Thursday, April 16, 2009

Webcams Layer in Google Maps

Google Maps added a layer that shows webcams from all over the world. You can enable it by clicking on "More..." and selecting "Webcams".

Google displays webcams from the aggregator webcams.travel, a site that lists more than 9000 webcams. "All the webcams from Webcams.travel are now available on the integrated layer of Google Maps. This was made possible within the cooperation of Webcams.travel with Google," explains Webcams.travel's blog.

If you click on a thumbnail, Google will show "a snapshot of the camera that has been taken in the last 15 minutes". You'll need to click on the snapshot twice (first at Google Maps and then at webcams.travel) to get to the source and see the live webcam.

Google Earth has a similar layer for geo-located webcams and there's an alternative interface at webcams.travel.

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Webcams Layer in Google Maps by Alex Chitu
  14 comments ( Post a comment )
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Anonymous Anonymous said on April 16, 2009 12:41 PM PDT:
Wow, it's snowing in Normandie!
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=49.868972,1.09726&spn=0.243413,0.4422&z=11&iwloc=lyrftr:com.google.ugc.c752d13e87c4fbd7,10479708104278855500,49.799882,1.133652&lci=com.google.ugc.c752d13e87c4fbd7

(FYI, no, it's not)
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Anonymous Matt Passell said on April 16, 2009 1:57 PM PDT:
Seems like a cool idea, but the geolocation data has some accuracy issues. I was looking at a map of the Boston area and one webcam was off by 5 to 10 miles and another was of Newton, Iowa instead of Newton, Massachusetts. :)
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Anonymous James said on April 16, 2009 8:26 PM PDT:
Diffrent way to see live webcams from around the world...
ABC Webcam
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Blogger ingo (webcams.travel staff) said on April 17, 2009 2:42 AM PDT:
webcams.travel is a community driven project. So there may inaccuracies in the geolocation of some webcams. But everyone is free to correct the geolocation of these webcams.
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Blogger rod09ca said on April 17, 2009 4:22 AM PDT:
wow that is cool ? first time to know?
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Anonymous Steen Seo Öhman said on April 17, 2009 4:34 AM PDT:
There has been a lot of debate in Denmark about Google taking photos in the streets of Copenhagen. So I would guess webcams will be very unpopular also.
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Anonymous Francky said on April 17, 2009 8:51 AM PDT:
Other good webcam directory!
Live Webcam
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Anonymous Anonymous said on April 17, 2009 3:55 PM PDT:
video ok satellite photo ok streetview ok- but webcam is very negative for the privacy. i love google and other map product but webcam that watch my house is more negative. i hope that google came back to this decision.
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Anonymous Anonymous said on April 21, 2009 11:46 AM PDT:
Sweet, making it easier to recon my targets. Thanks GOOGLE!
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Anonymous Anonymous said on June 7, 2009 4:23 PM PDT:
Awesome! How can I include this on my Google map application? Is there any API/SDK? I can not find it on http://code.google.com/apis/maps/.

Appreciate any help.
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Anonymous Anonymous said on June 17, 2009 3:00 AM PDT:
Too bad that many links to the source images are already wrong upon submission.
Even typos in domain names can make their way into that site.
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Blogger ArmchairTraveller said on July 7, 2009 2:34 PM PDT:
Why does the webcam-image scraper bot hide behind different user agents and operating systems while coming from the same IP-address? Why don't they give it a meaningful name with an explanatory page on their website?

Anything to hide?
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Blogger Alfonso said on July 27, 2009 11:12 AM PDT:
Looks like webcams.travel doesn't have too many webcams compared to local sites like Tenerife Webcams
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Anonymous Anonymous said on August 8, 2009 2:44 AM PDT:
well... it's awesome but it seems to be assigned to a specific areas .u just can't put ur home webcam to show ur room or the backyard as well !!!
What do you think?
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