It’s Friday again, and we’re having a ball. Following in Curiosity’s wheel tracks, +Paul Saxman and +Brendan Kenny hosted Mars Mania and the Google Maps APIs! Working with imagery from the Mars rover and the Custom Street View Panorama API, they showed panoramas of Mars and talked about how you could too. Take a look:

Last time I had so much to mention I didn’t have space for this, but I think it deserves another look. On the 30th of July, +Marcelo Camelo and +Chris Broadfoot hosted a Q&A on getting started with the Google Places API. Lots of good stuff there, check it out:








And lastly, and because you know I love the maps of imaginary worlds from video games, I found the map of Tyria, the Guild Wars 2 world. On it, you can find crafting materials, trainers, ranger pets, and other points of interest.



Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations Team

Default routing settings for inbound messages

“Default routing” is a new option on the Email settings page in the administrator control panel. This feature enables you to set up a domain-wide routing policy for inbound messages that includes one or more settings.



Editions included: 

Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education



Languages Supported:

All languages



For more information:

http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2368153



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New setting to enforce TLS for inbound or outbound email messages

A new security setting in the administrator control panel give the administrator the ability to enforce a secure connection with users send emails to or receive emails from specific domains and email addresses.



Editions included: 

Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education



Languages Supported:

All languages



For more information:

http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2520500



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Three Gmail labs graduation into standard features

We've graduated three labs, Refresh POP accounts, Filter import/export and Navbar drag and drop.



Refresh POP accounts: Clicking the refresh link at the top of your inbox will now not only update your inbox with your new Gmail messages, but will also fetch messages from any other POP accounts which you have set up.



Filter import/export: From the Settings > Filters page you can download a file containing some or all of your filters or upload a file to create a set of filters all in one go.  This makes it easy to share filters with friends, backup filters for later and more.



Navbar drag and drop: If you use gadgets on the left-hand side of Gmail, you can now rearrange them with drag n' drop.



Editions included: 

Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education



Languages Supported:

All languages



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A programmatic way to managing licenses for Google Drive

The License Manager API allows the administrator to programmatically assign, unassign and re-assign Google Drive storage licenses to users.



Editions included: 

Google Apps for Business, Government and Education



Languages Supported:

All languages



For more information:

http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-programmatic-way-to-managing-licenses.html

https://developers.google.com/google-apps/licensing/index



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gSearch

Get the newest Google style Mac OS X Dashboard Search Widget, included Time and Date.
↓ Download

Map of the Week: Volkswagen Street View Quest

Map of the Week: Volkswagen Street View Quest

Why we like it: We really like this creative approach to interacting with Street View imagery. This Google Maps API implementation shows us that are still many different ways to take advantage of the imagery offered in the API.



When I was kid, my friends and I would play a game called “Punch Beetle” (also known as punch bug, punch dub, piggy punch, slug bug, or beetle bug depending on where you’re from). In brief: the object of the game is to be the first one to spot a Volkwagen Beetle and call out "Punch buggy!" or "Slug bug!" while punching your opponent in the arm.



In many ways, this game is a real world viral meme that became popular without the Internet. Using Google Street View imagery via the Google Maps API, Volkswagen found a way to translate this old tradition into an online game that you can play anywhere in the world without actually having to be in the car or punching anyone. Head over to the Street Quest site for a cool YouTube trailer and to start playing (note: you'll need a facebook login to participate in the challenge).

In VW Street View Quest, players search Google Street View imagery to find and tag any VW vehicles (not just bugs) that have been picked up by our cameras. The person who tags the most vehicles wins the challenge. There are also bonus challenges where users are asked to find the location of a particular car using only a few degrees of the Street View panorama as a clue.







Currently, prizes are only available to residents of South Africa, but the rest of the world can still explore the site and follow along. The top four users who find the most VW vehicles in Google Street View get to compete against each in real life to find the most VWs in Cape Town, South Africa. Overall, this concept is a fun way to embrace the sub-cultures and memes that have sprung up around the VW brand and share them with the rest of the world.



Posted by Carlos Cuesta, Google Maps API Product Marketing Manager