Our organization, the University of the Philippines Linux Users’ Group, had a precinct mapping party for the upcoming May 10 elections last May 3, 2010 at the UP Computer Center. Those who were not able to make it to the venue mapped simultaneously with us in remote locations.
The goal of the mapping party was to map as many unmapped polling precincts (for the May 10 elections) to help our kababayans in finding their precincts in the upcoming elections.
Google Map Maker is Google’s crowd-sourcing tool to gather geographical information and turn them to maps. Google Map Maker was launched in the Philippines October of last year. Due to the positive response to the product, Google deployed Map Maker data in the Philippines to Google Maps.
I always loved the idea of crowd-sourcing (like Wikipedia, Yahoo! Answers, etc). There are other similar online tools out there such as OpenStreetMap and Wikimapia. My only problem with OpenStreetMap is that their default editor doesn’t have satellite imagery which makes it hard to point areas of interest or identify location of roads unless you have GPS. Wikimapia, though, uses Google’s imagery but their moderation scheme is not good at all. I find it very prone to vandals. Continue reading “Enjoying Google Map Maker” »
Last year, the search-engine giant Google launched Google Map Maker in the Philippines. It is an online mapping tool where people collaborate to map the world. Since it’s launch in the country, there has been a lot of moderated user-generated content that Google decided to push the Philippine Map Maker street-level data in some cities to Google Maps. Relative to other online collaboration tools such as Wikimapia, Google Map Maker has lesser vandals courtesy of their reputation and moderation algorithm designed by Googlers.
So what does this mean to the Philippines? To be short and concise, better Google Maps (Google Map Maker, and Google Earth) for us!!!
Google Maps Mobile can be easily installed on Sony Ericsson, Nokia and other compatible phones. All it takes is to download the mobile Java application and poof, you have a map in your hand! That was a lie; the data still lies on Google’s end so you need to have an active data packet connection (preferably 3.5G or 3G but GPRS would do) which I think all telcos in the Philippines offer for a competitive rate (despite different pricing scheme, it still sums up to 20/hour).
With Google Maps, you search, browse and hop thru different cities around the world. You can even plot your location on the map without an embedded GPS on your phone although having one gives more precise coordinates. In the absence of GPS or weak GPS connection, Google uses the cell information [further reading, Youtube video] on the header data of the packets sent by your handset, although this one gives less precise measurements.
There has been a countless times where I personally found this tool useful. I’ve used it to find buildings in the wilderness of the long Ayala Avenue. Another potential use of this app is for route mapping, which sadly isn’t supported yet in Metro Manila.
What do you think about Google Maps on Mobile? Have you used it? Share your insights.
I just came home (dorm, my second home) from a Google event at Manila B of Shangri-La Makati. In contrast to most of the events I attend, I went to the venue all alone this time since the slots were too limited that I was not able to tag anyone to go with me.
The Google event was their launching Power User Launch of their new product Google Map Maker. In a conversation with John Pinette, Google’s Director of Communications in Asia Pacific, Philippines is the only South East Asian region where Google Map Maker has been officially launched – although it is already deployed in some countries such as in Vietnam. Continue reading “Google Map Maker: the Power User Launch” »
