Run Anywhere in the World With iFit Live Powered By Google Maps

Posted by Natasha Wyatt, Google Earth and Maps Enterprise Team

Editor’s note: From time to time we like to showcase how our customers are building fun and innovative products with Google Maps. Colleen Logan, VP of Marketing for Icon Health & Fitness, explains how a Google Maps API Premier powered treadmill helps exercisers reach personal fitness goals.

Most people use Google Maps for reasons of pure function: Where is that new restaurant? How do I get there? How long will it take? We thought Google Maps could be used for an entirely different purpose – as entertainment while working out on the NordicTrack home fitness equipment.

People buy fitness equipment for a range of reasons – train for a race, lose weight or simply stay in shape – but a universal challenge for most is staying motivated and finding the time to exercise. In order to reach their goals, more people are turning to technology for time-saving, motivating exercise. We thought the visuals provided by Google Maps, combined with our fitness products and iFit website might be so compelling, consumers would have more fun and stay on track. Even if the only time you can squeeze in exercise is in the evenings when kids are asleep in or in the early, snowy mornings of winter before a long day at work, the iFit exercise equipment can bring the experience of exercising on varied terrain into your home.



For example, if you wanted to experience a run through San Francisco’s hilly terrain, you can go to the iFit website and draw a running route on Google Maps. When you get on one of our treadmills, such as the NordicTrack Elite 9500 Pro, the treadmill pulls up Google Maps on the screen with the newly drawn running route. The treadmill mimics the incline of the real world route you are running, thanks to the elevation service of the Google Maps API. The runner experiences a real life running route by seeing the runner’s location move about Google Maps with Street View images flying by a she reaches new personal records.



To learn more about the Google Maps powered “smart fitness” treadmills visit the website of NordicTrack.

Updating the Maps of France, Monaco, and Luxembourg

Natasha Wyatt, Google Earth and Maps Enterprise Team

Today we announced changes to the data that powers Google Maps API Premier in France, Monaco and Luxembourg. We’ve already started using data from a variety of authoritative sources in the United States, Canada, and in Europe, Africa and the Pacific.

The new base maps will have greater features such as expanded geocoding coverage, more detailed bodies of water, university campuses and postal code coverage – all leading to better, more accurate maps for your employees and customers. As Google Enterprise customers, you can also now share direct feedback about our maps in these areas by using the "Report a Problem" tool in the lower right corner of the map – leading to quicker updates overall. We highly recommended that you re-geocode all of your data to take advantage of the new updated data.

Learn more about the Google Maps API Premier at google.com/enterprise/maps.

Live webinar: Google Maps API Premier and Protected Map Layers

Two months ago, the Google Maps team launched Fusion Tables Protected Map Layers for Google Maps API Premier customers. With the Fusion Tables Protected Map Layers, developers and businesses can upload tabular data to Fusion Tables and display this data on a Google Maps API implementation.

Join us for a live webinar to learn about Google Fusion Tables and how you can add Protected Map Layers into your Google Maps API Premier implementations.

When: May 3rd, 2011 10AM PT
Who: Google Developer Programs Engineer Kathryn Hurley and Google Product Marketing Manager Natasha Wyatt
Register now

Over 600,000 developers worldwide have adopted the Google Maps API for its developer and viewer usability. Google Maps API Premier is the business-ready version of Google Maps that allows your business to acquire more customers and make intelligent location-based business decisions.

We hope you'll join us and check out some of the other Google Earth and Maps events we are holding.

Posted by Natasha Wyatt, Product Marketing Manager, Google Earth and Maps Enterprise Team

Google Earth Builder supports NGA geospatial efforts

Google has a contract with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) for the first instance of Google Earth Builder. Google Earth Builder will enable NGA to use Google’s vast geospatial processing power to enhance its ability to provide timely, relevant and accurate geospatial intelligence to its customers, who span a broad range of U.S. federal government departments and agencies.

Google’s work with NGA marks one of the first major government geospatial cloud initiatives, which will enable NGA to use Google Earth Builder to host its geospatial data and information. This allows NGA to customize Google Earth & Maps to provide maps and globes to support U.S. government activities, including: U.S. national security; homeland security; environmental impact and monitoring; and humanitarian assistance, disaster response and preparedness efforts. This is particularly critical to provide damage and mobility assessments after natural disasters such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan or Hurricane Katrina.

NGA has been a long-time user of Google Earth Enterprise. As part of NGA's Geospatial Visualization- Enterprise Services, Google and NGA have teamed up to make it easier for the government to get useful and current geospatial content to federal employees who need it to execute their respective missions. Once an individual has been authorized on one of the government’s secure networks, he or she will be able to access maps customized to his or her specific department or role using Google Earth, Google Maps or via widely-used Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) services.

Behind the scenes, Google Earth Builder will host and serve NGA geospatial content to its mission partners and customers, equipping them with timely information using the user’s tool of choice. NGA will have the ability to use the vast number of cloud resources for rapid processing of the ever-growing quantities of geospatial data and then provide the GEOINT in an online, on-demand environment.

We’ve been excited to work with NGA as one of the early adopters of Google Earth Builder, and are pleased to make the product available to other organizations who want to take advantage of Google’s vast processing power to manage and publish their own geospatial data.

Posted by Sean Wohltman and Phil Dixon, Google Federal Team

Adding expert local knowledge to the map with Google Map Maker

Today we announced Google Map Maker for the United States, enabling users to add their expert local knowledge to the map directly through this free online tool. Users often have the best and most up-to-date knowledge of the places that matter to them, and with Google map Maker–now available for 187 countries and regions around the world–we’re working to make this information available to you and your customers.

Each edit will be reviewed to confirm accuracy, and once approved, user contributions will appear in Google Maps, and then in Google Maps API Premier and Google Earth Pro. The collective knowledge of these citizen cartographers will contribute to more detailed information for you, helping you make better location-based business decisions.

If you’d like to add your local knowledge directly, you can learn more or start mapping now at mapmaker.google.com.

Posted by Natasha Wyatt, Product Marketing Manager, Google Earth and Maps Enterprise

Georgia Department of Corrections Improves Case Management with Google Maps

Editor’s Note: Providing a safe and secure environment for the citizens is the mission of U.S. law enforcement agencies. Today we invited Jeff Smith, Enterprise Systems Manager from the Georgia Department of Corrections, to share how it improved offender management by using Google Maps.

The Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) is the largest law enforcement agency in the state. Our team of over 13,000 Corrections professionals strives everyday to manage the offenders effectively while helping to provide a safe and secure environment for the citizens. With a growing number of probationers to supervise - now more than 150,000 - this challenge was becoming increasingly more difficult and we needed modern technology to help us.
With the massive number of probationers in the GDC system, it’s fundamental that we have accurate mapping tools in order for probation officers to manage their caseloads appropriately. Believe it or not, for decades we had been plotting the probationers on paper maps and manually drawing the routes we took to supervise them. More recently, our officers turned to publicly available mapping tools to make their job easier on their own. In spite of that, accuracy was still a problem, and we came to realize the urgent need to equip our officers with accurate, interactive maps.

We implemented a solution that integrates large amounts of offender management data that we collected into Google Maps API Premier in October 2010. Google Maps gives us the flexibility to send large amounts of data to draw a single map and customize the data icons. We can easily map the address of each offender and color-code it based on the offender’s supervision level. Probation officers are now able to access customized Google Maps both from their desk computers and on their netbooks when they are on the road. An officer can quickly see on a map all the offenders he supervises, their addresses, identification information, supervision levels, and the probation office supervising the offenders’ cases. Officers can optimize caseloads based on real geographic boundaries so each of them can focus just on a sector of the city and reduce the amount of time spent navigating through Atlanta. We can also run a search by officer, office, or by radius to identify the cases. If an offender reports a home address change, we can tell if he or she moves out of the region and needs to be reassigned to another officer or office. We no longer have to rely on the offenders’ self-reported data for the city or county their residence is in. Google Maps has helped advance our case management and collaboration significantly.

With the capability to visualize where the offenders live, Executive Management also realized Google Maps would be a valuable tool in deciding where to establish new offices. These new ways to look at managing offenders and officer caseloads were hard to imagine with our previous systems.

Google Maps has helped us improve collaboration and optimize resource allocation intelligently. We can now focus more on our core agenda, which is to protect our citizens and provide effective opportunities for offenders to achieve positive change.

Posted by Jeff Smith, Systems Manager, Georgia Department of Corrections, Office of Information Technology

Fusion Tables Protected Map Layer Launch: Have your cake and eat it too

The integration between Google Fusion Tables and Google Maps API Premier makes it extremely easy to visualize thousands of locations on a map. Fusion Tables is a powerful, cloud-based database with geospatial smarts; you can attach a location to any record and then execute geospatial queries to find the relevant records.

Organizations that need to map sensitive or private data will appreciate our new Protected Map Layer. For Maps API Premier customers, simply pop in your client ID into Fusion Tables and voila, you can visualize your data in your Maps API Premier implementation (and ONLY your implementation) and your underlying data tables are kept entirely private.



The marriage of Maps API Premier and Fusion Tables enables a true cloud-based location platform: no servers to stand up, no database applications to install - just upload your data and display it on a map. Dead simple and keeps your data safe - just as it should.


Posted by Daniel Chu, Enterprise Geo Product Manager

Live Webinar on Thursday, February 24th - A case study: Iowa DOT Takes Google Maps into Enterprise GIS

Faced with increased demand for live traffic and road closure information, the State of Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) has chosen to leverage Google Maps API Premier to combine and visualize geospatial data from multiple sources. Join us for a webinar on February 24th to learn why Google Maps API Premier was the ideal tool for presenting traffic and road-related data to the public. We’ll also highlight other ways that this product can be used in conjunction with other enterprise geospatial tools to build all sorts of effective, public-facing/public serving websites.

Register now for this webinar which runs on Thursday, February 24, 2:00PM EST/11:00AM PST. You will learn:

• How the Iowa DOT has used Google Maps API Premier to unlock the value of siloed and stored geospatial data.
• How the Iowa DOT has integrated Google Maps API Premier with Oracle Spatial and ESRI tools within the Enterprise.
• How underlying geospatial data is managed throughout the Iowa DOT.

Who Should Attend:
Anyone in state and local government involved in map-based application development for public-facing websites. Other businesses and organizations looking to connect with the public using Google Maps API Premier will also find this webinar valuable.

Posted by Wendy Wu, Google Apps for Government Team

Finding the perfect place

Editor’s note: Today’s guest blog authors are Rick McMullins, VP and CTO bitHeads, inc. and
Elaine Yim, Senior Product Manager, Rent.com, to talk about the use of Google Maps API Premier in the Rent.com mobile application.

Rent.com is the nation's #1 Internet listing site (ILS) in the rental housing industry, enabling renters to find a residential rental property online using a free robust search tool. Rent.com has the most online traffic and the largest inventory of contracted property listings.

Rent.com recently extended their reach from the browser to the smartphone by releasing mobile applications for the Android, Blackberry and iPhone smartphones. The Rent.com mobile applications give users the ability to quickly and easily search Rent.com’s complete list of detailed online listings from the palm of their hand. Google Maps API Premier was a critical component to the Rent.com mobile application for renters to see the location of properties on a map as well as a way to quickly get driving directions to visit a particular property. After Rent.com users narrow down the list of properties that they would like to check out, either through the Rent.com website or by using one of the new mobile applications, they can hit the street with mobile phone in hand to go see the properties.


Property search results, properties viewed and contacted as well as favorites are all synced back to a user’s Rent.com account so that they are accessible from both the original web platform and the mobile application. Plus, while visiting the properties users can create notes and take pictures of the properties using the mobile application and forward them via email. This feature is especially handy when the user wants to quickly share the property details with friends.

A big part of the Rent.com’s mobile strategy was to make sure that people could easily find properties in personally desirable neighborhoods. “By taking advantage of the Google Maps Javascript API V3, the mobile applications team at Rent.com was able to implement an easy to use solution for a user to be able to view rental properties in specific areas of interest.”, said Elaine. With the Rent.com application, a user can view all of the properties from a search result on a single map to get a feel for where the properties are located or display a single property on a map. Furthermore, should the user wish to visit the property they can bring up driving directions to the selected property within the application.

“By using the Google Maps JavaScript API V3 to implement the mapping components of the applications, the mobile applications team at Rent.com was able to quickly implement the core set of location based features that were crucial to the success of the mobile applications.”, said Rick.
To access the Rent.com mobile applications:

Android:
Type Rent.com/m into the browser on your phone and click to download.
-or-
Scan the following QR Code.

Blackberry:
Type Rent.com/m into the browser on your phone and click to download - App World required.

iPhone:
Type Rent.com/m into the browser on your phone and click to download.
-or-
Search for Rent.com in the App Store on your phone.

Posted by: Natasha Wyatt, Google Earth and Maps Enterprise team

Update to Google Maps in Europe, Africa, Australia and New Zealand

Today we announced changes to the data that powers Google Maps features like the map tiles, geocoding, and driving directions. These changes can be seen in many countries in Europe, Africa and the Pacific:

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Liechtenstein
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
South Africa
Switzerland

The new base maps will have greater features such as expanded geocoding coverage, more detailed water bodies, university campuses, zipcode and postal code coverage – all leading to better, more accurate maps for your employees and customers. Along with this update we've launched the popular "Report a Problem" feature in these countries (as we've had in the U.S. and Canada), enabling you to tell us about errors and changes directly for faster Maps updates. It's highly recommended that you re-geocode all of your data to take advantage of the new updated data.

Learn more about the Google Maps API Premier at google.com/enterprise/maps.

Posted by Natasha Wyatt, Product Marketing Manager, Google Enterprise Maps/Earth team

You Can Be Lost in Data Without A Map

Editor's note: From time to time, Google likes to highlight partners and customers who have developed interesting and unique applications using our products. Peter Rossiter is a founder and CEO of Integeo, a company whose product leverages Google Maps API Premier. With over thirty years experience in the IT industry, Peter has led many innovative commercial ventures and research projects.

Location-based services have quickly become pervasive in our everyday lives and maps are now widely used as a convenient and useful visual tool to present data in ways that people can easily relate to.

Business Intelligence (BI) covers a collection of techniques and tools that support an organization’s decision making process. The advent of Google Maps familiarized people with the concept of data points on a map and progressively more and more BI customers are expecting fully integrated maps and spatial analytics with their tools of choice. Seeing data in the context of its location often exposes information previously hidden in the raw data.

But a tool is only useful if it’s usable. You need to focus on solving your business problems not technology. Avoiding the need for specialist programming resources is a good start followed by ensuring the BI skills of a dashboard or report designer are sufficient even if the underlying spatial analysis is quite complex.


Google Maps API Premier is a solid platform for presenting a rich background context of street and satellite data for analysis of business data. The Google API also enables us to dynamically geocode address data and users can zoom to particular areas of interest using our enhanced Google Search facility.



There is a lot more to visualizing data on maps than just plotting points and icons. Integeo’s Map Intelligence comes out of the box with an extensible, easy to use palette of spatial analytical functions. These enable clear and immediate perception of data relationships, groupings, classifications, patterns, trends and variations that stand out when mapped. A summary of the features of Map Intelligence can be found on our website.

At the click of a button, the analytics currently being viewed by a user can be interactively viewed on Google Earth. The dynamic map layers are generated by Map Intelligence from the “facts and dimensions” in the dashboard or spreadsheet, offering the choice to either use KML (KMZ including images, legend, etc.) or a network link that will update from the map Intelligence server whenever the user changes their Google Earth view. All the information and data relationship layers are dynamically available so that as filters are applied in the BI environment they are automatically applied to the view in Google Earth.

Please visit www.integeo.com if you would like to learn more about Integeo and see why Map Intelligence is the only BI product to rank top 10 among purpose built GIS solutions (Ovum Research 2009). We offer integrated mapping analytics incorporating Google Maps API Premier as an “off the shelf” solution for users of all the major BI platforms - currently these include (but are not restricted to) BI products from Cognos (IBM), Business Objects (SAP), Oracle, MicroStrategy, QlikView, Actuate, BIRT, Microsoft Excel and SQL Reporting Services.

Posted By Natasha Wyatt, Google Earth and Maps Team

Chains to trains: BART provides bike-friendly directions with Google Maps API Premier

Editor’s note: Today’s guest writer is Timothy Moore, Website Manager for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). Here he discusses how they use Google Maps API Premier v3 to power searches and biking directions on BART.gov. BART serves the San Francisco Bay Area covering 4 counties, 43 stations, 104 miles (167 km) of track, and has an average weekday ridership of 335,000 passengers. It is the 5th busiest heavy rail rapid transit system in the U.S.

Recently the BART website (www.bart.gov) launched some cool new trip planning services, including bicycle directions and station area points of interest, using the Google Maps API. The BART QuickPlanner is one of the most popular features on our website. If you live in the Bay Area, chances are you’ve used it. The QuickPlanner has traditionally offered a mix of BART trip plans, directions for walking and driving to the station, connecting transit information, carbon savings and more.

We're always looking for ways to improve the QuickPlanner, so when Google Maps started offering bicycle directions we were green with envy. Our latest research shows that only 4% of BART customers ride a bicycle from their home to a station. With ongoing cuts to connecting transit services and many BART station parking lots filled to the brim, adding bicycling directions to the QuickPlanner will help us promote the option to more than a million website visitors every month.



Frankly we've struggled with the integration of other mapping products into our custom-built BART scheduling application; weak documentation, limited real-world examples, and cumbersome programming requirements. Developing with the Google Maps API was a whole different world. As our lead programmer, Robert Falconer, noted, "It was easy to learn and quick to implement. And the ability to use free-form input terms for addresses, locations and points of interest was a major plus.”

If you've ever had to trap address or landmark input errors you know what he’s talking about. For example, if a user enters in “Frrey Blding” to the QuickPlanner, Google's geocoding service can recognize the user's intent and return the proper term "Ferry Building" with the correct corresponding address. All of this is done seamlessly behind the scenes so that all user sees is the address they are looking for when their trip is mapped out.



Again, using the Google Maps API, we’re able to provide more information about points of interest near BART stations, including directions. If you visit the neighborhood map section you can now use freeform search for station area destinations, and we’re no longer limiting you to searches based on standard address formats or a preset pull down menu. We also use the Google Maps API for services like “Find Closest Station” and for the map images presented on our station landing pages.

Overall this was a really fun project for us. I hope our use of the Google Maps API on bart.gov will encourage more bicycling to BART and I also hope people will use it to discover all of the awesome things that BART station area neighborhoods have to offer.

Posted by Carlos Cuesta, Google Earth and Maps Team

Customizing Maps API Premier – your way

Customers often tell us how much their users love Google Maps. They love the friendly blue of the oceans, the easy-to-read labels of cities, and the solid yellow of the roads. But maybe you’re a rebel – someone who wants the roads to look YOUR way. Or perhaps your corporate branding clashes with the standard version of cities and streets. You’d love to change the colors on the map, or adjust the details your customers see.

If that’s you, we have good news. With today’s launch of Maps API Premier Styled Maps, you’ll be able to do all of that and more. An easy-to-customize hierarchical structure lets you easily turn on and off the transit stations, change the colors of the maps to match your corporate identity, work with details, and more. Enjoy!

Click here to learn more about using Maps API Premier.

Daniel Chu, Product Manager, Google Enterprise Maps/Earth

Google Maps API Premier: Directions for the rest of us

Businesses rely on Google’s accurate routing engine to bring customers from their homes to company stores, from company headquarters to customer sites, and more. This is important on any platform, including mobile devices, and within increasingly-complex uses of map data.

But sometimes, technology has gotten in the way of the right user experience. No more. With today’s announcement, Google is delivering the most requested Maps API feature: a Directions web service. This new addition lets you couple the Static Maps API with the Directions API, letting users both visualize and get route directions through a simple HTTP interface.

Driving, walking, and biking directions are all included so regardless of your mode of transport, Google Maps API Premier has you covered!

Look for another blog post tomorrow with more exciting launches at Google I/O. Click here to learn more about using Maps API Premier.

Posted by Daniel Chu, Product Manager, Google Enterprise Maps/Earth

Mobile strategy gets better with Google Maps API Premier v3

I’m delighted to announce the launch of Google Maps API Premier v3 today, which includes the functionality you’ve put to use in v2 plus new features that Premier partners have requested, including:

• Support for mobile browsers such as Android and iPhone
• Optimized routing
• Support for custom Street View imagery

Support for mobile browsers

We started last year completely rebuilding the Maps API in order to dramatically increase performance, especially on mobile browsers. With the proliferation of mobile platforms and operating systems, it’s become more complicated to build web applications and sites that are relatively browser/OS agnostic. Yet the pressure to have apps and sites work on mobile has only grown stronger. Development teams have needed expertise in Java, Objective C, and other languages, and have often needed to retrofit existing code to new standards. No more! With Maps API Premier v3, the same JavaScript that works in Chrome, Firefox, and IE now works in the Android mobile browser and the iPhone mobile browser.

Optimized Routing

With the boom in geolocation and asset and fleet tracking, it’s clear that knowing the optimal route – right now – can make a huge difference in your business’ costs. Now you can take advantage of Google’s always up-to-date map data to find the best routes. Google Maps API Premier now can optimize the waypoints to give you the fastest route, saving you miles, wear and tear, and fuel. This is an easy way to move beyond distance matrices – and to stay a bit greener, too.

Custom Street View Imagery

Street View, one of the most popular and distinctive features of Google Maps, has long been useful for our Maps API Premier customers and partners, giving users the detail and feel of a location that no other type of imagery can. Now Maps API Premier customers can use their own imagery, whether it’s of their hotel rooms, houses for sale, or ski slopes, giving users this helpful perspective even in places beyond the Google Maps Street View car or trike routes.

Look for another blog post tomorrow with more exciting launches at Google I/O for Maps API Premier. Click here to learn more about using Maps API Premier.

Posted by Daniel Chu, Product Manager, Google Enterprise Maps/Earth

Update to Google Maps in Canada

The data that powers API features like the map tiles, geocoding, and driving directions has been updated in Canada! The new base map in Canada will have expanded features such as more detailed water bodies, university campuses, postal code coverage, and a shorter feedback cycle for Maps updates – all leading to better, more accurate maps for employees and customers.

Along with this update we've launched the popular "Report a Problem" feature that's used in the United States to our Canadian users, too. It's recommended that you re-geocode all of your data to take advantage of the update.

Learn more about the Google Maps API Premier at google.com/enterprise/maps.

Posted by Dan Chu, Product Manager, Google Enterprise team

Editor's note: Updated the post to say postal codes instead of zip codes. Thanks to our sharp-eyed readers for catching that!

Reinventing classroom geography with Google Earth API

Editor’s note: Every now and then we like to showcase innovative uses of Google Maps and Earth. Today we’re excited to welcome Don Rescigno, who is the Director of Marketing for NYSTROM Herff Jones Education, which has implemented the Google Earth and Maps API into educational software to make learning more interactive.

School Maps & Globes 2.0

NYSTROM Herff Jones Education Division & Roundarch use the Google Earth API to reinvent the classroom map and globe

Technology is changing the face of what today’s classrooms look like. In the United States alone, roughly one out of every five classrooms has an interactive whiteboard, like this:

These are steadily replacing the chalkboard and leave little to no room for traditional wall maps and charts.

As the leading producer of maps and globes for schools, NYSTROM Herff Jones Education Division saw an opportunity to deliver geographic information to educators – a market we’ve served more more than 100 years – through innovative technology. We partnered with Roundarch, a leader in digital design and technology, to help. Ultimately, we chose to use the Google Earth API to power our educational content and reinvent our products in ways never before possible. The result of our work is StrataLogica(TM).

Released late September 2009, StrataLogica is a revolutionary web-based product that delivers layers of age-appropriate, curriculum-based content for use in the classroom, school library, or at home. To meet grade-level curriculum standards, Nystrom mapped the world in many ways to illustrate various themes including physical features, political divisions, land cover, elevation, and U.S. and World history.

StrataLogica geo-references the content and presents it wrapped on the 3-D Earth allowing users to navigate and interact with our multi-layered world beyond the scope of traditional maps and globes.

Using the StrataLogica dual-map viewer, teachers and students can compare and contrast a variety of topics side by side. They can examine “then and now” by comparing, say, a World War II history map with a current political view (see image) of the same place.

Students can consider why people live where they do by creating side-by-side mash-ups of population, rainfall, and land use. They can also take advantage of Google Earth’s 3-D imagery by zooming down to satellite view to explore terrain or cities and communities around the world while keeping one globe view locked to provide context.

With the intuitive tool bar built on top of the API teachers and students can interact in numerous ways with content. They can add their own placemark pop-ups and include explanatory text, videos, or photos. They can use a ruler tool to measure distance. They can add their own text labels or drop in symbols to highlight land use, transportation, weather, and more. Each user can save this information to his or her account.

Nystrom and Roundarch have recently announced the addition of new StrataLogica features and functions that include collaboration, sharing, projects, and presentations. With these new capabilities students and teachers can work together to map curriculum content—exploration routes, famous battles, immigration patterns—in this online environment so learning to continue outside the confines of the classroom.

It’s our belief that with the release of StrataLogica, Nystrom is redefining the way schools will think about and provide this fundamental, relevant content. Today’s students are so technically savvy – they deserve resources that will feed their appetite for information while improving their educational lives. Though it was introduced only months ago, StrataLogica is already being adopted by schools and districts around the country. The overwhelming response has been that it inspires teachers and students in an entirely new way.

We invite you to see videos of StrataLogica in action and encourage educators to get a free trial at www.stratalogica.com. You can also follow Nystrom’s StrataLogica on Twitter at twitter.com/stratalogica.

Don Rescigno, Director of Marketing

NYSTROM Herff Jones Education Division

Representatives from both Nystrom and Roundarch will be participating at the annual Google I/O Conference this May in San Francisco, California.

Posted by Natasha Wyatt, Google Earth and Maps team