Google Data » Aaron Stein

This year, Santa is totally plugged in.

Aaron Stein — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:00:00 +0000

We've made a change to the NORAD Santa Tracker this year. In years past, we've created a .kmz file that users could download to watch the Big Man in Red travel around the globe on Christmas Eve using the Google Earth desktop client. This year, we're not offering a Google Earth client file. Instead, we're using the Google Earth Browser Plug-in, aka the Google Earth API, to embed the NORAD Tracks Santa Google Earth experience - replete with terrain relief, 3D buildings, and tilt-pan-rotate-zoom navigation - into a page on the NORAD Tracks Santa site. To get the Plug-in, visit http://earth.google.com and download Google Earth 5.1 - the Plug-in has been bundled with both the PC and Mac clients since Google Earth 5.1 came out of beta. The Google Earth Plug-In offers a couple of tantalizing advantages over the client-based experience:

Users can stay on the site. Because the Google Earth experience is now embedded on a web page within the site, users don't have to leave the site for 3D tracking. So, if they would like to return to the NORAD Tracks Santa Google Map--or any other page--it's just a back-button click away

It's "automatic." The NORAD Tracks Santa project is visited by users from all over the world with a wide range of technical skills and connection speeds. Last year, users were prompted to install Google Earth, download the .kmz file, then open the .kmz in Google Earth. For some less-than-technically-savvy users, this 3-part process was confusing and difficult. Using the Plug-in is much easier; if users have the lightweight client (aka, the Plug-in) installed, all they have to do is visit the NORAD Tracks Santa Google Earth page, and they'll see Santa in 3D. If users don't have the lightweight client installed, the Plug-in viewport displays a clear and easy prompt to start the download, after which the 3D tracker activates.

Elsewhere on the technical front, we've ported the 2-D tracking map to the new Maps API v3, our lightweight JavaScript API, and created two custom OverlayView extensions for it. The "cloud overlay" shows Santa spreading his sparkle and snow over his recent stops, and uses the Raphaël SVG/VML graphics Library to create cross-browser compatible blurs and shapes. The "smart infowindows" open in the direction of least resistance (above/below/left/right), to minimize map panning as the user browses around Santa's many stops. Feel free to use these in your own maps.
On December 24th, visit www.noradsanta.org and click on the "Track Santa in Google Earth" link. It's going to be (choose one):

Groovy (retros)
Wicked cool (east coasters)
Off the hook (gen Zs)
Plugged-In (developers)

Don't miss it.
Posted by Jeffery Martin, Business Product Manager

Going for gold with Google Earth

Aaron Stein — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 03:20:00 +0000

The 2010 Winter Games are just around the corner, and at Google, we're getting pretty excited.

Last week we shared some maps of local experts' favorite locations in and around Vancouver with the help from our Google Canada team. Today we've introduced photorealistic 3D building models for all nine venues of the Winter Games. Producing these models is a multi-step process involving both aerial and ground-based imagery.

Before we could begin we needed to obtain high quality aerial imagery for the Vancouver region. The new aerial imagery, now available in Google Earth and Google Maps, is pretty amazing, and provides a close-up look at this beautiful region. We then obtained ground-based photos of all nine venues. The combined ground-based images and aerial imagery are then used to construct highly detailed photorealistic 3D building models for the venues. All the models were developed by hand using SketchUp. As you'll see, we modeled everything from the gondolas to the spectator bleachers. We even included 3D trees to add a bit more realism. We'll be making a few more improvements prior to the commencement of the Games, but you can begin touring this beautiful area of the world via Google Earth today.

My personal favorites are the Whistler and Cypress Mountain ski areas. Whistler will host the alpine skiing events, and the Whistler Sliding Centre will host bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton events. Cypress will host all of the freestyle skiing and snowboarding competitions: moguls, aerials, ski cross, half-pipe, snowboard cross and parallel giant slalom.

Whistler Creekside, Vancouver, BC

The best part? You can leave the winter parka in the closet, throw a log on the fire, and visit the games from the comfort of your home. I'll be watching closely, and rooting for Team USA!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Reflections on our Africa Adventures

Aaron Stein — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:20:00 +0000

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Africa Blog]

From late October to early November, the Google Earth Outreach team, along with Googlers from our Africa and Geo teams, participated in several events in East Africa.

During the AfricaGIS 2009 conference in Kampala, Uganda, plenary sessions by Google Earth Outreach Manager Rebecca Moore and Geo Evangelist Ed Parsons spoke to the importance of access and and development of geographic data in Africa, and encouraged people to attend some of our 14 workshops on various Google Geo tools. Our colleagues from Save the Elephants, Mapping Africa's Protected Areas (MAPA) and the UN Environment Programme presented on a panel and answered questions from the audience about their Google Earth Layers. What struck us about these workshops was the high level of interest and excitement from the huge number of attendees we had at every workshop, and their desire for greater access to geospatial information and adoption of cutting-edge technologies developed weeks earlier, like the Google Fusion Tables map visualization tools.

Google Earth Outreach launched our program to most countries in Africa, also releasing an Africa microsite specially for African users. The Google Earth & Maps for Non-profits grants program is now available in most African countries, and NGOs are encouraged to apply for software grants. If you're an African NGO, apply now!

Posted by Tanya Keen, Google Earth Outreach

Our final imagery update of 2009

Aaron Stein — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:40:00 +0000

We just launched our final imagery update of the year for Google Earth and Google Maps. Check to see if any of your favorite places have gotten an update! You can view the updated areas highlighted in red below. Alternatively, you can download this KML for viewing in Google Earth or you view the updates in Google Maps.

Updates are noted with a red frame.

We're excited to provide you with the freshest, most current imagery in Google Earth again next year, in 2010.

Posted by Matt Manolides, GIS Specialist

Mars in Google Earth imagery update

Aaron Stein — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:50:00 +0000

We just launched new imagery and terrain for Mars in Google Earth! If you have the Google Earth plugin installed, you can view the updated areas highlighted in red (imagery) and white (terrain) below. Alternatively, you can download this KML, for viewing while using Mars in Google Earth.

The updates are from the High Resolution Stereo Camera aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. With these updates, nearly half of the martian surface is covered by imagery having a nominal resolution of 25 meters per pixel. As such, there are many exciting, newly-visible surface features to see. We've indicated some of these sights with color-coded arrows on the globe below:

Red arrow: Layered deposits on the floor of Hebes Chasma.

White arrow: Voluminuous lava flow fields adjacent to, and associated with, the Tharsis volcanoes Ascraeus and Pavonis Mons.

Blue arrow: New imagery of Olympus Mons' Aureole and the huge glacier-like structures along its north-west flank.

Yellow arrow: New images of the Shalabanta Valles (a deep canyon) section north of Orson Welles Crater showing huge landslides that occurred with such force that the debris (having an area the size of Chicago) flowed half-way up the other side of the canyon.

Green arrow: Dust and ice layers that comprise one of the Mars' most active geologic features, the ice cap of the north polar plateau, Planum Boreum.

Imagery and terrain updates are noted with a red and white frame, respectively

As a reminder, you can view Mars in Google Earth by clicking the 'planets' button on the toolbar:

Click here to find out more about Mars (and Moon!) in Google Earth.

You can also share your cool new imagery finds with us using Twitter! After looking at the updates in the viewer above, tweet your cool finds and add the #GEarthIMG hashtag to your tweets.

Posted by Eric Kolb, Geo Data Strategist

Local Experts share a few spots in Vancouver

Aaron Stein — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:50:00 +0000

Voted the most livable city by The Economist, Vancouver fronts the Pacific Ocean in British Columbia, Canada. This February it will host the 2010 Winter Games, and beforehand we wanted to share the favorite (or "favourite", for Canadian readers) places of some notable Vancouverites.

Vancouver is the first Canadian city we're adding to the special local experts version of Favorite Places on Google Maps, our insider's guides to great cities around the world. For this edition, every expert has been given the same Maple Leaf pin as the city warms up for the Olympics. Take a look at their top Vancouver picks for eating, shopping, playing and more:

Gordon Campbell - Premier of British Columbia
Ross Rebagliati - Olympic Gold Medallist, snowboarding
Simon Whitfield - Olympic Gold & Silver Medallist, triathlon
Rob Feenie - Food Concept Architect for Cactus Restaurants, Iron Chef champion
Bif Naked - rock singer-songwriter, breast-cancer survivor
Kit Pearson - children's book writer, Governor General's Award winner
Monte Clark - owner of Monte Clark Gallery
Rebecca Bollwitt - Vancouver's Best Blogger & Top Twitter User for Miss604.com
David Eaves - public policy entrepreneur, open government specialist

View Ross Rebagliati's Favorite Places in a larger map

And if you need an expert travel writer, John Lee from Lonely Planet provided contributions this past October (see other Lonely Planet Contributions).

Further explore the city with Street View for Vancouver, where you can click on "Street View" for any of these favorite places to see how they really look. Recently, we also launched new aerial imagery of Vancouver, Squamish and Whistler in Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google Maps for mobile and added thousands more 3D buildings in downtown Vancouver to Google Earth:

Posted by Tamara Micner, Google Canada & David Kim, Google Maps Marketing

Sometimes eight screens are better than one

Aaron Stein — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:15:00 +0000

Back in June of 2008, some of my fellow engineers and I got to thinking: how could we recreate the experience of seeing the impressive imagery from our geo products in a more seamless way? We scrounged some spare Linux workstations, and in our 20% time we modified a video player to play sequences of Street View shots in sync across three screens, like the Tour de France flipbooks we created in 2008. It worked! Playing back the panoramas like a flipbook made it feel like we were zooming through the streets of the world.

Next, we started brainstorming about how we could build a case for the screens. One weekend, while we were hanging around the shop and looking for a woodworking project, we started building a sort of gazebo out of 2x4s and plywood to display these screens. Here's what we came up with:

The wood gazebo was a bit awkward to carry around, so Ji Lee, a mechanical engineer on the team, offered to design a steel frame that we could disassemble and take to conferences. We finished it just in time for Google I/O in June of this year.

We wanted to try visualizing other cool geo displays, so in July, Dan Barcay, one of the engineers on the Google Earth team, modified a Google Earth client so that it would synchronize views across multiple computers. The effect was pretty stunning: all of a sudden, flying around in Google Earth really felt like flying, and exploring the ocean trenches was like piloting a submarine. When you splashed through the sea surface you cringed slightly, expecting to get wet. You could even command your own lander down to the Moon or Mars. It was amazing to all of us how much more impressive Google Earth felt when we were surrounded by screens and able to turn our heads to look around (and even walk around). It felt more like a ride than a computer program, something between an observation-deck and a glass-walled spaceship. As a result of this totally seamless, immersive experience, we decided to name it the Liquid Galaxy. With the Liquid Galaxy, we could fly through the Grand Canyon, leap into low-Earth orbit, and come back down to perch on the Great Pyramid of Giza without even breaking a sweat.

It's still a 20% time project for us, but we're excited about the Liquid Galaxy and we're working hard to improve it. And we still love bringing it to conferences so that more people can try it out. We just finished setting up our latest creation at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen.

Hopefully we'll see you there, at AGU this December, or in one of the Google offices with a Liquid Galaxy.

Posted by Jason Holt, Software engineer

More new imagery added to Google Earth and Google Maps

Aaron Stein — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:00:00 +0000

We just launched new imagery for Google Earth and Google Maps. Check to see if any of your favorite places have gotten an update! You can view the updated areas highlighted in red below. Alternatively, you can download this KML, for viewing in Google Earth or you view the updates in Google Maps.

Updates are noted with a red frame

You can also share your cool new imagery finds with us using Twitter! After looking at the updates in the viewer above, tweet your cool finds and add the #GEarthIMG hashtag to your tweets. Here are some interesting examples of tweets we saw last time we updated our imagery:

@Rukasu1: Checking out the massive size and scope of the Menik Farm IDP Camp in Sri Lanka with the new GE imagery. #GEarthIMG http://tiny.cc/D4P9P
@Henk_e_S: New road infrastructure in Hoek van Holland: http://bit.ly/MXrDd #GEarthImg
@Spathiinc: New GeoEye-1 imagery in Google Earth/Maps of World Cup Stadium construction in Cape Town: http://bit.ly/7oLkGL #GEarthIMG
@Mpegg: Checking out the awesome new imagery of Whistler, site of 2010 Olympics on @googleearth: http://bit.ly/74PdrJ #GEarthIM

Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior Geo Data Strategist

Climate Action – Let Gov. Schwarzenegger be your guide!

Aaron Stein — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:15:00 +0000

[Cross-posted from the Official Google.org Blog]

Today Governor Schwarzenegger and the California Natural Resources Agency is announcing CalAdapt, a new Google Earth-based tool designed to help Californians learn more about climate impacts and adaptation. The Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI) helped develop the CalAdapt prototype with support from the California Energy Commission and Google.org. SEI has been a leader in developing an international network of interactive climate adaptation tools, as you can see at WeAdapt. CalAdapt is still in Beta, but the goal for this interactive tool is to bring science to the people.

And California has the science. The California Climate Change Center is one of the few state-funded climate research programs in the country. The Center has provided critical support for research and collaboration among scientists and resource managers in a series of state-wide climate assessments.

Don't miss Gov. Schwarzenegger's narrated Google Earth tour, which shows the risks of continued climate change for Californians and the important actions state and local agencies are taking to address these. See the short video version below (and the longer one here) or download the full tour for Google Earth here. You can learn more about California's response in its Climate Adaptation Strategy, which was also released today.

We're pleased to see California's continued leadership in addressing climate change.

Posted by Dr. Amy Luers, Senior Manager, Environment, Google.org

Santa, Santa, when will you be here?

Aaron Stein — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:00:00 +0000

As I slowly emerge from my tryptophan-induced coma, I find my thoughts drifting merrily toward the next holiday on the calendar. And, like any kid trapped in an adult's body, I have to admit that I'm no more immune to the heady anticipation of Santa's arrival than I was as a wide-eyed eight-year-old lad.

I remember putting up the tree, stringing the lights, and wrapping the presents, the smell of freshly-baked pies tickling my nose and the sound of Christmas carols floating through cinnamon air. My dad would hang a wreath on the front door. My mom would tie a big red bow on the dog. And, in a small digression from this Rockwellian scene, we would call NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, to track Santa.

Times have changed. Now, in addition to taking phone calls, NORAD shows Santa's location online at www.noradsanta.org. There you can view a collection of video snippets from Santa's journey last year, play holiday games (a new one released each day), receive updates from Santa's Village, and read a special tribute to Colonel Harry Shoup, the father of the program, who passed away this year.

Bookmark the site so you can visit often. And be sure to come back on Christmas Eve. That's when NORAD actively tracks Santa's journey in its entirety, from take-off to touch-down. You'll be able to view his position on a Google Map, in your browser with the Google Earth plug-in, and on most phones.

Happy holidays to all! (And to Santa... a good flight!)

Posted by Jeffery Martin, Business Product Manager

May the best model win

Aaron Stein — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:45:00 +0000

Since we released Google Building Maker several weeks ago, we've seen a large inflow of new 3D models. Great job!

If you've been following our posts (or Tweets), you might be wondering why we're introducing new cities in Building Maker in the same locations where we have existing 3D buildings in Google Earth. It's pretty simple really, but allow me to explain.

If you explore any of the cities currently in Google Earth you'll notice that there is a blend of 3D data from multiple sources, including Google-created, contributed (by cities and local governments), and community-generated (geo-modelers using either SketchUp or Building Maker) buildings.

The Google-created buildings act as a base layer. While these models are an accurate depiction of the real world in their current form, we consider them to be a starting point upon which the geo-modeling community will update and improve them with higher quality models, with rich metadata about the buildings. I liken the "3D Buildings" layer in Google Earth to a giant 3D wiki, which, by definition, "allows visitors to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change some available content."

Here's a couple important things to keep in mind when modeling for Google Earth:

1. Photo-textured models that meet our quality standards will automatically replace untextured models, regardless of source.

2. Photo-textured models, generated in either SketchUp or Building Maker, are reviewed against a Google-created model (if one exists), and, if it's of comparable quality and completion, we will always choose the hand-drawn model over the Google-created one.

Whether you're a new Building Maker user or an accomplished SketchUp user, the key thing to remember is that the best model should always win. Will we replace the Google-created buildings with user-generated buildings? You bet! The source of the model is irrelevant. What's important is that we're all working together to collaboratively build a virtual representation of our world.

So, keep on modeling. We look forward to seeing your creations come through the pipeline! Let's work together to create a 3D world!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Business Product Manager

More new imagery in November

Aaron Stein — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:30:00 +0000

We just launched new imagery for Google Earth and Google Maps. Check to see if any of your favorite places has gotten an update! You can download this KML for viewing in Google Earth or you view the updates in Google Maps. Or you can view the updated areas highlighted in red below:

Updates are noted with a red frame

You can also share your cool new imagery finds with us using Twitter! After looking at the updates in the viewer above, tweet your cool finds and add the #GEarthIMG hashtag to your tweets. Here's one interesting example of a tweet we saw last time we updated our imagery:

@8ctagon #GEarthIMG @gsightseeing Historical Imagery in Dakar 1942. Planes in flight 14.706837°-17.4, 16356°".

For some added fun, point the Twittersphere to the precise location using a Google Maps link. In a few weeks time, we'll follow things up with a round-up of tweets from those of you using the hashtag and share them with all of you. We'll also be re-tweeting some of your finds from @googleearth.

Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior Geo Data Strategist

Group on Earth Observations Portal enables you to see forests and the trees

Aaron Stein — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know that deforestation and forest degradation account for almost 20% of global warming emissions? That is more than all of the emissions from global transportation combined! Yet, it has historically been difficult to integrate avoided deforestation and degradation into climate policy plans. Why? In part, because it requires a great deal of collaboration and technical expertise to make sure that the right data are collected and made accessible and that the right techniques are available to analyze and verify the data.

Scientists, NGOs and politicians have been working on this problem for a while, but only recently has a truly comprehensive international approach been attempted. The Intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO), mobilizing national institutions, inter-governmental organizations, space agencies and the research community, has worked to facilitate access to satellite, airborne, and in situ data, and create a framework to establish technical standards for a global network of national forest carbon tracking systems. GEO, with the help of the Google Earth Outreach team, has worked to develop a forest carbon tracking portal which will become a central point for online collaboration and data collection.

Today, the first version of the portal was launched at a GEO plenary. The portal itself runs on Google Apps. I worked with GEO to create a web page that uses the Google Earth browser plugin and Appengine. The page shows satellite data provided by several space agencies, as well as the first maps that can be used to detect deforestation. It is structured to also show other types of data and maps as soon they become available. Here's the map of Mexico forest types within the portal interface. You can zoom in to see individual polygons and click on them to see the corresponding forest type.

You can read a more complete description of GEO FCT (Forest Carbon Task) here.

I'd like to thank numerous GEO FCT participants for their feedback, as well as other Googlers who've provided technical help. In particular, kudos to Roman Nurik for his original KML layer example, as well as to Matt Hancher and Rupert Breheny.

Posted by Simon Ilyushchenko, Site Reliability Engineer

New cities, features added to Building Maker

Aaron Stein — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:50:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, we launched Building Maker, a new way to model buildings in 3D for Google Earth. Since then, we've been excited by the community's enthusiastic response and today, we're announcing that eight new cities can now be modeled with Building Maker: Brussels, Rotterdam, Cologne, Dortmund, Boston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and San Jose.

We've also made some useful improvements to the product, including: the option of a Google Earth-view when you're choosing a location to model, the ability to save models as drafts before submitting them for review, and a new tool for tracing buildings.

For more information about this announcement, have a look at our post on the Google SketchUp blog.

Posted by Spudde Childs, Software Engineer

New cities, new features in Building Maker

Aaron Stein — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:30:00 +0000

When we launched Building Maker a few short weeks ago we were unsure how everyone would respond. Given the massive influx of models we've received since it launched, one thing is clear - you like making buildings for Google Earth! If there's been a consistent request since we launched it's "more cities please!" So today we're adding eight more for your modeling enjoyment:

- Brussels, Belgium
- Rotterdam, the Netherlands
- Cologne, Germany
- Dortmund, Germany
- Boston, MA, USA
- Las Vegas, NV, USA
- Los Angeles, CA, USA
- San Jose, CA, USA

This release expands our city offering to three new countries: Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany. Brussels has architecture ranging from the medieval to the postmodern. Rotterdam has some of the tallest buildings in the Netherlands, as well as the famous cube houses. Largely rebuilt after World War II, Cologne mixes modern architecture with churches and landmarks from the Middle Ages. Church towers characterize the skyline of Dortmund, Germany. All told, there are some terrific (and challenging!) buildings to model.

In the United States, our list of cities continues to grow. In Boston, buildings such as the Massachusetts State House, Faneuil Hall and others along the Freedom Trail are prime examples of colonial New England architecture. Boston is also an epicenter for well known universities including Boston University, M.I.T, Radcliffe, and Harvard. Las Vegas has has some of the wildest and most unique architecture available, and should test the skills of Building Maker users. Los Angeles is the second largest city in the U.S., and the area we have added includes downtown L.A., Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and the UCLA campus. Finally, San Jose will be at the center of our largest coverage area in Building Maker to date. It will now be possible to model buildings in the area stretching from Gilroy, CA to Mountain View, CA.

In addition to the exciting list of new cities available in Building Maker, we've also introduced some feature updates that may interest you. First, we've introduced a Google Earth view in Location Picker. When choosing a location, you are now able to click the "Earth" view so that you can see what buildings have already been built in the area you are modeling in order to avoid duplicated effort or to look for buildings that need improvement.

Not ready to submit your model for review? Then use the new "draft save" feature. In the save dialog under "Additional options" you can now uncheck the check box for "This building is complete and ready for review." [Note: English only] This will save a draft version of the building and will not be reviewed for inclusion in Google Earth until a completed version is saved.

Finally, we've introduced a new primitive type - the "Freeform Polygon" [English only]. As the name implies, this primitive allows you to create a polygon with any number of sides. Of the primitives offered, this is the most free form shape, but it is also the most challenging to use because it is so unconstrained. It is best used when building on top of existing blocks using the snapping feature. We recommend that you first toggle off the snapping tool, drag and constrain the points of the polygon in multiple images, and then toggle on the snapping tool to glue the points to existing blocks.

We hope you enjoy these new features and building models in these new Building Maker cities.

Posted by Spudde Childs, Software Engineer

Online and offline globetrotting come together with voyage around the world

Aaron Stein — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:15:00 +0000

For the last three years I've been friends with the author of the Google Earth Blog, Frank Taylor. Besides being a Google Earth enthusiast, Frank is also quite the thrill-seeker; he didn't hesitate to let me fly his plane while he shot photos of the 2006 X-Prize Cup. However, Frank is about to embark upon a mission requiring even more bravery.

Frank is moving from virtual, to actual globetrotting - he and his wife are embarking on a five-year trip around the world in their sailboat, Tahina. But, Frank isn't leaving his passion for Google Earth on dry land. For the next five years, Frank will share maps of his GPS tracks, videos, 360-degree panoramic photos, aerial photography captured from a kite (see an example here), and more, with regular updates to Google Earth. You'll also be able to follow Frank's progress on his website, www.TahinaExpedition.com and, thanks to his partnership with National Geographic, on their site as well.

Frank has told us that one of the goals of his trip is to raise awareness about issues like climate change, pollution, coral reef disease, and the need to create more marine protection areas. We're excited to help him share his amazing trip with the world.

Frank, we wish you bon voyage and bonne chance, especially battling the sea, weather, boredom, pirates, and those sea monsters depicted on old maps.

Posted by Robin Ziegler, Community Development, Google Earth

Saving the world, one line of code at a time

Aaron Stein — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:25:00 +0000

The whole thing started last spring at the first-ever Crisis Camp in Washington DC where we heard about the challenges that NGOs, governments, and first responders face during disaster response.

We discussed these challenges with colleagues from Microsoft, and Yahoo. We all agreed that we could provide technological development. But, even for large companies, resources are finite. So, the question became, “How do we make this happen quickly?”

We decided to reach out to our active development communities. Out of this effort, Random Hacks of Kindness, a hackathon for humanity, was born. Random Hacks of Kindness, jointly sponsored by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA, and the World Bank, aims to build an active developer community around disaster response and humanitarian relief.

This weekend, benevolently-inclined hackers will listen to a keynote from FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. Then they’ll churn out some of the most important open source code on the planet—code that saves lives and mitigates human suffering. They'll address problems like, how do we crowdsource information from local citizens to aid first resonders? How do we quickly collect and publish fresh aerial imagery of an affected area? How do we create a comprehensive missing persons finder after a disaster?

Their work will have a positive, lasting impact on the state of the human experience, not just here in the U.S, but all around the globe.

While it’s no exaggeration to call these coders modern-day superheroes, they’ll be going home with just a T-shirt for their efforts. It's a nice T-shirt, but perhaps masks and capes would have been more appropriate.

For more information, visit http://www.randomhacksofkindness.org

Posted by Jeff Martin, Google Crisis Response Team

Historical Imagery Updates for Berlin

Aaron Stein — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

With Historical Imagery in Google Earth, we've made it possible to use Google Earth imagery to see how the world has changed over time. We've been adding imagery since the feature launched in February, and today we announced on our Google Germany Blog that we've added historical images of Berlin from 1945 and 1953. To view these new images, you'll need Google Earth 5.0. Historical imagery can be accessed by clicking on the clock icon in the top menu bar. Here's a sample of what you'll find as you explore the imagery:

Berlin 1945

Berlin 1953

Berlin 2009

Posted by Stefanie Schneider, Google Germany

November Imagery Update

Aaron Stein — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:40:00 +0000

Having worked on updates to Google Earth/Maps imagery for some time, I've always enjoyed seeing how the world changes through our regular updates. But, I've wanted to see them more often. Today, I'm happy to announce that we're increasing the frequency of our updates to bring you the world's freshest and most complete imagery.

As a part of this announcement, we're also making some changes to the way that we tell you about new imagery. We'll continue to publish a blog post for our updates but instead of our regular 'Where in the World' quizzes, we're going to start to embed a web-based Google Earth view of the updates in our blog post (like we have below), and continue to link to the KML file for viewing inside the Google Earth application.

In addition, you can share your cool new imagery finds with us using Twitter! After looking at the updates in the viewer below, tweet your cool finds and add the #GEarthIMG hashtag to your tweets. For some added fun, point the Twittersphere to the precise location using EarthURL.org. In a few weeks time, we'll follow things up with a round-up of tweets from those of you using the hashtag and share them with all of you. We'll also be re-tweeting some of your finds from @googleearth.

Updates are noted with a red frame

We hope you have fun tweeting all of the great new imagery finds from the cities, countries, and regions we're making available in this new release.

Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior Geo Data Strategist

Google Maps Navigation comes to Android 2.0

Aaron Stein — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:30:00 +0000

In 2005 we launched Google Maps, and later that year, we launched Google Maps for mobile, providing maps and driving directions to users on the go. Over the past few years we've continuously added new features to Google Maps for desktop computers and mobile phones, such as My Location, live traffic data, and satellite and street views. But our driving directions have always remained written in list form - not particularly useful while you're actually driving. Until now!

Today we're announcing the beta launch of Google Maps Navigation, an internet-connected GPS navigation system with voice guidance and automatic rerouting, as a feature of Google Maps on phones that run Android 2.0. Google Maps Navigation isn't like the GPS systems you might be used to - it was built from the ground up to use Google Maps services over your phone's internet connection. This means using Google search, by typing or by voice, to enter your destination (whether or not you know the address); viewing your route on 3D satellite views and in Street View; and always running on the freshest map, business, and live traffic data available from Google Maps.

Read more about Google Maps Navigation on the Official Google Mobile blog.

Posted by Iljya Kalai, Software Engineer

Wild about Africa

Aaron Stein — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:10:00 +0000

[We invited March Turnbull from the MAPA Project to write a guest post and describe the work they've done to create a detailed map of Africa's protected areas -- Ed.]

The greatest wildlife show on earth is about to arrive on your PC.

Africa is the last continent on earth to hold on to its ‘megafauna’ – the really big stuff like elephants, rhinos and herds of antelope tens thousands strong - and it’s hanging on to them by the skin on its teeth.

Here at the MAPA Project, we’re making sure that no one can say “We never knew!” when it comes to keeping African parks and wildlife in the public eye.

MAPA stands for ‘Mapping Africa’s Protected Areas’ and so far we’ve plotted the major parks, reserves, and protected areas for Southern and East Africa. Check them out on Google Earth and watch epic wildlife video snippets or just find out about places you didn’t even know existed. Download the MAPA layer and find out just how extraordinary our continent is. You can also find the layer in the Google Earth Outreach Showcase.

What’s the largest mammal migration on earth? You’d probably guess the wildebeest migration in East Africa with over a million wildebeest and zebra on the move every year. Well, it may be the heaviest one, but what about the two million fruit bats which gather in Kasanka National Park in Zambia every November and fly off every evening, darkening the sky for twenty minutes? Nobody knows why they all go there, but go they do – and you can too.

It’s a work-in-progress and we have thousands more parks, blog posts, research projects and icons to get up but we are really on our way now. We plan to be at it for another couple of years but if you need to know anything about conservation in Africa, start here and you will end up in the right place.

Conservationists and GIS enthusiasts all across Africa are helping us to pull this groundbreaking project together. You can too: each park and reserve on the map tells its story and each links to websites with even more info. Bloggers are welcome on the layer and over fifty are already keeping us posted with what they are doing for conservation.

Have you ever wondered what happens to all those tracks that researchers download from satellite collars on the National Geographic channel? Well we did too, so we’re looking for them and we’ve already put a couple online for you to unravel, with plenty more to come.

So, if you are considering traveling in Africa, if you need some really credible background to that news story or school project, or if you just know the value of something that is irreplaceable, load this layer and watch what Africa is doing to conserve its priceless environmental legacy. For more information on how to get involved, visit www.mapaproject.org.

Posted by March Turnbull, Mapping Africa's Protected Areas

Celebrating the heroes of Google Earth

Aaron Stein — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

We're thrilled to know that hundreds of millions of people use Google Earth to discover, explore, and learn more about the world around them. However, we're especially proud of the fact that Google Earth has been used as a tool to help people change the world. Today, to celebrate the individuals and organizations that have used Google Earth in their efforts to effect change, we're launching the Google Earth heroes project. We're highlighting the work of five organizations with this launch, with several other profiles soon to follow.

Project Kaisei
Right now, in the North Pacific Gyre, an 'island' of garbage twice the size of the state of Texas is floating across the surface of the ocean. This area was recently visited by the members of Project Kaisei who tracked their voyage using Google Earth and Maps. Project Kaisei researchers have experimented with converting plastic particles from the "Plastic Vortex" into diesel, and hope to eventually power their vessels with this fuel, creating fully sustainable expeditions. Video

Save the Elephants
For over 20 years, Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants, has worked to protect elephants in Mali from poachers using geofences and satellite collars, among other technologies. With Google Earth, Dr. Douglas-Hamilton can track these elephants on a map and has been able to save many animals' lives, rescuing trapped elephants and helping animals suffering from the effects of local drought and climate change. Video

Borneo Orangutan Survival
The number of Orangutans in the wild today is decreasing at a staggering pace largely because of the destruction of their rainforest habitats. In Sumatra, recent calculations show that the total Orangutan population has fallen from 12,000 in 1993 to approximately 6,500 today. Willie Smits and the Borneo Orangutan Survival Organization have used Google Earth as a platform to enable everyone to participate in their reforestation project by viewing and adopting forest acreage in the Samboja Lestari region. Video

Chief Almir and the Surui
Since he first observed the illegal logging of his tribe's territory with Google Earth in an internet cafe several years ago, Chief Almir Surui, along with Google Earth Outreach, have worked together to raise awareness about this issue, and Surui culture as a whole. Most recently, in addition to the launch of the “Trading Bows and Arrows for Laptops” Google Earth tour, members of the Google Earth Outreach team traveled to the Amazon to teach the Surui how mobile devices can be used to capture photos of illegal logging activity and uploaded to Google Earth. Video

Appalachian Voices
Mountaintop removal coal mining refers to a process of detonating explosives in order to mine coal seams that would otherwise be difficult to access. The practice is hugely detrimental to the surrounding environment, pollutes nearby drinking-water sources, permanently destroys the mountains themselves, and often causes cancer and other diseases. Appalachian Voices, a grassroots environmental group in North Carolina, has educated millions of people, including policy-makers and legislators, about this destructive mining process by flying users over the 470 mine sites in the Appalachian mountains with Google Earth. The organization also has a layer in Google Earth dedicated to these efforts. Video

We salute these individuals and groups, and share their wonderful stories with the hope that they will inspire more people to use Google Earth to make the world a better place. If you are using Google Earth to change your world, be it in small ways or large, and would like to share your story, we want to hear from you! Please submit your story here and you could be selected as the next Google Earth Hero.

For more information about these Heroes of Google Earth, visit http://earth.google.com/changetheworld

Posted by

Krating Poonpol, Product Marketing Manager, Google Earth

Tanya Keen, Program Manager, Google Earth Outreach

Google Earth Outreach in Africa

Aaron Stein — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:10:00 +0000

We are proud to announce that as of today, the Google Earth Outreach Program is available in Africa, making it possible for local NGOs and other public benefit organizations to take advantage of Google Earth Pro software grants and other opportunities.

In addition to the launch of the program itself, several amazing examples (listed below) of non-profit organizations' efforts to visualize their work in Africa with Google Earth and tell their stories to the world are now available.

Save the Elephants takes you to Mali and shows you their effort to protect the last of the Mali Desert Elephants. This Google Earth project uses KML touring, a feature in Google Earth 5.0 and above, which enables non-profit and other public benefit groups to tell their story with a narrated tour. Your narrator on this Google Earth journey is Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Founder of Save the Elephants in Samburu, Kenya. This is also the next tour in the 'Changing Climate in Google Earth' series in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate summit in December. Download the tour here, or view it at www.google.com/cop15.

The Mapping Africa's Protected Areas Project, or MAPA, has done just that: mapped Africa's parks and reserves in Southern and East Africa. See rich content including park boundaries, GPS tracks, images, and more, as this project makes available for the first time valuable data of land and wildlife in protected areas in Africa. Download the MAPA Google Earth file here to begin exploring!

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has done it again: with the release of their new Uganda Atlas of Our Changing Environment, they have mapped areas of drastic environmental change using historical imagery for 11 sites in Uganda. See the change for yourself in Google Earth, by opening Google Earth, turning on the "UNEP: Atlas of Our Changing Environment" layer in the the Layers panel, and zooming into Uganda to click on some of the placemarks. They have also created narrated Google Earth tours for four locations of environmental change: the City of Kampala, Mabira Forest Reserve, Mount Elgon, and the Mau Complex. [Update, 11/2: The sites in the "UNEP Atlas of Our Changing Environment" layer showing areas of dramatic environmental change in Kenya and Uganda are based on work in two recent hardcover publications: "Kenya, Atlas of Our Changing Environment from UNEP" and "The Kenya Government and Uganda, Atlas of Our Changing Environment" produced by the Government of Uganda with support from UNEP.]

Use these examples to get inspired, and to get ideas for what your organization can do! If you are an African NGO or other public benefit organization, visit http://earth.google.com/outreach/africa.html to learn more, apply for a Google Earth Pro software grant, and get training materials on various Google Geo products.

Posted by Karin Tuxen-Bettman and Tanya Keen, Google Earth Outreach

Where in the World is…(Answers)

Aaron Stein — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:30:00 +0000

Hope you all had a great time exploring this new imagery around the globe and that you answered all the questions in the quiz correctly.

Here are the answers to the quiz:

1. This city was once a mill town in UK. The person who invented multi spool spinning wheel hails from this town.
-- Blackburn.
 
2. This particular county is from the United States and it was named after the 'SALT LICKS' that are in this area.
-- Licking county.
 
3. This county was a part of the ancient kingdom of the south Saxons. The English Channel lies to the south of this county.
-- East Sussex.

 4. This is the coast of one of the largest states in the US and it also shares an international border. This state fought hard for its independence.
-- Texas coast.
 
5. This city is a state capital which has the same name as of its state from Mexico, and it is famous for a large archaeological site of pre Columbia.
-- Oaxaca.

 6. This city is a state & country capital. Both the city & the state share the same name which is derived from Arabic and means “end of an elephant’s trunk”.
-- Khartoum.
 
7. This city is one of the largest industrial areas in the United States and many industries are headquartered here. Another clue to identify this place is, a company that makes beef jerky, cocktail pepperoni and other snack sausages is based here.
-- Kent.

 8. This is a metropolitan city in Brazil which is well known for its combination of contemporary and classical buildings. The city is surrounded by several parks, and a wide variety of animal species live here.
-- Belo Horizonte.

Following is a more complete version of the updates in this data push:

Americas:
- US: Kent (WA), Texas Gulf Coast, Fort Benning (GA), Davidson County (TN), Story County (IA), Union County (NC), Rowan County, Davidson County (NC), Randolph County (NC), Chatham County (NC), Greene County (NC), Craven County (NC),
- Mexico: Oaxaca
- Venezuela: Punto Fijo
- Argentina: Santa Fe, Goya
- Bolivia: Potosi
- Peru: Puno
- Brazil: Belo Horizonte, Rondonopolis

Europe, Middle East, & Africa:
- UK: East Sussex, Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Wakefield, Preston, Blackburn, Burnley, Glasgow
- Romania: Braslov, Cluj
- Ukraine: Simferopol
- Russia: Ulan-Ude
- Turkey: Konya, Karaman
- Saudi Arabia: Najran
- Iran: Birjand
- Tunisia: Sousse
- Algeria: El-Jazair
- Morocco: Bechar, Taourirt
- Nigeria: Gombe
- Sudan: Al Khurtum
- South Africa: Port Elizabeth

Asia & Oceania:
- India: Mumbai, Agra,
- China: Xining, Anshan, Linhe
- Indonesia: Cirebon, Surabaya
- Kazakhstan: Shymkent, Semey

New 2.5m base imagery for: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Iceland, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Kazakhstan, China, and Laos.

For even more fun exploring the new imagery, here is a KML outlining all the areas receiving new data.

Posted by Mukesh K.B, GIS Specialist

The Surui on the internet: "Trading Bows & Arrows for Laptops"

Aaron Stein — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:45:00 +0000

[We've invited Chief Almir Surui to write a guest post about the ways the Surui tribe of Brazil has been using Google Earth -- Ed.]

Among the Surui tribe of the state of Rondonia in Brazil, a gift is given when a gift is received. This is how our Bioneers experience ended – with an exchange of gifts between Māori tribal representative, Wikuki Kingi of New Zealand, and myself. Presented with a fertility amulet carved out of whale bone, I, Chief Almir Surui, responded by offering a necklace of traditional beads from around my neck.

This past weekend, at the 20th anniversary of the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California indigenous representatives, socially-conscious entrepreneurs and foundations, as well as other green-minded participants, gathered for an exchange of ideas to discuss innovative solutions to the social issues that matter in the “new” green revolution. Honored to be a part of this forum, I and my colleagues, Rebecca Moore, Manager of Google Earth Outreach, and Vasco van Roosmalen, Brazil Director of the Amazon Conservation Team, unveiled the “Trading Bows and Arrows for Laptops” Google Earth tour. Our goal with this tour is to tell the world about my people, the Surui, our struggles and our successes, and how our lessons-learned can contribute toward a more sustainable world for everyone. This tour uses Google Earth to share the history and realities of the Surui people and our contributions to preserving the world’s largest rainforest – the Amazon.

In September 1969 – only 40 years ago - the first white men entered our forests. With great hope, we welcomed these visitors in order to build peaceful relations with the outside world. However, our hope for the future was met with great tragedy. Just two years after first contact, the Surui population had dropped from 5,000 people to only 290. Not only did we lose our people to new diseases, our culture was threatened with extinction as a result of the deaths of our elders. At 17, I assumed a leadership role and am now looking to the outside world with renewed hope.

The illegal logging of the rainforest in our territory began by outsiders two decades ago, and still continues today. With help from the Amazon Conservation Team, Kaninde, Google Earth Outreach and other partners, we are bringing the Surui story to the world so that we can strengthen our ability to protect and sustainably manage the 600,000 acres of threatened rainforest which is our home.

Explore the tour in Google Earth

Posted by Chief Almir Surui

Where in the World is…

Aaron Stein — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:45:00 +0000

Hey imagery lovers, welcome back!

With the update of big chunk of new imagery in Google Earth, we are once again back with our quiz. So, take a break and start exploring. You never know, there might be a new image of your hometown in Google Earth!

We know that you are anxious to see high quality images and so, we are working hard to offer regular imagery updates and replace low resolution images with high resolution ones.

So, all set for the quiz? Here we go!

1. This city was once a mill town in UK. The person who invented multi spool spinning wheel hails from this town.

2. This particular county is from the United States and it was named after the 'SALT LICKS' that are in this area.

3. This county was a part of the ancient kingdom of the south Saxons. The English Channel lies to the south of this county.

4. This is the coast of one of the largest states in the US and it also shares an international border. This state fought hard for its independence.

5. This city is a state capital which has the same name as of its state from Mexico, and it is famous for a large archaeological site of pre-Columbia.

6. This city is a state and country capital. Both the city and the state share the same name which is derived from Arabic and means “end of an elephant’s trunk.”

7. This city is one of the largest industrial areas in the United States and many industries are headquartered here. Another clue to identify this place is: a company that makes beef jerky, cocktail pepperoni, and other snack sausages is based here.

8. This is a metropolitan city in Brazil which is well known for its combination of contemporary and classical buildings. The city is surrounded by several parks and a wide variety of animal species live here.

Posted by Mukesh K.B, GIS Specialist

Activating Activists

Aaron Stein — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:10:00 +0000

Last week, the Google Earth Outreach team went to the Patagonia's Tools for Grassroots Activists Conference up in Lake Tahoe, California, and the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California.

At the Patagonia's Tools Conference, all types of activists came together -- individuals such as Tim DeChristopher, who stood up against America's dependency on oil and non-renewable energy by disrupting a BLM oil and gas auction, to organizations like Surfrider and Trout Unlimited. Inspired by speakers such as Brian O'Donnell from the National Conservation System Foundation and Owen Bailey of the Sierra Club, these groups learned about campaign strategy, fundraising techniques, and internet tools for getting their message out. Patagonia founder and lifelong environmental activist and inventor Yvon Chouinard and Oberlin University's Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies, David Orr, were the special guests who wowed the audience with inspiring stories of grassroots environmental activism.

The Bioneers Conference welcomed, as a plenary speaker, one of our close partners, Chief Almir of the Amazon Surui Tribe. We visited the Surui in the Amazon last year to train them, and several other indigenous tribes, on using Google tools like Picasa and Blogger to share their culture and their way of living in the rainforest with the rest of the world. They were also using Google Earth to show where illegal logging is taking place. Chief Almir was in the Bay Area with his non-profit partner, Amazon Conservation Team, to celebrate the opening of Denise Zmekhol's film, Trading Bows & Arrows for Laptops, at the Mill Valley Film Festival. At Bioneers, the Google Earth Outreach team also taught two Google Earth and Maps workshops, including one focusing on indigenous mapping.

Non-profit organizations who didn't attend one of these events can view complete tutorials online at http://earth.google.com/outreach. We had a great time working hands-on with non-profits at both these conferences, and are looking forward to next year!

Posted by Tanya Keen and Karin Tuxen-Bettman, Google Earth Outreach

Hasbro, maker of ‘Monopoly’ game, launches the Design your own Building Competition

Aaron Stein — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:20:00 +0000

[Cross-Posted from the Official SketchUp Blog]

Hasbro, the makers of the Monopoly game, have officially announced a competition that gives Monopoly-lovers the chance to design a building that will be included in the new interactive game Monopoly City Streets.

To enter this competition, you need to design a 3D building using Google SketchUp and upload it to the Google 3D Warehouse. The deadline to submit entries is Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 11:59pm, EST. Visit the Monopoly City Streets blog for the Official Rules, prizes, and more information.

Here's how it works:

Download Google SketchUp for free.
Learn to build 3D models with SketchUp by watching video tutorials and related YouTube videos. Download and work through a few examples using these self-paced tutorials: Introduction to SketchUp, Starting a Drawing Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
From SketchUp, choose "Share Model" and upload your 3D building to the Google 3D Warehouse (you must have a Google account to sign in).
In the upload window, add the tag "monopolycompetition09" and make sure that you've checked "Allow 3D Warehouse users to contact me about this model" so we can contact you if you win!
Within 48 hours, your model/entry will appear in the Competition Collection in the Google 3D Warehouse.

Technical Guidelines:

Buildings can be any size and any shape
Buildings must not have photo-textures; they must be painted with solid colors
The file size limit is 2 MB
The file format should be .SKP

A few quick tips:

Keep it simple. Or not. The judges will be looking at all designs – simple and complex.
Go crazy. Remember, the MONOPOLY world is a fun place. Make your building the same! Go wild and have oodles of fun doing it.
Upload as many designs as you want. The more you submit, the greater the chance of your design winning!
For some inspiration, check out some sample creations already in the Google 3D Warehouse Competition Collection.

Check out the Monopoly City Streets blog for the Official Rules and more information. Good luck!

Posted by Tasha Danko, SketchUp Product Marketing Team

College football anyone?

Aaron Stein — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:30:00 +0000

Ahhh, fall: the morning air gets crisp, the leaves start to change to their autumnal hues... and most importantly, gridirons across the land are again alive with the pomp and pagentry of college football! This weekend marks the beginning of the 2009-2010 college football season. To celebrate the joyous renewal of pigskin rivalries, we've created this KML file marking the home stadiums of the 245 NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) teams. So whether you'd like to take a trip down memory lane and re-visit the stadium of your alma mater or if you'd like more information about the next opponent of your favorite team, we've got the file for you. We've included a quick overview of each school, a link to school news, the name and an image of their mascot, and their home stadium. Oh, and be sure to turn on '3D Buildings' for full effect.

Download the KML here.

FUN FACT: While authoring this file we noticed that, as you meander across the country, you'll notice an abundance of Bison, Bulldogs, and Tigers and a paucity of Bearcats, Jackrabbits, and Horned Frogs. How many unique mascots can you find?

We hope you enjoy visiting the stadiums and learning more about the schools, stadiums, and their geospatial distribution.

Posted by Adam (go Spartans!) Hughes, Sr. Strategist, Google Apps, and Pete (go Gophers!) Giencke, GIS Data Engineer

Monitoring California Wildfires with Google Maps

Aaron Stein — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:50:00 +0000

Last week, several wildfires sprung up across California. These blazes are the latest in what is anticipated to be a very active fire season. California is tracking ahead of an average year, already reporting nearly 3,000 wildfires.

Located between the towns of Swanton and Bonnie Doone in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the Lockheed Fire has burned more than 7,000 acres and destroyed two outbuildings. Soon after the fire began, Tom Moore, Online Editor of the the Santa Cruz Sentinel, created this informative Google MyMap of the area. It is being updated regularly, and has served as a significant source of information for the residents of the area, receiving over half a million views so far.

View Lockheed Fire Map in a larger map

Data for the map is crowdsourced from a live discussion feed and added to the map by Sentinel staff. The contributors get their information from local briefings, personal interviews, and empirical observations. While the data has not been verified by an authoritative source such as CalFire and may therefore contain some inaccuracies, the benefit is that it can be published quickly to get valuable information into the hands of those who need it while it's still relevant.

As of Monday morning, the Lockheed Fire was 65% contained - up from 5% Friday afternoon. We wish the firefighters on the front-lines luck and safety in their ongoing efforts. We also wish good fortune to the local community members whose homes and businesses are threatened.

Posted by Jeffery Martin, Google Crisis Response Team

Map Maker gets a European flair

Aaron Stein — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:50:00 +0000

Google Map Maker (mapmaker.google.com) has yet another exciting update, as several Eastern European countries are now open for editing: Albania, Belarus, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia. We've also opened edits for Malaysia (which recently got its own maps domain) and Brunei. This makes map editing available for users around the world in more than 170 countries / regions in total.

In the last year, mappers from around the world have contributed local knowledge with everything from mapping entire countries to adding details like one-ways to make a drivable map. We're very excited to see these new communities around the globe embrace the ability to map their countries. One example is the Romanian Facebook community, with more than 7000 members asking for Romania to be added to Google Maps. Now we invite them to join our Map Maker community: come leverage your local knowledge to help build the most comprehensive map of Romania possible.

Alongside making Map Maker available in new countries, we're committed to making the result of everyone's work as available and accessible as possible. With this launch, we're also taking a step in that direction by extending our Kenya pilot and making the entire dataset of Africa fully available for download by non-profits, government agencies and individuals to create and enhance their own non-commercial map-related projects. More details are available on our download site.

For more information on Map Maker, please visit our new overview site. Happy Mapping!

Posted by Lior Ron, Product Lead; and Lalitesh Katragadda, Tech Lead, Map Maker

Ready, Set, Go: Add a Google map to your website

Aaron Stein — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:45:00 +0000

Katie's Challenge - As part of an event planning team, Katie needs to build a simple map and display it on a webpage. The map should be simple, only 10 markers plotting event locations, but needs to be created quickly and added to a page in time for an event that will be happening tomorrow. What are Katie's options and what Google Maps tool should she use?

Allen's Challenge - Allen's boss has read about new web mapping and wants to start visualizing information on a map which today sits in large text tables on the company website. Allen leads a team that is capable of developing a complex mapping application, but he'd like to learn what options are available to the company.

With both Katie and Allen in mind we have created one place to learn all ways you can add a Google map to your website. From plotting only a few locations or embedding driving directions to more advanced custom mapping options, the URL for this site is conveniently titled:

http://maps.google.com/getmaps

Once you select the appropriate level, you'll get another set of options to pick which best describes your use case.

When Katie arrives at this site she follows the easy steps to create a My Map. She selects the size of the map she wants to embed and copies the auto-generated HTML and adds it to the event website. She even customizes a slightly smaller version for the event blog which she decides to embed in a post to let attendees know about the map. She sends a quick email to her team with a link to the map.

Meanwhile, Allen arrives and chooses "Advanced" since the mapping needs for his company are more complex. First he compares the features of the two Google Maps APIs available to his company and even finds out that Google provides a way for him to reach out to a certified Google Maps developer. He has faith in his own team and decides to read on, learning what platforms the Google Maps API is available to be developed on. After exploring the example maps presented on the site, Allan concludes that the Flash-based maps interface will provide the user experience he's looking for.

Mapping Success! Katie's team thinks she's a mapping whiz and the developers in Allen's group are impressed that he knows the difference between an interactive JavaScript and Flash-based map! We truly hope this page helps you to navigate the many options before you to add a map to your own website!

Posted by Mike Pegg, Product Marketing manager

Where in the World is … (Answers)

Aaron Stein — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:13:00 +0000

Great work figuring out the answers to the quiz! The quiz images were from the satellite GeoEye-1 and they are just so awesome to look at.

Here are the answers in case any of the questions stumped you, and below is a more complete listing of areas updated.

1) This Asian city is at the center of the Hexi Corridor and Marco Polo has spent a year in this ancient city.
-- Zhangye, China

2) The nickname "City of Lights" just gives this one away.
-- Perth, Australia

3) Tangerines were named for this city, the first one to ship the fruit to Europe.
-- Tangier, Morroco

4) This city has a government building named the "The Custom House".
-- Dublin, Ireland

5) This city is home of the two time winner of the FIBA EuroLeague Women.
-- Como, Italy

6) This northern Canadian city started its first oil boom when it struck oil on February 13, 1947.
-- Leduc, Canada

7) This beautiful rail station is central to this Asian mega-city.
-- Beijing, China (Beijing South Rail Station)

8) A major UN convention on biodiversity was held in this city in 2006.
-- Curitiba, Brazil

9) This lake is a few kilometers outside the city created in 1937 to be the headquarters for the western mining group of the High Katanga Mining Association.
-- Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of Congo

Following is a more complete version of the updates in this data push:

Americas:
United States: Thurston County (WA), Spokane (WA), Albuquerque (NM), Jackson (MS), Winnebago County (IL), Boone County (IL), Ogle County (IL), Lee County (IL), Dekalb County (IL), La Salle County (IL), Putnam County (OH), Van West County (OH), Mercer County (OH), Paulding County (OH), Shelby County (OH), Union County (OH), Morrow County (OH), Richland County (OH), Seneca County (OH), Sandusky County (OH), Ottawa County (OH), Wayne County (OH), Cabton County (OH), Tuscarawas County (OH), Harrisburg (PA), Winston-Salem (NC), Greensboro (NC), Hyde County (NC), Onslow County (NC), New Hanover County (NC), Gulf County (FL), Jackson, Liberty County (FL), Jefferson County (FL), Columbia County (FL), Gilchrist County (FL), Levy County (FL), Citrus County (FL), Lake County (FL), Sumter County (FL), Hernando County (FL), Sarasota County (FL), Osceola County (FL), Indian River County (FL), Okeechobee County (FL), Saint Lucie County (FL), Collier County (FL), Monroe County (FL), Mineola (TX), State of Missouri, State of South Carolina, the Coast of Georgia, and the Coast of Mississippi
Canada: Leduc (BC)
Mexico: Guadalajara, Leon de Los Aldama
Bolivia: La Paz
Brazil: Curitiba, Tocantins, Aracatuba,
Paraguay: Asuncion
Argentina: Rio Cuarto, Santa Rosa,

Europe, Middle East, & Africa:
Ireland: Dublin, Cork
Belgium: entire country
Italy: Amalfi, Como
Spain: Beasain, Costa del Sol
Sweden: Stockholm
Morocco: Casablanca, Agadir, Safi, Larache
Gibralter: entire country
Turkey: Antalya
Saudi Arabia: Mecca
Qatar: Doha
Oman: Masqat, Salalah
Zambia: Lusaka, Livingstone
Mozambique: Beira
Democratic Republic of the Congo: Kolwezi
Iran: Shiraz

Asia & Oceania:
Australia: Perth, Sunshine Coast, Thuringowa
China: Bejing, Baoji, Lanzhou
Pakistan: Okara
South Korea: Busan
Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur
Timor-Leste: Dili
Fiji: Suva

New 2.5m base imagery for: Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Doha, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.

For even more fun exploring the new imagery, here is a KML outlining all the areas receiving new data.

Posted by Roger Lee, GIS Data Engineer

You’re invited…

Aaron Stein — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:45:00 +0000

This Monday we'll be making a special announcement about Google Earth at the Newseum in Washington DC. The event will last from 11am to 12:30pm and will feature Google speakers, special guests, and product demos.

The Newseum is open to the public and ticket information can be found here. If you can make it, it would be great to see you there.

We're looking forward to it - hope to see you Monday!

Posted by Aaron Stein, Lat Long Blog Team

Google Earth Enterprise launches version 3.2, with APIs, historical imagery and sub-surface terrain

Aaron Stein — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:25:00 +0000

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise blog]

We're constantly adding useful and interactive functionality to our enterprise products, andGoogle Earth Enterprise is no exception. Today we're announcing the latest release of Google Earth Enterprise: version 3.2. Google Earth Enterprise allows customers to build private globes on their secure networks using the same technology that powers the public Google Earth. Version 3.2 delivers new features that allow government agencies and other organizations to apply the recent advances in the public version of Google Earth, such as historical imagery and underwater terrain, to their own data and operations.

Version 3.2 gives Google Earth Enterprise users the option of using a browser to view and interact with their private globes using the Google Earth API. This delivers the same fast, familiar, 3-D navigation that users get from Google Earth – but within a web browser rather than the standard client.

Another new addition is historical imagery in Google Earth Enterprise, making it easy for employees to view how a place or region has changed over time. Many of our customers have archives of imagery of a property or point of interest taken over a series of days, years – even decades. The 3.2 release allows customers to time-stamp the imagery, tracking changes over time to provide a handy historical reference.

With the new release, customers also have the option to build Mercator imagery tiles for any 2-D maps they create with Google Earth Enterprise. Mercator is a commonly used conformal projection for viewing tiles in the browser. The new release allows customers to easily overlay their tiles on top of Google's basemap for a 2-dimensional mashup of their own internal data and Google's. (Thanks again to Gerardus Mercator and his great work on the Nova et AuctaOrbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigatium Emendate in 1569!)

We've also added support for Enterprise users to process their own sub-surface terrain data, also known as bathymetry – something we shared in the public Google Ocean launch in February 2009. Using the Earth API or latest Google Earth Enterprise client, you can now navigate below sea level to visualize that data in your organization's globe too.

Customers who want to access Google Earth Enterprise 3.2 can email enterprise-operations@google.com for upgrade information. Not using GEE yet? See what Google Earth Enterprise has to offer.

Posted by Dylan Lorimer, Google Earth Enterprise Product Manager

Announcing the Design It: Shelter Competition

Aaron Stein — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:00:00 +0000

[Cross-posted from the Official Google SketchUp Blog]

We teamed up with the folks at the Guggenheim Museum to create a design competition that's open to people everywhere. Design It: Shelter Competition challenges participants to create a simple shelter for a specific geographic location anywhere in the world. Entries are 3D models designed in Google SketchUp, geo-located in Google Earth and uploaded to the Google 3D Warehouse.

Visitors to the competition website are able to view images, animations and descriptions of entries all in one place. With the help of the Google Earth plug-in, the 3D models themselves are visible right on the page. For the first time, you won't need to download a model to be able to see it "in the round".

The inspiration for 'Design It' comes from Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic assignment for the apprentices at Taliesin, his architecture school in Arizona and Wisconsin. Students design and physically construct shelters – small, simple buildings – as part of their studies. Then they live in them.

This competition coincides with the Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward exhibition currently on view at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Also on display is Learning By Doing, which focuses specifically on the student-built shelters at Taliesin. If you're in the area, be sure to check them out.

This video talks about what you need to do to get started:

Submission
To enter the competition, you need to fill out the submission form on the Guggenheim website. You must provide:

information about yourself (name, email, country, etc)
a description of your shelter
a link to your SketchUp model on the Google 3D Warehouse
at least one, and as many as four, JPEG images of your shelter
a link to a video of your shelter on YouTube (this is optional, but highly encouraged)

Program
Competition entries should:

provide a place for someone to study and sleep
be sited anywhere on Earth
have no more than 100 square feet (9.3 square meters) of enclosed space
be no taller than 12 feet (3.6 meters) high
not include water, gas or electricity

Timing
The competition starts today, June 8th – Frank Lloyd Wright's 142nd birthday. The deadline for submissions is August 23rd of this year. Two prizes will be awarded: the People's Prize, decided by public vote, and the Juried prize, selected by the members of a panel of architecture and design experts. Public voting for the winner of the People's Prize runs from September 7th to October 10th, and winners will be announced October 21st – the 50th anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum.

Judging
The judges will consider entries in light of five major criteria:

The relationship of the shelter to the built or natural environment around it
Innovative design
Thoughtful use of materials
Adherence to the project specifications
Quality of the SketchUp model

Prizes
Two prizes will be awarded:

The People's Prize: Current students from the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture will select ten shelters from among all of the entries. The public will choose one of these ten to receive the People's Prize by voting on the competition website.

The Juried Prize: A panel of architecture and design experts will choose the winner of the Juried Prize from among all competition entries.

Both prizes include:

airfare and two nights' accommodation for two in New York City
behind-the-scenes tours of both the Guggenheim Museum and the Google office in NYC
complimentary admission to selected NYC museums
a Google SketchUp Pro 7 license

The winner of the Juried Prize will also receive USD$1000.

Questions? Check out the competition FAQ. Good luck, and have fun.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Product Evangelist

Why we need to see the sea

Aaron Stein — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000

The ocean is a vast, deep, dark place. It has long been a source of mystery and fascination, inspiring epic tales. Early attempts to measure and better understand its depths involved dropping a rope overboard until the end hit bottom, then hauling up the line hand over hand, counting the lengths. The length of rope between a person's hands when outstretched - roughly six feet - was known as a fathom, and the verb 'to fathom', as a result, came to mean to measure the depth of something and ultimately, to comprehend it. After all, once we measure something, we immediately know something about it and can start to understand it.

But can you imagine measuring the entire ocean with lengths of rope, when some parts are nearly seven miles deep? Not only would it be practically impossible, but it's a project that's difficult to even imagine pursuing. You might even say it's unfathomable. The truth is, even with the help of today's satellites, the most sophisticated global maps of the ocean floor are really just guesswork. Satellites can hardly see past the surface of the water, let alone the ocean floor, and so the ocean remains relatively opaque to our eyes, our technology, and for the most part, our understanding.

Given how hard it is to study the ocean, it's important to make the most of what we do know. We believe a key step in understanding is visualization - this is one of the main reasons we added the oceans to Google Earth. Miles of rope, and the mysterious depths they measure, now fit on a small computer screen. Maps are, of course, just one form of visualization. Sometimes it takes a piece of artwork, something less literal and more symbolic, to make that which might seem overwhelming easier to understand. No matter what form a visualization takes, it offers promise as a starting point for comprehension, which hopefully will lead to more informed choices.

Visualizing the ocean is especially relevant today, the first UN-recognized World Oceans Day. The UN's chosen theme is "Our Oceans, Our Responsibility," which might seem like it ought to read "big oceans, big responsibility." To help get our heads around the watery part of our planet, we've collected a few visualizations of both issues facing the ocean and cutting edge science. Have a look at the problem of plastics in our oceans, find out about where currents might take your trash, the health of the world's fisheries, and what the latest satellite data says about the state of the ocean. If you find yourself wanting more, you'll also see a ticker at the bottom of the page with World Oceans Day news, and a custom search box in the upper right to help you navigate through the rich content on some of our partner sites.

Ready? Go see for yourself.

Posted by Steve Miller, Product Manager, Ocean in Google Earth

Using Google Earth to visualize the toll of war

Aaron Stein — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:45:00 +0000

For many of the people on my team, working with Google Earth is not just a day job, it's a personal passion. For example, take Sean Askay. As a graduate student he began experimenting a few years ago with using Google Earth to display complex data, including in his thesis when he used Google Earth to visualize sensor networks. It was also around that time that he began a mapping project to honor servicemen and women who, since October 2001, had lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. He published this map to the Google Earth Community in 2005 and then, two years later, found himself working here at Google.

While he's certainly kept himself busy working on the Google Earth Outreach team, he has continued to work on his map as a 20% project and in his personal time. Google Earth has come a long way since he first started this project in 2005, and all along, Sean's been updating his map with the product's newest features. Throughout the process, Sean consulted with current and retired servicemen and women, as well as veterans' organizations in the United States. He also reached out to many families of the fallen and Warrant Officer Frank McVey, a retired member of the UK's Royal Air Force (and avid Google Earth user), for guidance and help with this project.

This layer uses over 24,000 placemarks, 6,000 folders, 2,500 screen overlays, and line arcs with over 250,000 vertices, all to create an immersive and compelling user experience. By making extensive use of Google Earth 5.0's new features, including iframes, CSS and JavaScript support in balloons and time-based navigation, you can now fly to a place and time. With a blend of navigation methods, people can look up information about servicemen and women alphabetically, by age, location or chronology. Notably, Sean was also able to develop algorithms for rendering parabolic arcs - that follow rhumb lines - to connect two points on the globe, an innovative technique used to powerful effect in this project.

You can view this impressive layer and read more from Sean about his work on his website.

Posted by Brian McClendon, Engineering Director

Earth Outreach Gets a Makeover

Aaron Stein — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:40:00 +0000

You want to change the world. We want to help.

With our newly re-designed website, Google Earth Outreach can help more than ever. Our new showcase, tutorials, and community give non-profit and public benefit organizations the ability to explore, create, and connect at Google Earth Outreach.

Explore non-profit and public benefit maps with our new Showcase, where you can interact with Google Earth and Maps projects right from within the webpage. We've added Maps API and Earth API applications, as well as My Maps. You can also visit in-depth case studies for several projects from the Showcase. Some case studies, like Appalachian Voices and Clean Up the World, contain new videos about how the organization used maps to change the world.

Create maps with our enhanced Tutorials section, which includes seven new Google Earth tutorials, such as how to create a tour and embed it on your website. All of the new tutorials have videos to watch before you get started. You can also plan your project before you dive into your mapping work. Also new is a list of Tools and Resources that will help you create your maps.

Connect with other non-profits at our new Community & Grants section, which contains many different opportunities for non-profits. If you're an eligible non-profit, you can apply for Google Maps & Earth software grants, including Google Earth Pro, SketchUp Pro, and now Maps API Premier. In our new Developer Marketplace , you can find a list of programmers and developers with experience in public benefit mapping to help with your project. Finally, you can sign up for our quarterly newsletter where you can learn about new updates, upcoming trainings, and more!

Visit our new Earth Outreach website today at http://earth.google.com/outreach.

Posted by Tanya Keen and Karin Tuxen-Bettman, Google Earth Outreach

Sky Map for Android – Location and Orientation

Aaron Stein — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:10:00 +0000

Most maps are designed to help you look down on the Earth from space. But sometimes you want to do just the opposite, which is why star maps have always been designed to help you look up into space from the Earth. Since the launch of Google Sky in 2007, we've been helping users to see the view above as well, and now we're happy to welcome the newest tool in the sky mapping family: Sky Map for Android.

Most new phones today can sense their location using GPS and network signals, so they could construct a map of the stars and constellations that you might expect to see overhead. But Sky Map goes even further: Android-powered phones today have access to a compass reading as well as the other sensors, and so they can also determine the direction you're facing. Once you have a phone with a compass ("magnetometer"), a plumbline ("accelerometer"), and you can pinpoint your position (using GPS) and your time (using a clock), that's enough to work out which direction you're pointing in the Universe.

The result is a whole new sky mapping experience. Point the phone at any part of the sky, and Sky Map gives you a specially constructed map telling you what stars, planets and constellations you're looking at. You can even search for stars and planets by name, and the phone displays an arrow telling you how to move to face the object you're interested in. The phone can't "see" the stars as such: it works out their positions mathematically from the sensor readings. One quirky consequence of this approach is that Sky Map doesn't need a line-of-sight to find the stars and planets. It will just as reliably display stars you can't see on a cloudy night, stars you can't see because the Sun is shining, stars you can't see because you're indoors, and even stars in the opposite hemisphere that you can't see because the Earth itself is in the way. So you can even use Sky Map to work out that the Southern Cross is currently somewhere beneath your right foot!

As well as being orientation aware, another way that Sky Map differs from most mapping applications is that its core data model is very small. There are only a few planets in our solar system, and 88 recognized constellations in our night sky - but more surprisingly, there are only some 6000 to 9000 stars that are visible from the Earth witch the naked eye, even under the best viewing conditions. And apart from the occasional supernova once every few centuries, star data is pretty stable. This meant that we could fit all of Sky Map's core data into a tiny 60K, all of which ships freely with the application and might never need a single update in the lifetime of your phone. When you're out in the country at night, miles and miles from the nearest city light or network connection, Sky Map is one mapping application that still works perfectly, just when you want it the most!

To try Sky Map, visit the Android market at http://www.android.com/market, and search for "sky map", or you can find the application listed by popularity in the Applications > Reference section.

For more information, have a look at our post on the Google Mobile Blog and at the Sky Map landing page.

Update (5/13): We have updated the version of Sky Map for Android in Android Market. We realize that some users were experiencing crashes or slow start-up times. This new version fixes these issues, so Sky Map should now work fine on all Android-powered phones.

Posted by Dom Widdows, Differential Geometer

Who, What, Why… Where 2.0!

Aaron Stein — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:05:00 +0000

May is finally upon us and that can only mean it's time once again for the Where 2.0 Conference! The event will be held this year in San Jose from May 19-21. The geo team here at Google looks forward to this event each year for the chance it gives us to meet with the people that are helping the geoweb grow and evolve. Our very own Lior Ron and Steve Lee will be speaking about this topic in their keynote, and there are several Googlers running workshops and talks on topics ranging from how companies are using the Google Maps API to indigenous mapping.

We hope you have plans to attend but if you don't, we're hoping we can help get you out to this great geo conference. Where 2.0 organizers have given us 1 free pass for the event, a $1,690 value, and we'd like to pass it along to someone without a ticket that really wants to be there. If you aren't already planning on going, let us know why you'd like to: describe what about the event is intriguing to you and why do you want to attend. Do you have an interesting story that makes this event particularly relevant to you? Please send us your story with this form; we'll take a look at what gets submitted and select one person to receive this complimentary pass.

If you're already planning to be at the conference, be sure to stop by our booth to say hi!

Posted by Mike Pegg, Product Marketing Manager

Introducing ‘Google Earth Featured Modeler Profiles’

Aaron Stein — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:10:00 +0000

The Official SketchUp blog has introduced a new series called 'Google Earth Featured Modeler Profiles' where modelers that have submitted their work to the Google 3D Warehouse for display in Google Earth will be highlighted on a regular basis.

Our first featured modeler, "IntotheWest," has almost single-handedly enabled visitors of Calgary, AB, Canada to view this city in 3D in Google Earth. "IntotheWest," aka Andrew, has modeled over 40 skyscrapers and buildings in Calgary - you can check out his entire collection here.

Have a look at Andrew's profile on the Official SketchUp Blog and stay tuned to learn more about SketchUp users' efforts to model their worlds in 3D.

Posted by Tasha Danko, SketchUp Product Marketing Team

400 Years in the Making: Celebrating Henry Hudson

Aaron Stein — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:00:00 +0000

We have all heard the story: in 1626, Dutch colonists purchased the isle of Manhattan for 60 guilders worth of kettles, blankets, beads, mirrors and knives; the equivalent—so the story goes—of $24.

While the tale’s historical accuracy remains a bit fuzzy, the events leading up to it have become more clear over time. In 1607, Henry Hudson embarked on the first of four voyages in search of the Northwest Passage, a trade route to the Far East over the North Pole. On his third voyage, in 1609, he dropped anchor on the east coast of North America, setting in motion the events that led to the purchase of “Mannahatta.”

To commemorate Henry Hudson’s explorations, the Henry Hudson 400 Foundation commissioned Cartosoft to create a map full of Henry Hudson history: early harbor and coastline illustrations, stories of the first New Yorkers, photos ancient maps, 3D models of Hudson’s ship the Half Moon, and of course, the routes Henry Hudson sailed. The map, created using the Google Maps API, can be found here.

The map also includes an “Events” section highlighting modern-day venues, displays, and activities related to the commemoration of Henry Hudson. Explore the New Amsterdam Trail, locate the South Street Seaport where a Henry Hudson historic maps exhibit—including the first known map of Manhattan and the Manhattan purchase document—will open this autumn, visit the shipyard where a replica of the 1614 Onrust is being built, and find the Liberty Science Center, the site of the H209 International Water Forum scheduled for September. The website also lets you to upload stories of your own ancestry to their map.

The Henry Hudson 400 Foundation has put together a rich resource to explore this (in)famous part of American history. And talk about a bargain: you can view the map for $24 dollars less than the purchase price of Manhattan!

Posted by Jeff Martin, Product Marketing Manager

Explore Google Earth Tours in your browser

Aaron Stein — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:00:00 +0000

Ever since KML touring was introduced as part of the Google Earth 5.0 release in February, geo content authors have created some very impressive 3D content visualization experiences on this new platform. Now, you can enjoy these engaging experiences right from the comfort of your own browser with the Google Earth Plugin!

To try out some of our favorite Google Earth tours in your web browser, visit our commemorative tour gallery. Some of the tours in the gallery include a Flight 1549 re-enactment, a flyover of San Francisco (created with Arc2Earth by Brian Flood), and an Introduction to Mars narrated by Ira Flatow.

Embedding your own tours in your website

If you've recorded a tour in Google Earth and want to embed it on your own web site, you can do so easily with the Embedded Tour Player Google gadget:

1) First, save your recorded tour to a KML file. You can save to KMZ to improve download speeds for your users.

2) Upload your tour KML file to your website so that it's accessible to the public.

3) Visit the Embedded Tour Player gadget page and paste in the URL to your tour KML file.

4) Click the 'Get the Code' button and copy the