google maps

One of the first things I did when I visited London a few years ago was to go on a Sherlock Holmes walking tour. I'm not the only avid reader compelled to seek out the real-life settings found in books. This desire is what has brought about Placing Literature, an interactive site dedicated to plotting scenes from books onto real-world maps. It's like a heady mixture of a database, Google Maps, and the efforts of a bunch of literature geeks.

Placing Literature started with a conversation between co-founders Andrew Bardin Williams (an author) and his sister-in-law Kathleen Colin Williams (a geographer). "I use a lot of real-world locations in my novels. We decided there was this great intersection between geography and literature that hadn't been explored before," says Andrew Bardin Williams.… Read more

Google Street View has ways of getting places. There are its fleet of cars, its tricycles for places without roads, SCUBA divers for the ocean, and even user-generated content.

Nevertheless, there's always, inevitably, an end to the road. Naturally, sometimes this is because the land just plumb runs out. But there are a number of other reasons Google's cameras have not been able to proceed, from the natural to the man-made. The Atlantic's Alan Taylor took a pictorial look at the reasons why. See them in our gallery below. … Read more

Apple blew it big-time last year with the botched launch of its own Maps. At its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, the company tried to show that it knows which direction to take Apple Maps.

We won't how know how well it works until the fall. But Google -- the leader in online maps -- isn't waiting around.

Google's purchase of Waze -- a deal that Google confirms Tuesday but won't elaborate on -- will, if nothing else, keep a rival from snapping up the hot Israeli startup.

Google reportedly spent more than a literal ton of cash … Read more

Yes, folks. Google has just bought Waze, a social mapping and navigation platform and app that could have some big implications for Android users down the road.

Waze has been a hot-ticket item that Facebook had also considered snapping up, and with good reason, too. The platform has evolved from its early days to offer robust real-time driving alerts with a social side, and its popularity has spiked.

While pieces of Waze folded into Google Maps will benefit all users across Google's sprawl of properties and products, Waze can bring a special level of utility to mobilized commuters on … Read more

Google has started to bring a bit more clarity to underwater viewing in its Earth and Maps platforms. The Web giant rolled out a sneak preview over the weekend of improvements that armchair explorers of the briny deep can expect to find when investigating the world's oceans.

Not only is the resolution of the photos in Google Earth and Google Maps going to be far superior to imaging in the past but also more details about the seascape will be provided, such as ocean charts and depth. To get this data and information, Google has been working with NOAA'… Read more

Apple has updated its Maps application to work on the Mac, the company announced Monday at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The company's platform will be built into Apple's new operating system, OS X Mavericks. Information from the Mac's Maps can be sent to an iPhone for access on that device. Developers also can bundle the software's features, thanks to a software development kit, into their own OS X apps.

Apple launched Maps last year with iOS 6. The application was designed to replace Google Maps as Apple's built-in mapping application. Soon after … Read more

A Google Maps engineer who reportedly worked on bringing accurate map data to the platform is on his way to Microsoft, according to a new report.

TechCrunch reported on Thursday that Raj Shah, a Google Maps engineer, has moved on to Microsoft, where he will presumably work with the company on Bing Maps. According to TechCrunch, Microsoft confirmed his hire to its reporter.

Shah's LinkedIn page still lists his title as engineering director at Google. He started with the search company in March 2006.

CNET has contacted Microsoft to confirm Shah's hire. We will update this story when … Read more

Google announced Monday that it is rolling out extensive bike directions on Google Maps in several European countries, including Germany, France, Poland, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein.

If only this had existed six years ago, I could have avoided my best friend wanting to ring my neck.

When we decided to ride our bikes on a 500-mile tour around the south of France in 2007, my one job was to map our route. I got a paper map, highlighted a loop adjoining several country roads, and off we went. Easy.

Actually, not so much.

While our ride started out pleasant, we … Read more