Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about.
Google Maps is hands down my favorite online mapping service because it has a simplistic design, which in the end makes it load extremely fast. Not only that but they offer features not found on other mapping services, including Street View, Wikipedia integration, and even walking directions.
Yesterday when I pulled up Google Maps, a site I frequently visit, Ryan looked over and right away noticed that the interface was different. My response was, "it is?" I stared at the sight for a good minute trying to figure out what was different and finally Ryan pointed out the changes. Google did in fact give Maps a makeover, but our guess is that some of you won't even notice.
A few weeks ago we wrote about a new feature, walking directions, that select people were seeing when using Google Maps. The good news is that Google has apparently unleashed the new feature for anyone that wants to use it, and from what I can tell it works pretty darn good.
If you own a BlackBerry 8110, 8120, or 8130, you can now use your device in a whole new way. Google has recently launched Google Maps with voice search that will work with the aforementioned devices.
Yesterday as Ryan was pulling up a map of how to get to O'Hare Airport in Chicago for our upcoming trip, he happened to notice a "more" button up at the top of the page. He clicked on it and a menu appeared with the option to enable photos and/or Wikipedia. He turned to me surprised, and asked if that had always been there and he just hadn't noticed or if it was new.
Google just made it a little easier for people to get from point A to point B with the help of Street View. Of course we know what Street View is by now, and we know that using Google Maps, users can get directions from a starting point to an ending point. Now Google has combined those two features and in the directions that you receive, you'll see a camera which you can click on.
Last week we wrote about how you could avoid traffic jams with Microsoft's new Clearflow technology, a project that had been in the works for over five years. It's not even been a week since Clearflow launched and now Google has launched their own version of a traffic predicting system. After reviewing both, each has its strengths and weaknesses.
Several weeks ago it was rumored that Street View would be incorporated into the new release of Google Earth. Google has confirmed that in fact there will be a Street View feature available with Google Earth 4.3 which is set to launch this evening at around 8 PM.
We've seen Google Street View take some images before that obviously invade on the privacy of individuals, but it looks like they are at it again! Google is actually in the middle of a lawsuit started by a Pittsburgh couple who noticed that their house had made its way onto Google Street View.
