Google Maps, now with better terrain shading (old version on top). Image: Google

Google Maps continues to crank out the updates; the default map view has been updated with new shading detail to convey terrain information, along with color gradations to depict vegetation and labels for natural land formations.

The amount of terrain detail shown varies depending on which part of the world you’re looking at and how far you’ve zoomed in, but for the Americas and Europe major geographic features are now shaded and labeled.

“This enriched visual data allows you to quickly and easily see where the great forests, deserts, and mountain ranges around the world begin and end,” writes Karl Johann Schmidt, Google Maps Software Engineer, on the company’s Google Maps blog. “It also conveys how natural land formations can impact where, how and why man-made developments like urban cities, dams and bridges are made.”

I’m not sure how many people (aside from us map nerds) browse Google Maps to study how and why cities and other developments came to be where they are, but there is another side effect — the basemap now looks more interesting. The slight shading for textures and the green of forests break up what was previously just vast expanses of white. And in my testing on the desktop, mobile and Android Maps app the new visual overlays did not make Google Maps noticeably slower.

The new terrain features in the basemap aren’t anywhere near as detailed as the terrain overlays that can be added from the Google Maps menu widget, but they do add more information to the default map, which is likely the only map most users ever see.

Image: Amazon.

Amazon is once again jumping into the online mapping fray with a new Maps API for Android developers building apps for the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD tablets. While it’s just for Android developers at the moment, several of Amazon’s other APIs have started small and grown into web-wide offerings.

Unfortunately, unlike like Amazon’s long since shuttered A9 map tools, it doesn’t appear to actually be using Amazon data. In fact, the new Maps API is really just an API wrapper around Nokia’s maps and geocoding interface, which also now powers the maps on Flickr.com.

Like Apple’s iOS 6, Foursquare and other high-profile Google Maps defectors, the Amazon Maps API seems to exist primarily as an option for those who’d like to avoid the Google Maps API. Amazon’s announcement touts the API’s “simple migration path for developers who are already using the native Google Maps API on Android,” but neglects to mention any benefits developers might gain from dropping Google’s API.

In this early beta offering Amazon’s Maps API doesn’t have any features above and beyond Google’s API. The Amazon Maps API offers most of the same features you’ll find in the Google Maps API, including street maps, satellite images and custom overlays for landmarks and points of interest, but lacks street-view imagery, terrain maps and other features found in Google’s offering.

If you’d like to give the Amazon Maps API a try in your Android app, head on over to Amazon’s new Maps API site to request access.

Google Maps vs Apple's custom maps. Note the increased road/path detail from OpenStreetMap visible in the Apple version of this map of Vienna, Austria.

The new low-contrast look for iPhoto’s map is distinctly Apple’s, but what’s more interesting is that much of the data behind the maps comes from the open source mapping project OpenStreetMap.

For those unfamiliar with it, OpenStreetMap is an open source project that maintains an editable map of the entire globe. Anyone can make edits and add data to the map, which is why it’s often called the “Wikipedia of maps.” Although OpenStreetMap has been around for some time, it’s recently become considerably more visible as part of Microsoft’s Bing Maps. Additionally some high-profile websites are starting to move away from Google Maps — like Foursquare, which recently ditched Google Maps in favor of OpenStreetMap.

Now, with iPhoto for iOS, Apple is joining the OpenStreetMap party as well.

Apple is using OpenStreetMap data to display maps around the world. OpenStreetMap developers have discovered that Apple is using OpenStreetMap data in Chile, Austria, Italy and many other countries. OpenStreetMap is not, however, being used for the United States. In the U.S. map data appears to be gleaned from a number of sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau and possibly the U.S. Geological Survey.

Interestingly, the OpenStreetMap data Apple is using appears to be quite old, coming from sometime around April 2010. That means that unfortunately several years worth of updates and corrections from OpenStreetMap contributors are missing from Apple’s maps. The result is a map that’s fine for something like adding location details to your vacation photos, but would likely not be accurate enough to provide navigation or directions.

In other words, don’t look for the maps in iPhoto to be the source of a revamped Maps app for iOS — in their current form these maps are just not accurate enough for navigation use.

It’s also worth noting that Apple is using OpenStreetMap data without the necessary attribution. OpenStreetMap’s Creative Commons license governing maps from 2010 requires that Apple add a notice citing the source of the data. As the OpenStreetMap blog notes, the maps are “missing the necessary credit to OpenStreetMap’s contributors; we look forward to working with Apple to get that on there.”

It’s been clear for some time that Apple is looking for a way to wean itself off Google Maps. Apple has even purchased several mapping companies, including Placebase, an online-mapping company and C3 Technologies, which creates 3D maps. Despite these moves Google Maps remain prominent on iOS. Even within the new iPhoto app Google Maps apparently still provides at least some of the data being used.

Bad news, map hackers; the Google Maps free ride may be coming to and end. The Google Geo Developers blog recently detailed some changes to Google Maps API, including new rate limits and fees. Starting next year Google Maps will charge $4 per 1,000 map loads on sites where traffic exceeds 25,000 map loads per day.

The good news is that very small sites will remain unaffected since the Google Maps API will still be free for the first 25,000 views per day (those using the Google Maps styling features will be limited to 2,500 views a day).

The bad news is that once your app or website exceeds those limits you’ll be forking out $4 for every 1,000 people that hit your site (or view a map in your mobile app). Alternately, developers can cough up $10,000+ for a Google Maps API Premier licence, which, in addition to the unlimited access offers more advanced geocoding tools, tech support, and control over any advertising shown.

Google says the new fees are intended to make sure Google Maps remains free for small developers. “By introducing these limits we are ensuring that Google can continue to offer the Maps API for free to the vast majority of developers for many years to come,” writes Google Maps API manager Thor Mitchell.

The new rates will kick in next year and are unlikely to impact small sites, which will never exceed the limits, or large sites which can afford the Premier license. The real impact is in the middle — experimental sites that do something creative with Google Maps and end up going viral. No one wants a one-off experiment to end up costing a fortune.

Fortunately, according to the FAQ, sites that exceed the limits without setting up a payment system or buying a Premier license won’t immediately be shut down. “Your maps will continue to function,” says the Google FAQ, however, “a warning may be shown on your map and a Maps API Premier sales manager may contact you to discuss your licensing options.”

In other words, Google appears to be interested mainly in collecting fees from sites with consistently heavy traffic rather than experiments that see a one-time traffic spike. It doesn’t protect against every potentially expensive use case, but it should make map mashup fans breathe a little easier.

Developers worried about the potential costs of the Google Maps API can always use OpenStreetMap, which is free and, in many parts of the world, much more detailed than Google Maps. Of course, OpenStreetMap lacks some Google Maps features, most notably an equivalent to Street View.

See Also:

• Google Maps, Now With Virtual Helicopter Rides
• Google Maps Adds More Detail, Takes a Cue From OpenStreetMap
• Microsoft Adds OpenStreetMap Layer to Bing Maps
• ‘Tile Drawer’ Makes Hosting Your Own OpenStreetMap Server Dead Simple

We told you who swears the most in their code, but what about in the real world? Foursquare, the location check-in service, has used its rather large dataset to graph the “rudest” places in the English-speaking world — Manchester, U.K. takes top honors.

While the results should be taken with a grain of salt — after all the swearing is limited to Foursquare users and there’s no hint of what constitutes a swear word — the methods Foursquare used to get the data make a great intro to the world of Apache Hadoop and Apache Hive.

Hadoop is an open-source MapReduce framework — a way of processing huge datasets stored in large server clusters (or grids). While MapReduce frameworks were originally introduced by Google (which has very large datasets to work with) they’ve since grown beyond Google and their usefulness isn’t limited to large companies with massive databases.

In fact, with Amazon’s Elastic MapReduce just about anyone can easily and cheaply run their own Hadoop framework and process vast amounts of data just like Google does.

Because word search processing is generally considered the canonical example of what makes a MapReduce framework useful, Foursquare’s blog post offers a good overview of how you can use MapReduce to mine through anything from large text documents to user-contributed data like the check-in snippets Foursquare is processing.

Foursquare’s server setup is specific to them, but there’s one key element that’s worth bearing in mind — store your Hadoop data well away from your production system. MapReduce doesn’t work at the speed of the web and you don’t want it dragging your site down.

In Foursquare’s case that means using Amazon’s Elastic MapReduce plus a simple Ruby on Rails server. The result is, as Foursquare Engineer Matthew Rathbone puts it, “a powerful (and cheap) data analysis tool.”

If you’re new to MapReduce and functional programming in general, read through the Foursquare post for an overview on how MapReduce is useful and then check out the Hadoop site, as well as this overview video from Cloudera.

See Also:

• Cussing in Commits: Which Programming Language Inspires the Most Swearing?
• XSS Vulnerabilities, Raw SQL Top List of Common Programming Errors
• Commenting Your Code — What’s Too Much, Too Little?

Google Street View inside the San Diego Art Institute gardens

Google has been using the modified trikes — which house a 360° panoramic camera much like the setup on the Street View cars, but smaller and lighter — since 2009. Google previously released imagery the trikes captured in places like Stonehenge and Sea World.

Combine the latest update with Google’s previous release of Street View inside buildings and it isn’t hard to imagine that, in the future, Street View may well be in your living room.

In fact, you may be the one who puts Street View in your living room. Last year Google acquired Quiksee, an app that takes normal video input and produces video tours — much like Street View, but with no special camera required. Although Google has made no announcements since the acquisition, it’s not hard to imagine the company releasing some software that allows anyone to create Street View-like images of, well, just about anywhere.

See Also:

• Microsoft Adds OpenStreetMap Layer to Bing Maps
• Google Maps Adds More Detail, Takes a Cue From OpenStreetMap
• Google and Arcade Fire Get All HTML5y
• Behind the Scenes: Coding ‘The Wilderness Downtown’

Google has unveiled the awkwardly-named Hotpot, which is a kind of ratings tool and recommendation engine for Google Places.

As you review restaurants, music venues, stores and the like, Hotpot’s recommendation engine learns what you like and suggests other places you might like. Throw in recommendations from friends and Hotpot starts to sound very useful. Indeed Hotpot is useful, bringing location-based searching, algorithms that learn what you like and friends’ recommendations together in a single place.

But, perhaps because of that combination of features, it’s also awkward to set up and poorly integrated with the rest of Google’s services. It has some features that trump its main competitor, Yelp, like the awesome search tool. But the social and community aspects of Hotpot — features Yelp handles well — are too difficult to get set up.

Which isn’t to say that Hotpot isn’t useful. You just have to clear its awkward silo-style hurdles first. If you head over to the new Hotpot URL, you’ll be asked to sign in with your Google account and then to pick a nickname for use on Google Places.

Once that’s done you’ll need to find your friends and “add” then to your list of Hotpot friends. Setting up Hotpot feels a bit like you just slipped back in time five years to a web where every social service is an island.

It could be that Google was worried about another Buzz-style backlash if it made Hotpot’s social features automated. Instead, everything is manual — you’re presented with a list of friends that you can add (follow might be the more familiar verb here) much like the process Google Reader uses.

However, with Reader the sharing notices are sent inside the Reader web app. With Hotpot, the notices are sent to your friend’s Gmail account for approval. Worse, there doesn’t seem to be an “Add all” button — if you’ve got 300 friends, you’ll be click “Add” 300 times.

Once you’ve made it past the initial hurdles of setting Hotpot up, its results are actually pretty good. Having only tested Hotpot for a few hours, it’s hard to judge the quality of recommendations, but as a simple Google Places search tool, the interface is clean and easy to use.

Hotpot is also integrated into normal Google searches as well. Just click the Places option in the list of filters and you see reviews and ratings from your friends alongside the familiar Yelp, Urbanspoon and other aggregated ratings.

The aggregated reviews are a win for Hotpot. The big difference between Yelp and Google Hotpot is volume — Yelp has hundreds of reviews for all the restaurants in my neighborhood written by individuals from its loyal users. Google has a big enough database of user reviews, but it’s not as vibrant or extensive as Yelp’s.

But Hotpot gets around that limitation by culling reviews from around the web — in the case of restaurants, there’s Zagat, OpenTable, Gayot, Yelp, Blogspot and WordPress food blogs. Some places have a lot of Google user reviews, but Yelp usually always has more.

Though there needs to be a way to keep reviews from Insider Pages from showing up in Hotpot. They are universally worthless and presumably written mainly by YouTube commenters.

It’s interesting to note that Yelp is all about community, and Hotpot’s mapping and searching features are more advanced, but its community and social features are lacking. The two would be a perfect match if they were combined. Yelp reportedly screwed up a chance to be bought by Google last year — consider it salt on the wound that Google is pulling reviews from Yelp to beef up its own competing product.

Where Hotpot may find its big mojo, which would save it from the same fate as Google Wave, is inside Google’s mobile apps. For now that means Android 1.6+, though an iPhone app is in the works. There’s no word on a Windows Mobile app.

The new features in the Google Android app mean that, if you’re in an unfamiliar part of town, you can quickly find a nearby restaurant that your friends love, or an out-of-the-way music store you didn’t know about.

See Also:

• Google Bails on Wave
• Google Buzz Turns on the Firehose
• Hands On With Google Buzz — It’s a Stream in Your Inbox