Real estate Web site gets local

Seattle-based real estate site Zillow.com has introduced “hyperlocal” community pages that allow users to discuss issues affecting more than 6,500 neighborhoods in 130 U.S. cities.

Those cities include Spokane and Spokane Valley. No Idaho cities are included yet. The new service was added last week.

Zillow hopes to encourage users to raise questions, get answers and develop discussions around topics such as home values, amenities, recreational options and community issues. The Zillow site will display most-discussed topics in a visitor’s home city if he or she has a free account and signs in using a valid address.

Google brings out mapping tools

Google Inc. has announced plans to add tools that can stitch maps into collages of local information, allowing easier creation of Web “mashups.”

The free service, introduced Wednesday and called My Maps, represents the Mountain View, Calif.-based company’s most ambitious attempt yet to capitalize on the growing popularity of mashups – Web sites that combine maps with other information, such as locations of fire houses in a community.

In the last two years, Google estimates more than 50,000 mashups have been built on its maps to highlight information about gas prices, running routes, earthquakes, home prices and a wide range of other information.

Multiple mapplets can be laid over Google’s map simultaneously, meaning a user theoretically could get a glimpse at where homes are being sold in a specific neighborhood while also analyzing the area’s recent crime patterns.

Start clicking on those galaxies

Astronomers say they’re asking for Web users’ help in sorting through an unusual digital photo album: pictures of about 1 million galaxies. Internet volunteers will be asked to classify the galaxies as either elliptical or spiral and note, where possible, in which direction they rotate.

The goal is to add more information on the structure of the universe, according to a news release from Bob Nichol, astronomer at the University of Portsmouth in southern England.

Astronomers say computers do a poor job of classifying most images of galaxies.

For additional information, go to www.galaxyzoo.org.