Google Maps
I have not yet checked Google Maps out, but Jon Udell of InfoWorld raves about them:
The instant Google Maps appeared, a lot of us knew right away that we’d never use MapQuest again. Google’s mapping and direction-finding service is a stunning improvement.
The maps are gorgeously readable, and they fill as much of the screen (or the printed page) as you give them. Scrolling the map works in the most natural way, by dragging the image. The mapping service dovetails with local.google.com, which finds businesses by city or ZIP code. In direction-finding mode, each step along the route offers a link that, when clicked, pops up an enlarged view of the intersection....
Among other interesting discoveries, [Joel Webber] found that the application uses the browser’s built-in XSLT engine to transform packets of XML received from the server into search results, displayed as HTML.
This explains why Google Maps supports only Internet Explorer or Mozilla-based browsers. The others, notably Safari and Opera, lack built-in XSLT processors....
As is the related XMLHttpRequest object, which enables the browser to programmatically fetch XML from the server and parse it, the built-in XSLT processor was a Microsoft innovation that was later copied by Mozilla. Safari and Opera do support XMLHttpRequest, by the way, which is why they can run Google Suggest, the experimental version of Google’s search that dynamically expands partially typed queries into lists of choices....
The modern browser is an XML-aware client. Savvy Web developers have known about these features for a while, but now Google has legitimized them and pushed them squarely into the mainstream. My guess is that we’ll see an explosion of pent-up creativity as more Web developers discover, and begin to exploit, the full power available to them....
Because the app uses the W3C’s hosted XSLT transformer in tandem with Google Maps, I was able to “deploy” it in any browser simply by posting an HTML/JavaScript snippet to my Weblog.
Google Maps’ killer integration hook is the latitude/longitude data woven into its queries and responses, which can tie into any geo-aware app. We don’t yet know how Google plans to control or monetize this capability, but it shows what can happen when all the pieces of Web technology come together in the right way.
I'm not exploring the tech-weenie stuff right now, but here's a link to the LAX map if you're interested. And here's how to drive from ONT to LAX.
However, I have been using the Google/fboweb flight tracking feature. For example, here's the current status of United Airlines flight 101 (at the time that you're reading this - since the flight takes off at 6 in the morning central time from O'Hare, and lands at 8 in the morning pacific time in Los Angeles, the flight may well be parked when you click on the link).
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