photos with your mouse, you can see just how much damage occurred.

Google said it is working hard to provide the data directly to response organizations … Continue Reading

The Cartographer app brings gorgeous custom and offline maps to your iPhone

Mobile maps have never looked this good on the iPhone. The Cartographer is a new app ($3.99 on the iTunes Store) that brings support for custom Google Maps, as well as the ability to download maps for use offline, all in a slick vintage user interface.

It’s one of those rare apps that make you sit up and take notice at first, thanks to its unique design and emphasis on usability, but remains consistently useful … Continue Reading

Google Maps 5.0 for Android now available with 3D buildings, offline support

The latest version of Google Maps for Android is now available, and as we’ve reported previously, it brings some amazing features with it like 3D building support, dynamic map drawing and access to maps offline.

Google Maps 5.0 relies on vector graphics, instead of flat 2D maps, to load its map data. Vector files are smaller and more flexible than typical graphics files, both of which make a huge difference on mobile devices. Thanks to … Continue Reading