Toronto's Transit Planners on Google Maps

TTC Trip Planner

If you live in Toronto you are lucky enough to have two public transit route planners, the TTC's own TTC Trip Planner and MyTTC. Both trip planners will help you plan the best route on Toronto's public transit system and display your route on Google Maps.


MyTTC

In a straight fight between the two trip planners MyTTC wins out on usability. MyTTC places the journey details of a planned trip beside the Google Map. The TTC Trip Planner however places the details above the map which means that you need to scroll your browser window to compare each stage of the journey to its location on the map.

Simply placing the trip details beside the Google Map means that MyTTC is far easier to follow. Each bus-stop or station listed in the trip details can be easily located on the map. Stops on the journey in the details can even be highlighted on the map simply by hovering over the station name.

MyTTC has also integrated Street View into its trip planner. This can be very useful just for getting a picture of the exact bus-stop you need to get off at. This is particularly handy if you have never visited an area before.

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The Independent Google Map

Independent Fullstop

Independent Fullstop is a platform built to map independent venues, events, artists or programmes which are set up to support or promote independent activities. Eventually Independent Fullstop want to map the whole world's independent activity but currently only have Leeds, UK mapped.

The Independent Fullstop Google Map for Leeds shows the location of independent groups and businesses in the city. The markers are categorised by arts, community, food & drink, groups, markets, recreation, retail and wellbeing.

Independent Fullstop are attempting to crowdsource the information on the map so if you know of any other independent venues you can add them to the map yourself.

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Wikileaks Iraq War Logs - Part Two

A Day in the Life of the War

WikiLeaks has released the largest classified military leak in history, around 400,000 secret field reports from Iraq. The Guardian's - Every Death in Iraq uses Google Fusion Tables to map every death in Iraq as found in the Wikileaks Iraq war logs.

The Guardian have also used Google Maps to visualise one day in the life of the war in Iraq. The day in question is 17th October 2006 in which 136 Iraqis were killed, 10 Americans died and hundreds of violent incidents occurred. The Guardian's visualisation maps the logs over the 24 hours minute by minute.

The visualisation uses a static Google Map with an interesting transparent overlay, the opacity of which is changed to reflect the time of day, making the map darker during night-time and lighter during the day.

Eksta Bladet - Vejsidebomberne i Irak

Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet has used Google Fusion tables with Google Maps to map the attacks on the allied forces by roadside bombs (Improvised Explosive Devices).

Ekstra Bladet has analysed the 400,000 WikiLeaks Iraq war logs which show that nearly half of the fallen soldiers from the international forces were killed in attacks by roadside bombs: 2,065 soldiers were killed and 16,949 were injured.

The data for the map can be found in this Fusion Table.

Zoom Ind på Alle Rapporterne

Ekstra Bladet have also created a Google Map that shows all of the 391,832 war log reports.

The map uses the Maptimize marker clustering solution to effectively display the 391,832 markers.

Via: www.microformats.dk

WikiLeaks War Logs
WikiLeaks have themselves included a Google Map on every one of the war logs to show the location of the incident reported. You can search the war logs at WikiLeaks by type, date and location.

You can also download the data from The Guardian's Datablog.

Also See

• WikiLeaks War Logs - WikiLeaks map of the US military reports from Afghanistan
• Næsten 4.000 civile dræbt i Afghanistan - Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet has mapped references to incidents involving the Danish army in Afghanistan
  
• Afghanistan War Logs: IED Attacks Map - from The Guardian newspaper
• Afghanistan: The War Logs Map- from The Guardian newspaper
• AFG War Diary - MIT Simile Timeline and Google Maps of the Afghanistan war logs.

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UK Walking with Google Maps

Take a Walk

Clover in the UK have produced this Take a Walk campaign to encourage the British to get outside and do some walking. The site includes over 25,000 walking routes throughout the UK, ranging from 0.1 to 30 miles.

Using the site you can search for a nearby walk by address and distance. The resulting walks are then presented overlaid on Google Maps. All the routes for the campaign have been provided by MapMyWalk.

Via: Mapperz

Treasure Trails

Treasure Trails create fun treasure hunts around villages, towns and cities in the UK. Currently there are over 5oo Treasure Trails in locations all over the UK.

Treasure Trails provide a Google Map for each UK county showing the location of the available treasure trails in the region. To select a trail just click on one of the map markers. Unfortunately to actually view and print the trail you will then have to pay a small fee (£5).

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The EPA Mobile App with Google Maps

myRight-to-Know

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has released a new mobile application that displays nearby facilities that report to the Toxics Release Inventory. It also displays the location of large permit holders in the Air, Water or Hazardous Waste programs that are expected to produce, manage or release TRI-reportable chemicals.

Using the app you can search for any address to view the results from the TRI for that location. The blue markers displayed on the map show facilities that submitted Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reports for 2008. The grey markers show facilities that did not report to TRI for 2008 but that have other EPA records indicating they may release or manage TRI-reportable chemicals.

The myRTK test version is currently compatible with Firefox and Chrome browsers, and is not currently compatible with Internet Explorer. To access the test version of the myRight-To-Know application, visit m.epa.gov/myrtk from your mobile or desktop device.

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Wikileaks Iraq War Logs on Google Maps

The Guardian - Every Death in Iraq

WikiLeaks has released 400,000 secret field reports from Iraq. Wikileaks claim it is the largest classified military leak in history. The Guardian has used Google Fusion Tables to map every death in Iraq as found in the Wikileaks Iraq war logs.

If you want to create your own Google Maps visualisation (maybe adding a timeline) you can download the data from The Guardian's Datablog.

Also See

• WikiLeaks War Logs - WikiLeaks map of the US military reports from Afghanistan
• Næsten 4.000 civile dræbt i Afghanistan - Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet has mapped references to incidents involving the Danish army in Afghanistan
  
• Afghanistan War Logs: IED Attacks Map - from The Guardian newspaper
• Afghanistan: The War Logs Map- from The Guardian newspaper
• AFG War Diary - MIT Simile Timeline and Google Maps of the Afghanistan war logs.

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Friday Fun with Google Maps

Holy Bat Pools Batman

It seems Batman has been travelling the globe. Gizmodo recently found this large bat signal on Google Maps,



And IO9 has found Batman's Japanese Batcave in Okinawa.



Gawker Finds God

Not to be outdone by Gizmodo and I09, Gawker has discovered God floating above a lake in Quarten, Switzerland on Google Maps Street View.

Street View Driver Risks Imprisonment

In Ireland the Google Street View driver has bravely risked imprisonment by ignoring this no photography sign.

Via: Street View Funny

Google Maps Reflection

Pamela Fox of Google Chris Broadfoot (@broady) has created this rather nice reflection effect for Google Maps.

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