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Tags: Google / Travel Sites / City Tours / → All Tags

Google Enters The Travel Market, Will Create Your Next Vacation For You

There's probably a good chance that the recession is keeping you home this summer, enjoying a staycation and maybe kicking back with some virtual tours. But if you're still planning to leave your neighborhood for parts unknown, Google is ready to help you plan your vacation.

The Internet search giant just unveiled its new Google City Tours, a service designed to outright create whole itineraries for travelers. Type in the name of your city and City Tours will return a series of trips designed to take you around the area's major landmarks. It displays locations, hours, and even the estimated time you should expect to spend at each site.

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Tags: Healthy Travel / Winter Travel / Google / → All Tags

Don't Go Where They've Got The Flu

The flu is coming! The flu is coming! We hate to be the ones to break the bad news, but the first cases of that winter bug have started showing up all over the country. Actually this year hasn't been so bad, as we're already relatively late in winter for the flu to start breaking out.

What does this have to do with travel, you ask? Well this winter, for the first time, you can embrace your inner hypochondriac and base your travel plans around where people do and don't have the flu. How? Through Google of course, the same people who control every other aspect of our lives.

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Tags: Google / Google Earth / Travel Tech / Maps / → All Tags

Adventures of Link: Google Earth for All. Sorta.

One of the great things about Google's pantheon of services is that you can access them from any computer, anytime, anywhere. But Google Earth has always been an exception to the rule--until now.

The search company has just announced that 3D, pan-planet maps will be coming to a browser near you via a Java plug-in. (For now, it's only available for Windows machines.)

You probably already know why we're so excited about it: Now we can virtually fly around our Kid Rock Fight Venues Map!

Related Stories:
· Google Earth, Meet the Browser [Google Lat Long Blog]
· Google Earth Software [Official Site]
· Google Earth coverage [Jaunted]
· Google Maps coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: Google / Travel Websites / Websites / Flight Status / Flight Tracking / → All Tags

Adventures of Link: Flight Tracking 101

The overlords of the Internet at Google have upgraded the search engine's flight tracking powers. Before the new search feature debuted, you'd only get a list of links to track your flight, some of which didn't always work. Now Google's integrating FlightStats' data directly into a search results page. (This has the added benefit of making the service more BlackBerry friendly.)

You can also get the same info by texting GOOGLE (466453) your airline and flight number. If we're near a computer, though, we like digging up all sorts of flight info from these more propeller-head oriented sites:

Related Stories:
· Google Adds Flight Status Info [Budget Travel]
· FlightAware [Official Site]
· FlightStats [Official Site]
· FBOWeb [Official Site]
· Travel Websites coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: Google Earth / South America / Maps / Google / → All Tags

Google Earth's New Diplomatic Incident

It wasn't too long ago that a village of Germans was up in arms over Google Earth's misnaming of Mount Hitler near Munich. Now there are much greater problems stirring, and this time Google Earth hasn't misnamed a village, but rather moved it into another country.

The government of Chile (along with many Chileans) are quite unhappy to see on Google Earth that the village of Villa O'Higgins is now shown as lying in Argentina. Villa O'Higgins might be small, but it's named after a Chilean independence hero and they definitely want it to remain in Chile. Google Earth says "we are working with our partners to get more precise data for the region," though surely a request from the Chilean government should already carry some weight?

Related Stories:
· Google Earth Moves a Village [Reuters]
· Google Earth Your Way to Mount Hitler [Jaunted]

Tags: Google / Travel SMS / Flight Status / JetBlue / → All Tags

Google SMS Flight Check: For Keeping Tabs On JetBlue

Google just added free flight status and airline info to their SMS Service.

We tried it out on the beta site, checking an infamously not-so-on-time flight--JFK to BOS on JetBlue.

According to Google, which gets it data from Flightstats.com, JetBlue flight 1006 from JFK to BOS, is on time.

Departure is scheduled for 12:05 out of gate T6. Cool feature.

To use it text the airline name and flight number to shortcode 466453 ('GOOGLE' on most phones), and the status information will be sent to their mobile device. They can also text a specific airline name, and Google will send back the main number for that airline. Nice. Certainly should save us from spending way too much money dialing 411.

This is available for flights departing or arriving in the United States, and it is free from Google, though standard carrier rates for sending and receiving text messages still apply.

If this turns out to be half as addicting as texting NBC during reality shows, in hopes of winning $10,000 in one of five hidden cases, our phone bill is going to be Twitter sized very quickly.

Related Stories:
· SMS Flight Status Check [Google]

Tags: Google / Google Maps / Google Maps Mash-Ups / Weather / → All Tags

Google Buys East Coast Heat Wave

Yes, it appears Google even owns the current heat wave.

Some enterprising young web two pointers put together WeatherBonk. So now we can see exactly what the difference in temperature between Central Park and the Hamptons is with just a couple of scrolls to the right. Great. This mash up is complete with web cam look ins, though since we don't see any sweat on the web cam photos we can't be sure the shots are really live.

Now if only someone would come up with a Google maps mash up that could fix the air conditioner in our car.

Related Stories:
· WeatherBonk [Official Site]

Tags: Google / Prejudice / → All Tags

The Prejudice Map Via Google

Google is always good for an off the cuff look at current social commentary.

Some ingenious web surfer put together the The Prejudice Map via Google by typing things like German's are known for into Google and aggregating the results onto a global map.

According to Google:
·   Americans are known for anti-Muslim politics
·   Brazilians are known for bikinis
·   Kenyans for fast running
·   Ethiopians for big eyes
·   The French for spoiling their dogs
·   And the Turkish for wielding weapons.