Rain Forest Street View Out Now

Google has today released amazing Street View imagery of the Amazon River in Brazil.

The new Street View imagery includes the the Rio Negro and some Amazon forests. A good place to start exploring the new imagery is in this Amazon Street View Gallery.



As well as the new Amazon Street View Google has also released Street View imagery for the major towns in Poland.

Via: Google Lat Long

Recycling Google Maps Driving Directions

Rota da Reciclagem is a Google Maps based application that provides Brazilians with driving directions to their nearest recycling centre.

Users of the application can enter their home address and the map will automatically display a polygon showing the route to the nearest recycling centre. A map marker displays the user's home location. Click on the map marker and a link is provided to view turn-by-turn directions to the recycling centre.

Find a TAM Flight with Google Maps

Brazilian airline TAM has released a nice destination finder called TAM Tips. The application allows users to search for vacation destinations based on their personal preferences.

TAM Tips uses Google Maps to show possible vacation locations based on TAM airlines' destinations. The destinations suggested on the map can be refined by selecting categories of interest, for example museums and galleries, sport, music, mountains, beaches etc.

If you click on a suggested destination on the map you can then read a review of the location and view the price of a ticket on TAM airlines to the destination.

Electronic Recycling Points on Google Maps

If you need to recycle electronic appliances in Brazil then you need e-lixo. E-lixo is a Google Maps based search engine for finding the location of collection points and recycle bins for electronic appliances throughout Brazil.

Searching for nearby recycling locations involves entering a location and the type of electronic appliance that needs to be recycled. E-lixo then displays a Google Map showing nearby collection points. If you click on one of the returned map markers you can view details of the recycling centre's address and phone number.

Brazilian Directions with Points of Interest

Brazilian website Guiamais has created a Google Maps route finder for Brazil. The map also lets you search for local businesses and points of interest.

The route finder currently works for driving and walking directions. If you want to break up you journey you can also add points of interest to the map, such as fast food, banks and restaurants etc.

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Brazilian Taxi Fares on Google Maps

Tarifadetaxi is a Google Maps based taxi fare calculator for the major towns and cities in Brazil.

To calculate a fare with the map users can enter their starting point and destination into the search fields or they can just click on both points on the map. The app will then return a calculation of the fare for 'band 1' and 'band 2' journeys.

Users can also view the suggested Google Maps driving directions for the journey.

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A Google Maps Guide to São Paulo's Art

The Arte Fora do Museu project aims to map the works of art that can be found on the streets of São Paulo. The project's Google Map provides a great city guide to São Paulo's publicly accessible works of art.

The map highlights the murals, sculptures, architecturally important buildings and graffiti that can be found in the city's public spaces. Each art work on the map includes a detailed synopsis by an expert on the work.

If you click on a marker you can view the art work using Google Maps Street View, view the experts comments in a YouTube video and read a brief description of the work.

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Brazil's Cachaças on Google Maps

Brazil's most popular alcoholic drink is cachaça. In fact it is so popular that there are over 4000 cachaça distilleries in Brazil.



Guia Mapa da Cachaça is a crowd-sourced map plotting the location, photos and histories of Brazil's cachaças and cachaças distilleries. The Google Map of the distilleries allows you to find where each cachaças is made and can help you find your nearest, locally distilled cachaças.





In other news, Google LatLong revealed today that Street View of the Amazon rainforest is currently being captured. So very soon, you’ll be able to float down the Amazon and Rio Negro Rivers of northwest Brazil and experience some of the most remote and biodiverse areas in the world with Google Maps Street View.



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The 2010 Brazilian Census on Google Maps

The Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística has created an application that allows you to browse the results of the 2010 Brazilian census on a Google Map.

Using the application you can click on a census tract on the map and view demographic information collected in the census. The information includes the population, the percentage of men and women and the percentage of different age groups in the population.

Censo2010

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Brazilian Bike Routes on Google Maps

En Vou de Bike

En Vou de Bike is a Brazilian bike route generator with some nice features.

En Vou de Bike uses Google Maps to provide bike directions. To add a starting point to the map you can just drag the green bike icon onto the map. To add your destination you can drag the red 'pare' icon to the location you wish to end up.

Your route is then calculated and displayed on the map and the directions are shown in the map sidebar. Each route generated is saved and you can browse the already generated routes on the Mapas e Rotas.

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Brazilian Gas Prices on Google Maps

Meu Combustivel

This Google Map shows you the price of gas at Brazilian gas stations using data from the Agência Nacional do Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocombustíveis (ANP). It is possible to search the map by location and by type of fuel.

The map markers automatically display the current price at each gas station and indicate the company that owns the station.

Preco dos Combustiveis

This Google Map shows the current (updated weekly) gas prices at gas stations in Brazil.

Gas Stations are displayed on the Google Map and are listed in the map sidebar in order of gas price. If you click on a gas station in the map sidebar it will be highlighted on the map. If you click on the map marker the current gas prices for the station will be displayed.

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Brazilian Sports Facilities on Google Maps

Gatorade Maps

Here's a nice idea from the sports drink Gatorade. The company have created a useful Google Map to help Brazilian's find their nearest sports facilities.

Using the map it is possible to find the nearest gyms, sports centres, walks and bike routes around a location. You can filter the results by location and by the type of sporting activity you are interested in.

To promote Gatorade the map also displays the nearest retail outlets that sell the sports drink.

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Street View for Ireland & Brazil Launched

Google today added Street View imagery to the Republic of Ireland, Brazil and a tiny bit of Antartica. The coverage in Ireland seems to be pretty comprehensive. In Brazil the imagery seems to be concentrated in Rio de Janerio, Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte.

Here are some of the sights you can view in the new imagery:


Carnival, Sao Paulo


The GPO, Dublin


Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin


St Finbarre's Cathedral, Cork


Kylemore Abbey


Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói


São Paulo Cathedral


Antarctic


Penguins!

These websites have collections of interesting sights found on Street View. You can bet that they will all be busy adding Irish and Brazilian finds to their collections today:

Street View Funny
Google Sightseeing
Google Earth Hacks

One Developer has also been very quick to produce three websites dedicated to collecting interesting Street Views from Brazil:

http://www.sampaview.com (São Paulo)
http://www.riostreetview.com (Rio de Janeiro)
http://www.bhnomapa.com Belo Horizonte

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Mapping the Brazilian Election

The Brazilian general election of 2010 will be held on Sunday, October 3, 2010. Ahead of the election Google have produced a dedicated web page showing search trends for the candidates and a Google Map of the candidates' campaigns.

Follow the Candidates

Google have produced this Google Map to show the candidates' campaigns during the election. For each point visited by the candidates you can view content such as news, photos and videos.

Historic Elections Map
Google have also produced this Google Map that shows the results of every Brazilian election since 1994. You can select to view both presidential and governor election results on the map.

Rota do Planalto

Brazilian website Voto Certo have produced their own Google Map to help inform voters ahead of the election.

Rota do Planalto allows voters to view the campaigns of the presidential candidates since January 2010. The map shows the campaign journeys made by Rousseff (PT), José Serra (PSDB) and Silva (PV) in the months from January to July. The campaign of Plinio de Arruda Sampaio is mapped from May, when the PSOL named his candidacy.

In addition to viewing all events on a single map, you can also pick a candidate and view their calendar for the period. Another option is to compare routes between two candidates in the same month. Each marker on the map, shows the details of the event or YouTube videos or photos with a link to the news sources.

Hat-tip: Mibazaar

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Google Map Animation with Map Rotation

TipCar

TipCar is a Brazilian car pooling website. Users of the site can offer and find rides quickly and easily.

The home page of TipCar features a cool animated Google Map which features profile pictures and short messages of people looking to share car journeys. The map animates through each message with some nice map rotation and map tilting between messages. You can see the animation effects in the video above.

I'm pretty sure that the site also uses Google Maps to help users find and display car journeys. Unfortunately my Portuguese wasn't adequate enough to navigate to that part of the site.

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Follow Canarinho on Google Maps

Copa do Mundo 2010 Tweets Map

If you are a Brazil or Portugal fan and you want to keep up with the latest news and comments about your team then you should bookmark Copa do Mundo 2010.

This Brazilian Google Map shows Tweets about the 2010 World Cup. The map shows Tweets that use a number of hashtags in Portuguese, such as #copa, therefore the majority of the Tweets that appear on the map are also in Portuguese.

The map also features a widget from Fifa showing all the latest news and results for the Brazilian World Cup team.

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Rio and São Paulo on Google Maps

Rider - Enjoy the Ride

This beautiful looking Google Map contains lots of information about what to see and do in the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

The points of information on the map can be filtered by eating & drinking, culture, leisure, shopping and nightclubs. Clicking on any of the map markers opens an information window with details and photographs of the selected establishment.

Users of the map can vote each listed location 'up' or 'down'. Users can even vote for which Brazilian city they would next like to see have its own Rider Google Map.

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Visit Brazil YouTube Channel & Google Map

Visit Brazil YouTube

The Brazilian Tourist Board and YouTube have today released a brand channel on YouTube to promote tourism in Brazil. The channel features over 85 Brazilian tourist videos geo-tagged with Google Maps.

The videos have been placed in a number of categories, including Sun and Beach, Culture, Ecotourism, Sport and Business and Events. When you select a video the location of the video is shown on the Google Map.

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