Back in December we introduced new high-resolution aerial imagery to the Google Maps API for 2 US cities - San Jose and San Diego, CA. When we went public we promised you more locations so today we're excited to announce the addition of 3 more US cities: Portland, OR, Sacramento and Oakland, CA are now available!

When we first launched we were thrilled with how our Maps API partners implemented this imagery. Orbitz made travel booking even easier by showing many views of a hotel, while Redfin and Trulia added a new dimension to the online house hunting experience.

Orbitz is now displaying this imagery for their Sacramento hotels. To see the aerial view, click on the map link within any hotel and zoom in from 'satellite' view:

Redfin is showing an "Angled" view of their properties in Oakland. Select North, South, East, West links from the map view:

Trulia is presenting a "Perspective" view for properties in Sacramento. Toggle to the "Perspective" view from the map for each listing.

Portland is featured in this demo which auto-rotates to one of its cardinal directions (North, South, East, West) every 3 seconds.

The existing G_SATELLITE_MAP and G_HYBRID_MAP map types support aerial imagery at high zoom levels (where available) provided that you explicitly enable this functionality. If you zoom into a location for which such imagery exists, these map types will automatically alter their views. To learn how to enable aerial perspective imagery be sure to take a look at the concepts, reference and examples of the JS Google Maps API documentation.

For some more fun, the Google Maps Mania Blog showcases some mashups that utilize imagery from San Diego and San Jose:

• Sea World Tour - Combines Aerial imagery with the Street View special collection of Sea World
• Driving Directions on Street View + Aerial - Fun demo that drives your route
• Nice views from San Jose and San Diego

As our total number of cities with this aerial imagery has now reached 5, we invite you to keep a close eye on our coverage doc. It will be continually updated to reflect new cities as we add them in the coming months.

Posted by Mike Pegg, Google Geo API Team

We were thrilled by the overall positive feedback we received after last year's I/O, but one thing we heard over and over again (in surveys and by word of mouth during the conference): developers wanted more Google Maps and Earth content. That's why I'm excited to share that our Geo tools will have a greater presence at this year's Google I/O, with its own session track and pod within the Developer Sandbox.

Here's just a partial list of Geo sessions that are already listed on the I/O website:

• Unleash your map data: Cloud computing for geospatial applications
• Map once, map anywhere: Developing geospatial applications for both desktop and mobile
• Moving beyond markers: Advanced Maps API customization
• The World in 3D: Adding a new dimension to your geospatial applications

Over the next couple of months, we'll be adding additional Geo sessions and many more Geo Developer Sandbox participants to the I/O website. For updates on when new content is added, follow @googleio on Twitter.

Registration for Google I/O (at the early bird rate of $400) is open as of today. We hope to see the Geo Developer community in May!

Google I/O
May 19-20, 2010
Moscone West, San Francisco

Register at: http://code.google.com/io
Early bird rate: $400

Posted by Joyce Sohn, Google Developer Team

We've made a change to the NORAD Santa Tracker this year. In years past, we've created a .kmz file that users could download to watch the Big Man in Red travel around the globe on Christmas Eve using the Google Earth desktop client. This year, we're not offering a Google Earth client file. Instead, we're using the Google Earth Browser Plug-in, aka the Google Earth API, to embed the NORAD Tracks Santa Google Earth experience - replete with terrain relief, 3D buildings, and tilt-pan-rotate-zoom navigation - into a page on the NORAD Tracks Santa site. To get the Plug-in, visit http://earth.google.com and download Google Earth 5.1 - the Plug-in has been bundled with both the PC and Mac clients since Google Earth 5.1 came out of beta. The Google Earth Plug-In offers a couple of tantalizing advantages over the client-based experience:

• Users can stay on the site. Because the Google Earth experience is now embedded on a web page within the site, users don't have to leave the site for 3D tracking. So, if they would like to return to the NORAD Tracks Santa Google Map--or any other page--it's just a back-button click away

• It's "automatic." The NORAD Tracks Santa project is visited by users from all over the world with a wide range of technical skills and connection speeds. Last year, users were prompted to install Google Earth, download the .kmz file, then open the .kmz in Google Earth. For some less-than-technically-savvy users, this 3-part process was confusing and difficult. Using the Plug-in is much easier; if users have the lightweight client (aka, the Plug-in) installed, all they have to do is visit the NORAD Tracks Santa Google Earth page, and they'll see Santa in 3D. If users don't have the lightweight client installed, the Plug-in viewport displays a clear and easy prompt to start the download, after which the 3D tracker activates.

Elsewhere on the technical front, we've ported the 2-D tracking map to the new Maps API v3, our lightweight JavaScript API, and created two custom OverlayView extensions for it. The "cloud overlay" shows Santa spreading his sparkle and snow over his recent stops, and uses the Raphaël SVG/VML graphics Library to create cross-browser compatible blurs and shapes. The "smart infowindows" open in the direction of least resistance (above/below/left/right), to minimize map panning as the user browses around Santa's many stops. Feel free to use these in your own maps.
On December 24th, visit www.noradsanta.org and click on the "Track Santa in Google Earth" link. It's going to be (choose one):

• Groovy (retros)
• Wicked cool (east coasters)
• Off the hook (gen Zs)
• Plugged-In (developers)

Don't miss it.
Posted by Jeffery Martin, Business Product Manager

Just in time for your holiday coding enjoyment, we have three new articles to get you started on adding maps to mobile and using App Engine for spatial search.

Overview of Mobile Development Options for the Google Maps API
Putting a map on a phone seems natural these days. This article goes over the options for developing a Google Map for a mobile application.

Loading a Maps API site in a Native Android Application
Google Maps API Version 3 was designed to be used in a mobile environment. If you want to include a V3 page in a native Android application, this is how to get started.

Geospatial Queries with Google App Engine using GeoModel
Many developers are moving their applications to cloud computing. Here's how to get started with geospatial queries building on Google App Engine.

So enjoy your holidays, and I look forward to seeing your apps in January!

Posted by Mano Marks, Geo APIs team

When we first announced the Google Maps Data API in May, we were excited to provide developers with free scalable hosting of geographic content.  The idea was simple: to create an awesome maps mashup, you focus on creating a great user experience and Google will provide scalable hosting and bandwidth.  Moreover, your data should be accessible from any platform (like desktop, iPhone, or Android) using your language of choice (including JavaScript, Python, Java, or Objective-C).

Today we're launching several exciting new features based on all the great feedback we've gotten from developers.  First, we're adding geospatial and attribute search to your maps.  To see these features in action, play around with this College Finder demo (you can download and modify the source code here).  I created a Google My Map consisting of approximately 3000 U.S. 4-year colleges, and wrote a JavaScript app to search over this map (with no need to run my own server or database!).

Using the new search features, you can easily request "all colleges within 5km of San Francisco" and apply attribute filters like "[Type:public]".  You can also sort the results by proximity to a point (in this case, the center of the map).  The results are updated whenever the map is dragged or zoomed, or when the search criteria change.

In addition to search, many developers have requested the ability to enable API access to a public map without requiring users to be signed into a Google account.  We've also enabled this today: you can indicate (using the API) that you would like a map to be accessible by others via the API.  You can also programmatically control access to the maps you own, by making them public/private or adding specific collaborators.  Our official docs will be updated soon but, in the meantime, check our forum for updates about this.

To get started writing your next awesome geo app, you can download and modify our sample code, or refer to our documentation.  We look forward to seeing all the great collaborative mashups, store locators, and mobile apps you'll come up with.

If you have questions or feedback, or would like to tell us about your new creation, please visit our developer forum, tweet about #mapsdata, or file a feature request.  We have some other great features on the way, so stay tuned and keep mapping!

Posted by Matt Holden, Google Maps Data API Team

The American Geophysical Union's annual Fall 2009 Meeting is taking place all this week in San Francisco. If you've never been before, it's quite a sight: 15,000 geoscience researchers, students, and educators!

If you're attending, be sure to check out the Virtual Globes sessions, which are in their fourth year. They're a great line-up of oral and poster sessions that illustrate interesting and innovative uses of Google Earth, KML, and other modern mapping tools in the geosciences. The "oral sessions" (i.e. talks) are on Tuesday, while the posters are on Wednesday and Thursday. As was the case in prior years, Virtual Globes "posters" are really large plasma screens running cool science and GIS demos :).

If you're not attending this year, you can still catch some of the talks online. One of the oral sessions is being webcast live! The fun starts at 10:20am Pacific time today (18:20 GMT). We also videotaped a few of the speakers delivering their talks outside of the conference, and will be posting those soon.

Last but certainly not least -- we have a Liquid Galaxy on hand in Google's exhibitor booth at the conference. Come check it out, at booth #839. It's quite an experience.

Posted by Michael Weiss-Malik, KML Product Manager and AGU Virtual Globes co-convener

A few weeks ago, Twitter launched the Geotagging API -- we really wanted to enable users to not only talk about "What's happening?" but also "What's happening right here?"  For a while now, we've been watching as users have been trying to geo-tag their tweets through a variety of methods, all of which involve a link to a map service embedded in their Tweet.  As a platform, we've tried to make it easier for our users by making location be omnipresent through our platform, and an inherent (but optional) part of a tweet.  We're making the platform be not just about time, but also about place.

I'm really excited to talk about this and other things next Tuesday, December 15th at the Google Geo Hackathon.  I hope to cover our Geotagging and our Trends API, show off some of our other upcoming location based capabilities, and showcase some applications that are currently using them.  Most of all, I'm looking forward to meeting developers from the Google Geo API community and learning how folks are mashing them up with the Twitter API.

Hope to see you all at the Googleplex! RSVP here. Space limited.

Raffi Krikorian, Twitter Platform Team