Google Maps introduces some nifty new features for its users in the form of Labs (as in their famous Gmail Labs). The new features are accessible on the toolbar on the top right of the screen, labeled as “New” (look like this: 
). There are many features for all map geeks available, including Drag and Zoom (allows you to draw a rectangle on the screen to zoom in it), Aerial Imagery (a much finer resolution imagery than satellite), Rotation (rotates the map, making up South or East), and others. My favorite one is of course the option to introduce the Beta label to Google Maps, for those that suffer from nostalgia.
According to the Google GeoDevelopers Blog, the Google Maps API now supports multiple languages (list here). There is no need for developers to do anything, Google will simply translate all map controls based on the location of the user (geo-ip location). Wonderful news for all of you travelers which will end up seeing the local language at your location rather than the language you speak. Google does offer a way to define a specific language, but is that enough?
As mentioned on the Google Geo Blog yesterday, as well as by James Fee in his blog, Google’s spatial offerings (Google Maps and soon Google Earth I assume) will include comprehensive parcel data that has been collected somehow from Google. While the Geo Blog entry is sparse, there is a mention of the “Report a Problem” link added to maps, allowing users to make suggestions (and perhaps corrections) to the data served by Google. What many people have noted is that the copyright notice in the United States has changed, and now the notice reports as a copyright holder Google.
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Many people out there insist that Google Maps and Google Earth is killing the GIS industry. I had a number of students circulate that idea with me, always wondering if there is still a future for GIS. In a short simple answer, Google Maps/Earth is not a GIS, and GIS will be around for the foreseeable future.
