![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/sxofnders.jpg\")
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Like everyone else we know, we were blown People we know who understand these things are equally When we heard that Google had released the source code Well, we just saw our first two Google Maps applications Sounded great in theory, but when we typed in our own We were on the point of concluding that the applications There were even two at the same address, a Father and The second application, also in Beta, is the Map Gas Like everyone else we know, we were blown away by the innovations in mapping featured on maps.google.com, principally the satellite photo and hybrid views, featuring street names and labeled landmarks superimposed on the satellite photos, and the unlimited click and … Continue reading
\n away by the innovations in mapping featured on maps.google.com<\/a>,
\n principally the satellite photo and hybrid views, featuring street names
\n and labeled
\n landmarks superimposed on the satellite photos, and the unlimited click
\n and drag scrollability: if you had the time and patience you could scroll
\n from Cambridge to Cupertino.<\/p>\n
\n impressed with the programming involved in making the maps work. They
\n say that the back end functionality, which has nothing to do with java
\n or xml or shockwave or any of the other now conventional ways to jazz
\n up web sites, has opened whole new vistas for what is possible
\n in a browser delivered application.<\/p>\n
\n for this marvelous innovation and invited developers to build new applications
\n utilizing it, it seemed a promising and atypical move, although we understood
\n about as much about the underlying technology as a Great Dane does about
\n Shakespeare, unless his name is Hamlet. We figured the type of implementation
\n we could expect was a Google map on the Taco Bell web site showing the
\n location of all 17,000 locations.<\/p>\n
\n and they are both pretty cool and marginally useful. The first, currently
\n being promoted as a Halloween prophylactic, is called mapsexoffenders.co<\/a>m
\n and is currently available in Beta format. It is a nationwide database
\n of level 3 (the most dangerous) sex offenders integrated into the Google
\n maps. Type in your address and see a map with pretty purple pins for
\n each local sex offender. Click on a purple pin, and you get a name and
\n photo.<\/p>\n
\n address and told the site to add the sex offenders to the map, nothing
\n happened. We scrolled around our neighborhood. Nothing. Offenderless.
\n Well, we thought, lets take a scroll on over to Cambridge. Hell, we know
\n a couple of perverts personally<\/em> who live in Cambridge! Still
\n nothing! Not a single hit.<\/p>\n
\n still wasn’t working correctly, or that they hadn’t gotten around to
\n adding the Massachusetts info, when we thought to scroll on over to
\n Brighton-Alston, the gritty student\/industrial zone west of the BU campus.
\n Six purple pins popped into our map! Real sex offenders at last!<\/p>\n
\n Son team. Best stay away from that house on Halloween, kids! Check it
\n out at Mapsexoffenders.com<\/a><\/p>\n
\n Price, which seems to have mapped all, or most anyway, of the gas stations
\n in the US. However, it is the users who actually report and enter
\n the prices on the web site, buy clicking on gray pins, thereby turning
\n them into blue pins. Letting users supply the data makes it kind of like
\n a Wiki. We can see how it would allow you to look at all the
\n stations
\n on
\n a regular
\n route,
\n say
\n your
\n route
\n to work, and find which one had the lowest gas price. Of course,
\n you could do the same thing by keeping your eyes open on the drive to
\n work: it’s
\n not like the stations try to hide their prices. On the other hand,
\n there may be a station a block off your normal route with a great
\n price that you could only discover via this site. Check it out
\n at mapgasprices.com.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"