ViaMichelin Maps - Speed Camera Data

ViaMichelin Maps - Speed Camera Data

ViaMichelin has had traffic information available across most of Europe for several months now.
Their Blog seems a little dated. So here is a little update.



Speed camera data is now available as an additional overlay - this data can be useful when overlaying the traffic data. The data for speed cameras is fairly up-to-date (apart from Swindon)
note: mobile 'safety' cameras are not mapped.



Other Geo-related (loosly) news:

ViaMichelin GPS Products


includes
Points of Interest:
Hotel and restaurant recommendations from the Michelin Guide, tourist locations from the Michelin Green Guide and thousands of useful and practical addresses throughout Europe

Safety Camera Locations: UK version or European version featuring Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Liechtestein, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain & United Kingdom.

MP3 Player for AudioTours (see below)

http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/viamichelin/gbr/GPS/htm/nav/gps.htm

ViaMichelin Local (geo-advertising)
Geolocated advertising for the tourism and leisure sector is now available.
http://local.viamichelin.com/?langue_choisie=en

ViaMichelin Geo-Tourism
This includes 'Green-Guides' and AudioTours
http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/viamichelin/gbr/dyn/controller/Tourisme
http://www.zevisit.com/NEWSVIAMICHELINUS/US/newsletter.html

New Google Map API Ad Icons (Experimental)

New Google Map API Ad Icons (Experimental)

Google Maps API are rolling out some changes with the Ad Manager.


You can now have a maximum of 10 'Advert Icons' on your custom map.

"Over the coming weeks, we're going to making a few changes to the
style of the ads rendered by GAdsManager.

Starting in version 2.119, we're going to be making two small changes. "
Mike(Google Employee)

(make that 3)

1. replacing the current white pushpin style with a new style where the ads will appear to be flat "on the map. see example image
2. "nudging" the ads slightly, so that ads will no longer ever sit on top of any text rendered in the map tiles.
3. also starting to serve ads outside the USA

Mapperz can show an example that is working in the UK.
http://mapperz.googlepages.com/ads_manager_test.html
(If you don't see new icons displayed - try zooming once or panning the map - please remember that it is experimental!)

The one issue that you can clearly see at present is the icons still overlap text on the map tiles.
(this is due to the the tiles being rasters, to solve this google would new to vectorize the text as a bounding box and buffer the vector rectangles to create 'avoid ad/text clashing polygons'.
A tip from cartographic text placement there.)
VectorMagic does a very good job (Sample)

Here is an new icon
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imgad?id=CIXc9e63iK6PywEQEBgQMggWzfQHA9oWTQ
and another
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imgad?id=CPOInt6BsJf1IhAQGBAyCGKbz0m-eFN1
(looks like each ad has its own id for adwords purposes.)

How do you enable?
Not everyone wants to have 'Google Ads' on there maps so it's an option to include it.

 var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById("map")); //Add the Map
map.addControl(new GLargeMapControl());//Add the Large Control
map.setCenter(new GLatLng(37.423148, -122.084874), 13);//Centre on LatLng
var ads_opts = { //Add Ad Options
 mode: "experimental", //Mode:Experimental -Subject to change
 maxAdsOnMap: 10 //Maximum number of Ads (10 is Max)
};
var adsManager = new GAdsManager(map, "google", ads_opts);
adsManager.enable();

"google" will be where you put your adsense id so any click through would be registered
to your account



Official Example
http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/
adsmanager/adsmanager_new.html

Source:
http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API/browse_thread/thread/12534906310673ff#
Mapperz New UK Version
http://mapperz.googlepages.com/ads_manager_test.html

Google Maps 'Ads' Sponsored Links

Google Maps 'Ads' Sponsored Links


They were always going to add adverts (sponsored links) to the Map now it is happening.

source: Google Operating System (Unofficial Blog)

Example link