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There was a day when exploring that famed fractal, the Mandelbrot set, took a supercomputer. Now Google has created a Web application that–while not the highest-performing or most subtly-shaded rendering of this surreal mathematical landscape–shows the browser can now outdo the supercomputers of yore. The Julia Map project uses a newer Web standard called Web [...]

Google users who’ve tapped into the company’s Hotpot service can now find recommendations on hotels, restaurants, and other spots as part of their regular search results. Launched in November, Hotpot gives you the ability to check out reviews of different establishments and rate and review your own favorite (or not so favorite) spots. So if [...]

Google is taking the real-estate listings in Google Maps off the market. Citing “low usage, the proliferation of excellent property-search tools on real-estate Web sites, and the infrastructure challenge posed by the impending retirement of the Google Base API,” Brian McClendon, vice president of Google Earth and Maps, said today that the listings would disappear [...]

BlackBerry-maker RIM has just promoted its free BlackBerry Traffic app from its beta status to a general software release. Now that its available in BlackBerry App World beginning today, BlackBerry Traffic could threaten competitors like Waze. BlackBerry Traffic is a driving tool that estimates the real-time distance between you and your destination. The app sources [...]

Google Maps has been embroiled in a Central American border dispute that saw two neighboring countries dispatch troops and heavily armed police to their joint border. (c) 2010 AFP

I have never been a Nicaraguan general, but I imagine that the job has its fun parts. So one might just put it down to naive enthusiasm that Eden Pastora–such an idyllically peaceful name for a general–might have accidentally wandered with his troops into territory that would seem to be owned by its neighbor, Costa [...]

One of the lead engineers behind Google Maps and Google Wave has left the Web powerhouse to get into the thick of the “compelling” action at Facebook. Last Friday, Lars Rasmussen said goodbye to his six-year career at Google; he’ll start his new job at Facebook in December following a vacation. The noted Sydney, Australia-based [...]

Google Street View is coming to Germany in the next few weeks, but nearly 3 percent of homes will be blurred, the company said today. Since April 2009, Germans have been able to petition the search company to have their homes blurred in Street View images, Google said in today’s blog post. Initially, those folks [...]

Google executed a subtle yet important shift in its management structure today, promoting one of the most visible faces of the company to oversee a potentially important source of growth. Marissa Mayer, Google’s first female engineer and probably the only one who will ever grace the pages of Vogue, is taking on a new role [...]

Satellite schmatellite. Frank Taylor, author of the Google Earth blog who’s on a five-year sailboat trip called the Tahina Expedition, supplied Google with aerial imagery that’s much higher-resolution than the usual fare obtained from cameras in orbit. The imagery is arriving on Google Maps and Google Earth. The process has some complications satellites don’t have [...]