Last year at this time, I covered the Google Street View trike as it made the rounds at Kapiolani Community College and other campuses around town. Much like the Street View car, it's hard to miss this engineering marvel. It's an adult sized trike with a sizable multi-lens camera mounted on a mono-pod on the trike's frame. The team mapped the community colleges on Oahu and then went to the neighbor islands to map the campuses there.
Between then and now, it was pretty quiet when all these maps were going to become available. Until now of course when I got word of Mayor Carlisle's press conference announcing the entire catalog of Street View maps of Hawaii. According to Product Manager, Evan Rapoport, the Street View team has been busy mapping campuses, State and City parks, recreation areas, tourist attractions and scenic spots.
The press conference was held at Hanauma Bay on an off day that looked to be threatened by rain. But in the bay itself the weather was very cooperative. The City set up an Internet connected monitor to demonstrate how you would find a typical Street View map. The steps are pretty easy. First you start at maps.google.com. Then you enter in the search: Hanauma Bay. You might get several returned selections. I chose: Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve Park, Honolulu, HI. You then drag the Google Street View man (named Pegman) over the area of interest and as you do you will see blue paths appear. Those correspond to the Street View maps. You can also grab the embed code and drop these maps into your own website just like I've done here:
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The list of Street View locations are quite numerous and this document will get you started. I also posted a bunch of photos of the event here.
There was good social media representation there with Dallas Nagata, Kyle Nishioka, Greg Yamane, Russ Sumida, Tara Coomans, Jerome Koehler and Ryan Ozawa. You''ll enjoy reading their followup coverage:
I was hoping that Evan would also have the Google Street View backpack on hand to demonstrate but he admitted to me that it was too new. According to Evan, that will be Google's next phase for Hawaii. I am sure they will capture some stunning hikes.
The Windward Community College Team Hawaii did a test launch of their rocket today at Kaneohe Marine Corp Base. Although fairly gusty the rocket launch and landing was picture perfect. Both nose cone and rocket fuselage touched down on land and did not drift into Kaneohe Bay. You can find more photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bytemarks/sets/72157629565620253/
We get a chance to talk to Jeff Kissel from the Gas Company and Heidi Kuehnle from Kuehnle Agrosystems about the recent demonstration projects underway and how they are positioned to scale up. Also had Andy Yip as our news guest tell us about his new bus app on for the iPhone called DaBus.
We talk with the Code for America fellows, Sheba Najmi, Diana Tran and Mick Thompson about City government, open data and a community of makers and doers. Where technology and community meets government equals efficiencies and civic engagement. You can catch the podcast here: http://www.bytemarkscafe.org/2012/02/24/episode-184-code-for-america-feb-22-2012/
They are here for the month of February. You might see them around Honolulu Hale or meeting with our business community downtown. Let's give them a warm welcome!
We first talked to Jason Rushin about the planning meeting for a Hawaii Chapter for Startup America. Then we had the field team of Allen Allison and Shelley James from the Bishop Museum on to talk about their discovery of the smallest frog known to man. Called Paedophryne amauensis the frog is found in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. You can checkout the podcast here: http://www.bytemarkscafe.org/2012/01/26/episode-180-micro-frogs-jan-25-2012/
We had Gorm Lai, Peter Justeson and Rechung Fujihira on the show today. Rechung was our news guest talking about Jelly Week over at the Box Jelly. Peter and Gorm are co-founders of the Honolulu Chapter of the International Game Developer Association. You can check out the podcast of the show here: http://www.bytemarkscafe.org/2012/01/19/episode-179-gamification-jan-18-2012/
On today's show, after the news, we talk to Colin MacDonald about his upcoming Pacific New Media class on the Web design process. Finally, we’ll learn about the future of social media with Jeremiah Owyang from the Altimeter Group and Tara Coomans from Social Media Club Hawaii. You can find the podcast of today's show here: http://www.bytemarkscafe.org/2012/01/11/social-media-2012/ Bytemarks Cafe - 1/11/12