Google Data » Kate https://googledata.org Everything Google: News, Products, Services, Content, Culture Thu, 19 Mar 2015 12:00:08 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.7.5 Let’s build a better map of Southern Sudan https://googledata.org/google-earth/let%e2%80%99s-build-a-better-map-of-southern-sudan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=let%25e2%2580%2599s-build-a-better-map-of-southern-sudan https://googledata.org/google-earth/let%e2%80%99s-build-a-better-map-of-southern-sudan/#comments Sat, 08 Jan 2011 01:18:00 +0000 January 9 to decide if the South will become independent from the North. The referendum is part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005 ending the Civil War, which lasted 22 years and led to the deaths of an estimated 2 million people. Analysts fear the possibility of renewed violence.

Sudan is a huge country (2.5 million km2), with an estimated population of 44 million people, but it’s poorly mapped. Without basic geospatial information, it’s difficult for humanitarian agencies and first responders to monitor and evaluate the risks and current needs, target their efforts, and mobilize proper resources. At times like these, it is critical to have good maps on roads, settlements, voting stations, hospitals, buildings and other services - with both local and official names - to generate better, faster responses.

This is one of the goals of the Satellite Sentinel project, which is using imagery, field reports and Google Map Maker to conduct human rights monitoring along the border between North and South Sudan. This effort is the result of an unprecedented collaboration between Not On Our Watch, Google, the Enough Project, the United Nations UNITAR Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT), the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and Trellon, LLC.

If you have knowledge of Southern Sudan, an interest in mapping, and some free time, we encourage you to join the effort. With tools such as Google Map Maker and Sudan Vote Monitor, you have the opportunity to take concrete action by improving the map, helping to monitor and report human rights violations in near-real time and providing insight into the socio-political climate prevalent in the country and region.

Global Call for Action:
Together let’s build a better map of Southern Sudan. Your local knowledge and mapping contributions of schools, hospitals, and landmarks will be extremely useful to the humanitarian community to quickly build a picture of the situation, especially in these areas of interest.

Items that you can map:
  • Towns and town names (Arabic and local names especially)
  • Roads (in-town roads as well) and trails
  • Displaced persons camps
  • Cultural landmarks
  • Geographic landmarks
  • Schools
  • Orphanages, shelters etc.
  • Hospitals
  • Community centers
  • Border crossing points
  • Nomadic camps
  • Markets and large cattle gathering points

This is an opportunity to utilize the power of community engagement through mapping. We welcome you to get acclimated to Map Maker through our Getting Started page, and then invite you to join our Sudan-specific discussions.

Posted by France Lamy, Program Manager, Google.org
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/let%e2%80%99s-build-a-better-map-of-southern-sudan/feed/ 0 Changing World, Changing Maps https://googledata.org/google-earth/changing-world-changing-maps/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=changing-world-changing-maps https://googledata.org/google-earth/changing-world-changing-maps/#comments Wed, 10 Nov 2010 05:29:00 +0000 US and Canada, and will be rolling out over the course of the next day.

Somewhere near you, a new road is being constructed, an existing one is changing names, a new restaurant is opening, or a parking lot is making way for a park. With this update, you can help keep your neighborhood accurate across Google’s geo product suite. Notice that something has changed on your block recently, or that the directions provided could have been better? Report a problem, and we will make the change in Google Maps within a couple of months.

We have worked hard to improve the usefulness of the maps for our users, developers, and business partners. Improvements range from including more address data and building footprints so you find your destinations easily, to adding higher resolution topographic features and detailed university campuses to help you orient yourself faster in a new area. We have also augmented our maps with bike paths and walking trails, and will roll out biking directions soon. We hope our maps help you explore your world better.

Posted by Anup Mantri, Software Engineer
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/changing-world-changing-maps/feed/ 0 Regarding the boundary between Costa Rica and Nicaragua https://googledata.org/google-earth/regarding-the-boundary-between-costa-rica-and-nicaragua/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=regarding-the-boundary-between-costa-rica-and-nicaragua https://googledata.org/google-earth/regarding-the-boundary-between-costa-rica-and-nicaragua/#comments Sat, 06 Nov 2010 02:52:00 +0000 Update (11/8/10): For those interested in reading more about the history of this dispute, consider checking out Stefan Geens' thorough post over at Ogle Earth.

Yesterday we became aware of a dispute that referenced the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua as depicted on Google Maps. This morning, after a discussion with the data supplier for this particular border (the U.S. Department of State), we determined that there was indeed an error in the compilation of the source data, by up to 2.7 kilometers. The U.S. Department of State has provided a corrected version and we are now working to update our maps.

Current, incorrect depiction of the San Juan River boundary

Unlike the image above of our current depiction, the corrected version will follow the east bank of the San Juan River going northward, nearly to the Caribbean. It will then turn eastward and follow the southern shoreline of a large lagoon, Laguna los Portillos. This depiction follows the demarcation laid out in the First Award of Arbitration of 1897, which affirmed the Cañas-Jerez Treaty of 1858.

It is our goal to provide the most accurate, up-to-date maps possible. Maps are created using a variety of data sources, and there are inevitably going to be errors in that data. We work hard to correct any errors as soon as we discover them.

Given the complexity of the issue, I thought that I’d take this opportunity to provide some additional historical context.

The dispute in this area goes back to at least the mid-19th century, and both the International Court of Justice and the United Nations have weighed in. The dispute mainly centers around control of the mouth of the San Juan River, and was recently reignited because of dredging activity in this location.

In 1888, U.S. President Grover Cleveland was called upon by Nicaragua and Costa Rica to arbitrate the dispute. That year, the New York Times published President Cleveland’s decision. The 1888 Arbitration upheld the 1858 treaty and its terms.
The New York Times, 25 March, 1888

Then, in 1897, Cleveland sent Edward P. Alexander to do a more detailed Arbitration Award for this region. Alexander went into great detail on the San Juan river boundary and drew the map depicted below:

Map attached to the Sept. 30, 1897 Arbitration Award

Once our updates go live in Google Earth and Maps we will be depicting the border according to the most recent and definitive records available. But as we know, cartography is a complex undertaking, and borders are always changing. We remain committed to updating our maps as needed.

Posted by Charlie Hale, Geo Policy Analyst
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/regarding-the-boundary-between-costa-rica-and-nicaragua/feed/ 0 Imagery of the Hungarian sludge spill https://googledata.org/google-earth/imagery-of-the-hungarian-sludge-spill/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=imagery-of-the-hungarian-sludge-spill https://googledata.org/google-earth/imagery-of-the-hungarian-sludge-spill/#comments Sun, 10 Oct 2010 01:30:00 +0000 KML overlay. Special thanks to GeoEye for making updated imagery available so quickly.

Image credit: DigitalGlobe (left) and GeoEye (right)


Image credit: DigitalGlobe (left) and GeoEye (right)


Image credit: DigitalGlobe (left) and GeoEye (right)


Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior Geo Data Strategist
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/imagery-of-the-hungarian-sludge-spill/feed/ 0 Imagery of Four Mile Canyon fire in Boulder, CO https://googledata.org/google-earth/imagery-of-four-mile-canyon-fire-in-boulder-co/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=imagery-of-four-mile-canyon-fire-in-boulder-co https://googledata.org/google-earth/imagery-of-four-mile-canyon-fire-in-boulder-co/#comments Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:55:00 +0000
Community members worked together to create a collaborative map to show the location of the fire and track its progress. The map was open for anyone to contribute information as soon as it became available. For many, this was a primary source for the most up-to-date information available about the fire.


View Boulder Fire Area in a larger map

Additionally, new imagery from GeoEye of the burn area is now available as a KML overlay. We will be adding this to our base layer soon. When viewed in 3D using Google Earth, this image vividly illustrates the extent and magnitude of the damage.

Our profound gratitude goes to the fire fighters who worked tirelessly to subdue the fire in the face of high winds and difficult terrain. If you would like to help, you can learn more here.

Posted by Mark Limber, Product Manager, Google Boulder
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/imagery-of-four-mile-canyon-fire-in-boulder-co/feed/ 0 New imagery of the San Bruno fire https://googledata.org/google-earth/new-imagery-of-the-san-bruno-fire/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-imagery-of-the-san-bruno-fire https://googledata.org/google-earth/new-imagery-of-the-san-bruno-fire/#comments Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:30:00 +0000
We collect imagery to improve overall quality--especially when we want to refresh data very quickly, for example after disasters, to complement data provided by our partners. To date we’ve collected imagery in the U.S. and in Haiti following the earthquake. This past Saturday we collected imagery over the parts of San Bruno devastated by last week’s terrible gas explosion. Google's data and tools are used by many government and non-governmental organizations to assist in post-disaster recovery, as well of course by our millions of users. This San Bruno imagery is now live in Google Earth through a KML overlay link and will be part of the base layer soon.

We are committed to providing the most accurate and up-to-date data in our maps at all times and especially in post-disaster situations.



Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior Geo Data Strategist
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/new-imagery-of-the-san-bruno-fire/feed/ 0 Model the world with Google SketchUp 8 https://googledata.org/google-earth/model-the-world-with-google-sketchup-8/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=model-the-world-with-google-sketchup-8 https://googledata.org/google-earth/model-the-world-with-google-sketchup-8/#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000
For all of you who are in on the 3D modeling action, I’m proud to announce the release of Google SketchUp 8 today. We’ve added loads of new features specifically designed to make it easier for you to build Google Earth-ready models of the places that matter to you.

New features in SketchUp 8 include:
  • Major new features for modeling in geospatial context and for creating new 3D building models for Google Earth.
    • Model directly from Google’s massive collection of earth imagery, including aerial, oblique and Street View photography in addition to detailed geometric terrain and user generated 3D building models.
    • Import and improve models created with Google Building Maker
    • Participate in a community of geo-modelers collaborating on the shared construction of a detailed 3D model of the world.
  • new “Solid” tools in SketchUp Pro for common additive/subtractive modeling operations
    • “Outer Shell” to quickly simplify complex models imported from Building Maker
    • “Union, Subtract, Trim, Intersect and Split” to create complex additive and subtractive form from simple components.
  • additional features in LayOut for documenting models professionally
    • Custom line styles
    • a simple set of dimensioning and annotation tools
    • native document export to DWG/DXF 2010 format




SketchUp 8 is available today in English, French, Italian, Spanish and German with more languages to be release in the weeks to come. SketchUp Pro costs $495, upgrades from any earlier version are available for $95. And, of course, there is still a powerful version of SketchUp available for free.


Posted by John Bacus, Product Manager
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/model-the-world-with-google-sketchup-8/feed/ 0 Defending the rivers of the Amazon https://googledata.org/google-earth/defending-the-rivers-of-the-amazon/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=defending-the-rivers-of-the-amazon https://googledata.org/google-earth/defending-the-rivers-of-the-amazon/#comments Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:01:00 +0000 From time to time we invite guest posters to share their views on items relevant to the use of Google Earth. Here we have a post from Google Earth Outreach grantees Amazon Watch and International Rivers, two U.S.-based organizations that support Brazil’s Movimento Xingu Vivo Para Sempre. Amazon Watch and International Rivers have used Google Earth to animate what could happen if the Belo Monte Dam Complex were built on the Xingu River in the Amazon. We’ve offered them some space to share their work and thoughts with our readers.

Please note: This is a complicated issue with many facets, and the views of this poster do not necessarily represent the official viewpoint of Google Inc.; we support the use of Google Earth for visualizations to create dialog.


Today, Amazon Watch and International Rivers are releasing a new Google Earth tour and YouTube video called “Defending the Rivers of the Amazon," narrated by Sigourney Weaver, to draw attention to the impacts of the proposed Belo Monte Dam Complex on the people and ecology of the Xingu River.

If built, Belo Monte would be the world’s third-largest hydroelectric dam, and would divert the flow of the Xingu River, a massive tributary of the Amazon. It would flood the rainforest, displace more than 20,000 people, and generate greenhouse gases. On August 26th, the Brazilian government signed the concession to build despite protests by the region’s indigenous and local populations.



Download the “Defending the Rivers of the Amazon” Google Earth tour

The idea for the Google Earth tour emerged when “Avatar” director James Cameron and cast member Sigourney Weaver traveled to the Xingu River in April with Amazon Watch and the Brazilian Instituto Socioambiental (ISA). The launch of this Belo Monte Dam 3D animation is timed with the re-release of Avatar in theatres. James Cameron has also produced an informational video on Belo Monte called “A Message from Pandora” to highlight one of many real Pandoras on Earth.

Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom; the animation uses map overlays and 3D models to illustrate the potential for solar and wind energy as an alternative solution to meet Brazil’s future energy needs, using data from studies performed in the country.

But don’t take our word for it; watch the video, interact with the tour, and see for yourself. Then follow the link to take action. The people of the Xingu will thank you for it.

Posted by Atossa Soltani, Executive Director, Amazon Watch and Aviva Imhof, Campaigns Director, International Rivers
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/defending-the-rivers-of-the-amazon/feed/ 0 Improving the quality of borders in Google Earth and Maps https://googledata.org/google-earth/improving-the-quality-of-borders-in-google-earth-and-maps/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=improving-the-quality-of-borders-in-google-earth-and-maps https://googledata.org/google-earth/improving-the-quality-of-borders-in-google-earth-and-maps/#comments Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:33:00 +0000 we discussed the ways we strive towards that accuracy, and today we are happy to announce some significant improvements to our borders for over 60 countries and regions (the updates are live in Maps and are coming to Google Earth shortly). To provide some background on this update, we thought we would take the opportunity to talk a bit more about our approach to mapping geopolitical features like borders.

Making Google's mapping tools as accurate as possible is a complex process, especially when a map's accuracy has both quantitative and qualitative aspects. We receive spatial data of all kinds - imagery, boundaries, place names, etc. - from a variety of sources worldwide, and we review them carefully before integrating them into the best representation of a given location in Google Earth and Maps.

In the case of geopolitical features on our maps, the depiction of borders is something upon which local authorities, governments and internationally recognized bodies often disagree. Our goal is to provide the most legible and accurate maps we can given the information available in these oft-changing areas of geopolitical disagreement. Like most maps, ours include symbology that makes borders and other geopolitical features clearer to users. For example, we employ various boundary styles in Google Earth and Maps to clarify the current status of boundary lines, viewable here in the Help Center.

Similar to satellite imagery, boundary data is available in varying levels of resolution; the higher the resolution, the better the boundaries will follow specific geographic features, such as rivers. While we always strive to display the on-the-ground reality of a boundary's position, in practice some boundary lines are not as accurate as we would like them to be due to the available resolution of our boundary data.

With these improvements, many borders will now more closely follow natural boundaries such as mountains and rivers. The pictures below show a portion of the border between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which follows the Pamir Mountain Range, near the Zervashan River. As you'll see, the new data follows the mountain ridgeline quite closely, even when zoomed in, which is a great improvement in positional accuracy.

before:

after:



In some areas we have improved our qualitative accuracy by changing the symbology of the boundary lines to reflect the updated status of a treaty or agreement based on political changes, new agreements or negotiations. This portion of the border between Ethiopia and Somalia changed from solid (yellow in Google Earth) - meaning "international" - to dashed (red in Google Earth) - meaning "disputed" - to reflect the ground-based reality that the two countries maintain an ongoing dispute in the Ogaden region.

before:
after:




In other cases our previous boundaries lacked key details and the new data provides more information. For example, we now show a disputed island near the borders of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina:

before:



after:



There are many other examples of both quantitative and qualitative changes we've made to improve our maps and we invite you to explore them. We will certainly continue to update and improve upon the borders and other geopolitical features in Google Earth and Maps, keeping in mind that the dynamic nature of such areas presents a significant cartographic challenge. Mapping is a field where there is never total agreement, but we try to do our best and will continue to develop new ways to meet these challenges. As always, we are happy to hear from our users with any questions and concerns about our approach to these complex issues.


Posted by Charlie Hale, Geo Policy Analyst
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/improving-the-quality-of-borders-in-google-earth-and-maps/feed/ 0 Google Maps can now send destinations directly to more than 20 car brands worldwide https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-maps-can-now-send-destinations-directly-to-more-than-20-car-brands-worldwide/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-maps-can-now-send-destinations-directly-to-more-than-20-car-brands-worldwide https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-maps-can-now-send-destinations-directly-to-more-than-20-car-brands-worldwide/#comments Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:00:00 +0000 three years ago with BMW, only a few car makers offered connected services to their drivers. The industry has come a long way since then. Several car manufacturers have made industry-changing commitments to bringing connectivity to the majority, if not the entirety of their car line.

We see more and more cars with connected navigation and entertainment systems leaving the assembly line and the trend is here to stay. That's fantastic news for both drivers and the automotive industry.

The Google Maps Send-To-Car service has grown, and many car manufacturers have joined over time. Just recently, we announced Audi's connected car navigation system which includes Send-To-Car, and the Google Automotive team is thrilled to announce that we have extended the partner base of our Google Maps Send-To-Car service further to include Ford and GM.

As of today, drivers of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles in the US enabled with Ford SYNC can now send business listings or addresses found on Google Maps directly to their cars.


(Photo credit: Ford)

In addition, millions of OnStar equipped GM vehicles can now make use of this innovative service. Great news if you own a Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Pontiac, Saab or Saturn! Check out this GM video to see the service in action:



Drivers can then use their car maker's turn-by-turn navigation system to be guided to their selected destination. With today’s additions, drivers can send destinations from Google Maps directly to their connected vehicles in 19 countries and more than 20 different brands.

In the US alone, Send-To-Car is now available on more than 15 car brands and we hope to see even more partners join us soon.


We think this is a great convenience for drivers - Prepare your route at your desk, send the destination to your car, and safely enjoy your ride - hands on the wheel, eyes on the road.

We also like to think that in the age of green driving, not having to print paper directions anymore is a great start of a green trip!

You can find more information on Send-to-Car on the Google Maps help center.

Drive safely!




Posted by Markus Mühlbauer, Engineering and Product Manager
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-maps-can-now-send-destinations-directly-to-more-than-20-car-brands-worldwide/feed/ 0 Street View driving update https://googledata.org/google-earth/street-view-driving-update/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=street-view-driving-update https://googledata.org/google-earth/street-view-driving-update/#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 04:55:00 +0000 (cross-posted from the Google European Public Policy Blog)

In May we announced that we had mistakenly included code in our software in Street View cars that collected WiFi payload data. As soon as we discovered our error, we not only stopped collecting WiFi data entirely, but also grounded our fleet of cars globally to give us time to remove the WiFi scanning equipment and discuss what had happened with local regulators.

The WiFi data collection equipment has been removed from our cars in
each country and the independent security experts Stroz Friedberg have
approved a protocol to ensure any WiFi-related software is also
removed from the cars before they start driving again. *

Having spoken to the relevant regulators we have decided to start
Street View driving in Ireland, Norway, South Africa and Sweden again
starting next week. We expect to add more countries in time. Our cars
will no longer collect any WiFi information at all, but will continue
to collect photos and 3D imagery as they did before:

  • Photos: so that we can build Street View, our 360 degree street level maps. Photos like these are also being taken by TeleAtlas and NavTeq for Bing maps. In addition, we use this imagery to improve the quality of our maps, for example by using shop, street and traffic signs to refine our local business listings and travel directions; and
  • 3-D building imagery: we collect 3D geometry data with low power lasers (similar to those used in retail scanners) which help us improve our maps. NavTeq also collects this information in partnership with Bing. As does TeleAtlas.
We recognize that serious mistakes were made in the collection of WiFi payload data, and we have worked to quickly rectify them. However we also believe that Street View is a great product for users, whether people want to find a hotel, check out a potential new home or find a restaurant. If you want more information about driving schedules, please look here http://maps.google.com/streetview.

*We've updated this paragraph to clarify that both the hardware and
software will have been removed from all Street View vehicles before they
resume driving.


Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering, Google Geo
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/street-view-driving-update/feed/ 0 Minor Style Updates, Major Improvements https://googledata.org/google-earth/minor-style-updates-major-improvements/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=minor-style-updates-major-improvements https://googledata.org/google-earth/minor-style-updates-major-improvements/#comments Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:37:00 +0000 style evolution, we have been making ongoing incremental improvements to the style of our maps. We'd like to highlight a few of the more recent changes and show the impact of paying attention to the small details.

Starting with the area close to our office in Sydney, you can see that we've made roads thinner and more discernible, and improved treatment of tunnels so they don't look so much like they're above ground:



In Taichung, Taiwan, our roads used to overlap in some places. We've fixed that, making the map more navigable and providing a better sense of the city structure:


Here's another example from Bangalore, India. The new version manages to both add detail and feel easier to read:



And finally, in Prague, Czech Republic, you can see the improvement in our styling of building models, which makes the map less overwhelming and the road labels easier to read:



We hope that you have enjoyed this quick tour - have a look around Google Maps today and see if you notice any improvements to your local area. Small details, big improvements!

Posted by Jonah Jones, User Experience Designer
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/minor-style-updates-major-improvements/feed/ 0 Imagery Update – Week of June 14th https://googledata.org/google-earth/imagery-update-week-of-june-14th/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=imagery-update-week-of-june-14th https://googledata.org/google-earth/imagery-update-week-of-june-14th/#comments Fri, 18 Jun 2010 05:45:00 +0000
High Resolution Aerial Updates:
USA: Nashville, Memphis, Charlotte, Puget Sound Area, Los Angeles, Ft Myers, Roswell NM, Winona MN
The Netherlands: Hoorn, Wijdemermen, Leidschendam, Wassenaar, Olst, Overbetuwe, Sint Hubert, The Hague, Lopik, Houten, Hilversum, Purmerend, Elburg, Enkhizen, Assen, Groningen
South Africa: Soccer City in Johannesburg
New Zealand: Kapiti Coast

Countries receiving High Resolution Satellite Updates:
Algeria, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iceland, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, The Philippines, Russia, Rwanda, Senegal, Serbia, Tanzania, Uganda, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam

For a complete picture of where we updated imagery, download this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

In addition to those updates, we've also added imagery of the flooding that occurred in Nashville to Google Earth's Historical Imagery database. You can access the new Nashville flood imagery by simply opening Google Earth and clicking on the clock icon in the top toolbar.



The historical imagery time slider will appear just beneath the toolbar. The tick marks on the slider represent images in our database that are available for your current view.


Drag the slider with your mouse to flip between images from different dates. In the examples below, you can see before/after images of the flooding in Nashville.


Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior GIS Strategist
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/imagery-update-week-of-june-14th/feed/ 0 Properties, now on Google Maps in the UK https://googledata.org/google-earth/properties-now-on-google-maps-in-the-uk/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=properties-now-on-google-maps-in-the-uk https://googledata.org/google-earth/properties-now-on-google-maps-in-the-uk/#comments Thu, 17 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000 Camden Town or Kew Gardens - property search has come to maps.google.co.uk. From today, visitors to maps.google.co.uk will be able to click “Properties...” on the More menu in Maps to see a little red dot on the map showing every house or flat for sale or rent.

The search can be refined by choosing features like sale or rent, bedrooms, bathrooms, and price. The map will update to show the properties matching those criteria - and also dynamically update as you scroll and zoom around the map until you’ve found your dream spot.



Other maps layers and features like Photos, Videos, Satellite, and Earth view can be turned on as well, helping you to explore the property results geographically and get an even better sense for your new neighbourhood.

In a survey conducted just before Google Street View launched across the entire UK, a fifth of those surveyed said they had used the service for househunting [source: YouGov Plc February 2010]. We hope they’ll find this new feature really useful for exploring what’s available in neighbourhoods right across the UK.

The feature is showing hundreds of thousands of listings, from PropertyLive, Zoopla, Ezylet, SmartNewHomes, Vebra, Property Pal, Spicer Haart, Countrywide, and Zoomf. If you’re an estate agent, take a look at maps.google.co.uk/propertytools for information on how to have your property listings show up on Google Maps.

So have a go today - it’s as easy as typing in “property for sale camden town” and then scrolling around the map to see what meets your criteria. You can find contact details for the estate agent on the ‘Place Page’ that pops up for each listing - you can even add any scheduled open homes to your Google calendar with one click of the mouse. Just don’t try making an offer on London’s most famous home ... we don’t think that one’s for sale.

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/properties-now-on-google-maps-in-the-uk/feed/ 0 Google Earth now available for iPad https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-now-available-for-ipad/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-earth-now-available-for-ipad https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-now-available-for-ipad/#comments Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:30:00 +0000 iPhone to Android phones, to the browser, and even the car. Today, hot on the heels of yesterday's launch of Google Earth 5.2 we are proud to announce that Google Earth is now available for Apple’s iPad.

Google Earth for iPad is one of the best ways yet to experience Google Earth. With the combination of an intuitive touch interface, a large screen, and the snappy A4 processor, you a great new way to explore the globe and share your adventures with your friends.

Some iPad users have noticed that Google Earth has been available for the iPad from the very beginning, but until today, this has simply been the iPhone version running in a scaled-up mode. With our latest release, we now have native support for the iPad, which means that you get to see the world in beautiful full-resolution imagery. There is a custom toolbar at the top, and you can click on individual icons to open “balloons” without having to navigate away from the 3D view.

As with the iPhone version, you can easily navigate with your fingers, using one finger to move the globe; two fingers to change your viewpoint; a single finger double-tap to zoom in; and a two-finger double-tap to zoom out. And like all Google Earth products, you can search for geographic features and businesses by typing your query in the search box.

Along with Panoramio photos, Wikipedia articles, and Google Places, you can also view roads rendered directly on the terrain. Select any of these layers from the “Layers” menu in the toolbar.



To start exploring the world on your iPad, download it today from the iTunes store.

Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager, Google Earth
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-now-available-for-ipad/feed/ 0 Let Pegman guide you to user photos https://googledata.org/google-earth/let-pegman-guide-you-to-user-photos/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=let-pegman-guide-you-to-user-photos https://googledata.org/google-earth/let-pegman-guide-you-to-user-photos/#comments Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:05:00 +0000
Remember Pegman, the little orange man that you can drag and drop on to the map to jump into Street View images? As of today, he has a new trick up his sleeve. He’s becoming our official photo tour guide, helping you not only navigate our Street View imagery where it’s available, but also helping to highlight the amazing geo-located photos the Panoramio photo community has contributed, as well as public images from Picasa and Flickr. There are images from pretty much every corner of the globe, so there is almost no end of sights and scenes to keep you busy.

When you drag Pegman, you will now see small blue dots to show where user-contributed photos are available (they look a bit like the squares you see on our Wikipedia layer on maps).



If you drag Pegman over one of the blue dots, you get to see a preview of a photo taken at that location.



Then if you drop Pegman onto one of the blue dots, you will be able to view that image in our photo browser, which will let you navigate further into neighbouring pictures.



The photos you can explore this way are the same as those that you can find in the Maps photo layer, giving you a full interactive tour. It’s also a great way to explore images taken from places in out-of-the-way locations - say, the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.



Dragging Pegman onto a photo is another handy way to see all the types of images available in Google Maps. So go ahead and let Pegman be your tourguide to parks, forests, lakes and more.


Posted by Dennis Tell, Software Engineer, Google Zurich
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/let-pegman-guide-you-to-user-photos/feed/ 0 Google Earth Pro 5.2: A powerful tool for professionals https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-pro-5-2-a-powerful-tool-for-professionals/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-earth-pro-5-2-a-powerful-tool-for-professionals https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-pro-5-2-a-powerful-tool-for-professionals/#comments Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:00:00 +0000 Google Earth Pro for its power to visualize and analyze vast amounts of global data from a large array of sources. Applications of Google Earth Pro range from analyzing environmental impacts of natural disasters to the creation of detailed presentations for prospective clients.

With yesterday's release of Google Earth Pro 5.2, we have added new data layers to give you even more information to help make the right decisions. This set of exclusive data layers allow for direct access to information on land parcels, traffic flow, and the US census results. In addition, we have added new features to enable you to visualize large data sets with amazing detail as well as to save your measurements for retrieval in the future. Google Earth Pro 5.2 also optimizes the data you import from outside sources to allow for faster rendering of your data and improved clarity at every altitude. Finally, saving the measurements you make in Google Earth Pro allows you to quickly retrieve information from your data across multiple sessions.

Google Earth Pro premier data layers

We’re happy to announce that with thus launch, discovering information about the people around you, your projects, and your clients is now much easier with the set of exclusive data layers built into Google Earth Pro.

Earth Pro now includes three new data layers:

U.S. Demographics includes demographic data (e.g. income, age, education) from 2010 and estimated 2015 values at the state, county, tract, and block group level with data from Claritas. For income and age, you can view beautifully color-coded layers enabling you to quickly zero in on target markets and even cross-reference with your own layers.



U.S. Parcel data gives you critical parcel and building information such as Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN), use codes, and zoning data. You can also get more detailed reports, such as sales history, by purchasing a DataQuick PDF report, which is linked to within the layer.



U.S. Daily Traffic Counts reports the average number of cars that have passed through an intersection in the US.



Processing large data sets

Google Earth Pro has always been a great tool for importing and viewing GIS data. However, it has been difficult to import very large data sets and view them interactively. Now, with the release of Google Earth Pro 5.2, we’ve introduced new tools for processing and preparing complex vector files and high resolution images that allow for fast, interactive browsing of your data. These tools, leveraging the same technology used to create the core Google Earth layers, divide or “regionate” data into many smaller files which are loaded dynamically. This ensures that only the data which is in view needs to be retrieved, maintaining a high level of performance. With vector data regionation, Google Earth Pro 5.2 will prevent data congestion at high altitudes while still allowing you to access the data points you care about.

When importing image overlays into Google Earth Pro you now have the option to create what is called a super image overlay, another form of data regionation. The new super image overlay feature automatically creates image tiles with the appropriate image resolution for every altitude. Similar to the base imagery already included in Google Earth Pro, you will now be able to seamlessly zoom in from high altitudes to extremely detailed lower altitudes without forcing Google Earth to load the entire image file while viewing a specific portion of your imagery. The use of image regionation dramatically speeds up the rendering process and in doing so, allows you to visualize complex imagery quickly and efficiently. Never again will you be forced to lose image clarity in order to retain the speed and agility you expect from Google Earth. Of course, data sets processed in Google Earth Pro can be shared with all 700 million Google Earth users around the world.

On the Google Earth team, we often find ourselves in the situation where we have large images of current events that we want to publish quickly. In these cases, we use this same regionation technology to quickly publish imagery to the world. One such example was the 2009 Presidential Inauguration. This image of the National Mall on Inauguration day would have been far too large to download and view as a single file, but as a fully regionated KML file, you can easily navigate this stunning image of the inauguration without slowing down your computer.



Enhanced Measurements

Lastly, in Google Earth 5.2 you now have the ability to save paths and polygons created by the measurement tool as KML. This will allow you to share measurements with co-workers and return to them later if you want to review measurements you’ve made. In addition to being able to save your measurements as KML, we’ve also added the ability to view measurements of existing paths and polygons. This allows you to quantify the information that until now you could only inspect visually.

To purchase Google Earth Pro, visit our online store or sign up for a 7-day free trial. You can also read more about Google Earth Pro on our website at http://earth.google.com/pro.

We hope you enjoy these new features.


Posted by Alex Unger, Associate Product Manager, Google Earth Pro
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-pro-5-2-a-powerful-tool-for-professionals/feed/ 0 Relive your hiking, biking, and other trips in Google Earth https://googledata.org/google-earth/relive-your-hiking-biking-and-other-trips-in-google-earth/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=relive-your-hiking-biking-and-other-trips-in-google-earth https://googledata.org/google-earth/relive-your-hiking-biking-and-other-trips-in-google-earth/#comments Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:35:00 +0000 Google Earth 5.2 that make it easier than ever to relive your journey.

In earlier versions of Google Earth you could see your GPS tracks as lines or points on the map. That has worked pretty well, but I’ve always had a nagging feeling that we could do much better, creating animations that show exactly how you move around the world.

With Google Earth 5.2, you can now import existing GPS data as a new kind of “track.” With a track, you can move the time-slider to animate time and retrace your journey. Google Earth will draw an icon so that it is properly positioned for the given time that you are viewing. As you move through time, the icon will animate along your path. You can also select a window of time which will highlight the corresponding section of your trip.

In Google Earth 5.0, we introduced Tours: cinematic, narrated flights around Google Earth. With one click you can make a tour based on your track, which will fly you along your journey from a bird’s-eye view. You can play back the tour like a video and share it with friends.

The best way to explain the power of the new track feature is just to show you some examples. I’ve always had a passion for flight, and earlier this year I decided to take flying lessons. I took a GPS along with me, and imported my tracks into Google Earth. Next, I found a model of a Cessna from the Google 3D Warehouse. Finally, I created tours of those tracks to move the camera along the path of my flights. Voilà!

>

In addition, a powerful aspect of the new track feature is the ability to show multiple tracks at the same time. If you load multiple tracks into Google Earth that take place in the same period of time, then you can use the timeslider to animate all the tracks simultaneously. For example, if you have GPS tracks for several people in a race, you can use Google Earth to replay the event.

Importing your own tracks

Importing GPS tracks is simple in Google Earth. Just connect your GPS device to your computer and choose “GPS” from the “tools” menu. Alternately, you can download your GPS data from your handheld unit onto your computer as a .gpx, .nmea or .log file and then drag it into Google Earth or open it from the file menu. The GPS data will convert into a KML track and display in the 3D view. If you move the time-slider, you should see your icon move through time.



Making a tour of your track

It’s easy to create a tour of your track. Simply highlight your track in the left-panel, and click on the “Create Tour” button which looks like this:Google Earth will fly you along your track, and move the time-slider to animate your object.

Elevation profiles

While I was obsessed with animation, another engineer on the team, John Rohlf, was interested in visualizing the elevation gains of his hikes and ski trips. He wrote the elevation profile feature, which will graph the elevation of any line or track in Google Earth. For tracks, you can also use the elevation profile to graph speed or any other data that your GPS device records, such as heart rate, cadence, temperature, etc. To see the elevation profile of any line or track, right-click on it in the left-hand panel and select “View Elevation Profile.”



The profile-view will pop up in the bottom of the window. If you move your mouse around the graph, a big red arrow in the 3D view will show you the corresponding point in 3D. You can also view other graphs by clicking on the names of the other data types. If you select just a portion of the elevation profile, you can get statistics for just that section, such as the average grade of a climb. Try it out! You can see how high you hiked, or how fast you drove... just be careful. We won’t pay your speeding tickets.



Example tracks
Here are some examples to get you started:
Biking on Twin Peaks in San Francisco
Peter’s bike to work ride
Dan’s flight

For more information
For more advanced track usage, including instructions on how to incorporate 3D models into your KML, see the KML reference guide.

Download Google Earth 5.2 today at http://earth.google.com.

Posted by Dan Barcay, Software Engineer, Google Earth
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/relive-your-hiking-biking-and-other-trips-in-google-earth/feed/ 0 Announcing Google Earth 5.2 https://googledata.org/google-earth/announcing-google-earth-5-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=announcing-google-earth-5-2 https://googledata.org/google-earth/announcing-google-earth-5-2/#comments Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:32:00 +0000 Google Earth desktop application, Google Earth 5.2. With this release, we are bringing exciting new features to both the free version, Google Earth, as well as our paid professional version, Google Earth Pro.

Over the next couple of days we’ll be diving into these features in more detail, but I wanted to give you an overview of what Google Earth 5.2 brings.

Visualize your hiking, biking, and running tracks

Google Earth has always been a great tool for viewing your outdoor activities, whether it be hiking, running, biking, skiing, sailing, or just about any other way you choose to explore the world. With the release of Google Earth 5.0, we added the ability to connect your GPS device directly to Google Earth and import your track. Now, with Google Earth 5.2, we’ve added the ability to view elevation, speed, and other data as a graph directly in Google Earth. Just connect your GPS device to upload your track, and select “View Elevation Profile” from the menu. This will bring up elevation and speed graphs. If your GPS device records additional information such as heart rate or cadence, these will also be available to view in the graph. You can also see statistics such as total elevation, maximum slope, and average speed. You can select a portion of your ride and get statistics for just that section.



We’ve also improved the way you can play back your trip. Just click on the time animation button, and relive all those twists and turns in your journey. You can even quickly and easily generate a tour of your trip. This video shows a tour that I generated from my bike ride into work.



Integrated web browser

Google Earth is a “geo-browser” - a great tool for exploring places, businesses, and photos around the globe. However, sometimes when you want more information, you may want to click through to a link to see the full Google Places page for a business, or learn more about a photographer whose photo you really enjoy. In the past, this has required opening a link in an external browser to see the full page. For Google Earth 5.2, we’ve added an embedded browser that lets you browse the full web. Click on a link, and the browser pane slides across the screen. When you want to return to the Earth view, just click the “Back” button and you’re back exploring the world!



New improvements to Google Earth Pro

While Google Earth has been downloaded by over 700 million people all around the world, not everyone is aware that we also have a professional version, Google Earth Pro, which gives the powerful tools needed by engineers, real-estate professionals, governments, and others to process and visualize large geographic data sets. Google Earth Pro 5.2 brings new features to our professional users, including:
  • Parcel, demographic, and traffic data layers for the US
  • Improved GIS importing
  • Automatic generation of super-overlays for very large image files
  • Automatic regioning of large point and vector data sets
  • Support for MGRS grid system



We’ll be following up shortly with more details on these great new features in Google Earth 5.2. However, if you to get started right now, go to http://earth.google.com to download it. Happy trails!



Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/announcing-google-earth-5-2/feed/ 0 Google Tags rolling out nationwide https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-tags-rolling-out-nationwide/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-tags-rolling-out-nationwide https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-tags-rolling-out-nationwide/#comments Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:49:00 +0000 announced that Tags, our new advertising feature for local businesses, became available in 11 cities throughout the U.S. Today we’re excited to announce our plans to expand the trial to the entire country. The rollout will start with states where we have already had Tags available in select cities (California, Texas, Illinois, Georgia, Washington, and Colorado). We’ll update this page as additional states go live.

For a flat monthly fee of $25, businesses can enhance their listings that appear on Google.com and Google Maps with a yellow tag that emphasizes specific information such as a coupon, video, website, menu, reservations, photos, or a custom message. Tags do not affect the ranking of the listings, and we clearly indicate which parts of the search result are sponsored.

If you try out a query for “massage houston,” you’ll see that two of the businesses whose listings appear have created coupon Tags to promote their current offers:




We haven’t just been working on increased availability; we’ve also been adding new features. Tags now appears on mobile web searches as well, helping your local customers quickly identify what’s unique about your business while they’re on the go.



Posts, a new kind of Tag that enables business owners to create a custom message, is also live. These messages can be changed as often as the business owner would like, making it easy to let the world know about a special discount or limited-time offer.

We hope you find Tags to be a useful and easy way to find and connect with your local customers. To learn more and try it out, please visit www.google.com/help/tags.

Posted by Shalini Agarwal, Product Manager
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-tags-rolling-out-nationwide/feed/ 0 Google & Small Business Administration partner to share tips with businesses https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-small-business-administration-partner-to-share-tips-with-businesses/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-small-business-administration-partner-to-share-tips-with-businesses https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-small-business-administration-partner-to-share-tips-with-businesses/#comments Wed, 05 May 2010 14:10:00 +0000 (cross-posted from the Google Policy Blog)

Ben and Jerry turned a $5 correspondence class in ice cream making into a multi-million dollar business. Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, sold sneakers out of the trunk of his car at track meets. And, like many silicon valley startups, Google got its start, literally, in a garage.

Every business starts small and sometimes, with a little luck, they catch on. One way to make sure your business has the best possible chance of success is to make sure it has a strong web presence. A new generation of tools geared especially for even the smallest businesses make this easier than ever. They are easy, low-cost and often completely free and they can ensure that consumers can find you online and learn about what you do.



These tools are great for small business and for our economy and that's why we've teamed with the U.S. Small Business Administration to create a website featuring video testimonials by small business owners who are using online tools to attract more customers. The goal of the partnership between Google and the SBA is to help small businesses understand the tools and resources available to them online and learn savvy tips from other small business owners.
  • Establish your online presence. One out of five searches on Google are related to local information. Massive numbers of consumers are using the Internet to search for everything from taekwondo classes on the south side of town to a trusted vet for the family pet. Small and large businesses can easily create a rich online presence using tools like Google Places and, for businesses that want to take the plunge and create a full-blown website, ready-made site templates and free hosting services like Google Sites make creating one painless and fast.
  • Use free marketing to reach customers. You can build a fan base for your business with free services like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter that will keep your customers in-the-know about new products and special promotions. These services are great "word of mouth" platforms that make it easy for a customer following your business to tell their friends about it.
  • Understand your customers. Online tools can make you smarter about your customers by analyzing the search terms they use to find you and the pages they visit on your site. This data can help you tune your offers and site to what's truly popular and can be used to help you select terms for online search advertising such as Google AdWords.
In addition to the videos, Google also produced a “Tools for Online Success” booklet that will be in nearly 1,000 SBA, SCORE, and Women's Development Centers nationwide. The booklet offers online tips and tricks for businesses of any size.

Posted by John Hanke, Vice President of Product Management
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-small-business-administration-partner-to-share-tips-with-businesses/feed/ 0 The importance of geolocation services https://googledata.org/google-earth/the-importance-of-geolocation-services/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-importance-of-geolocation-services https://googledata.org/google-earth/the-importance-of-geolocation-services/#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 08:03:00 +0000 [Editor's note, 5/14/10 -- This post contains incorrect information about our Wi-Fi data collection. We have posted a clarification and update about our process on the Official Google Blog.]
Where? It might be one small word but the answer to that question can really prove decisive. ‘Quick! The volcano has erupted again and my flight’s cancelled, where is the nearest train station?’ or ‘Where’s the best place to get a decent coffee round here?’ I’m always happy to help, but nowadays these questions can often be answered by firing up your smartphone. The key to knowing where you should go is knowing where you are starting -- my recommendation for the best local cafe depends on whether you ask me when I’m at my office or across town near my house.

So it’s no surprise that geolocation services are becoming more popular with people than ever before, and that many companies are adding locations functions to respond to this demand and improve the services they offer their users. For example, Twitter allows users to geotag their tweets. Everyday, millions of twitter.com users on a desktop computer or mobile phone choose to do this. Knowing that someone is posting from Bangkok as opposed to Manchester gives followers an important perspective when they read a tweet about ‘red shirts all over the city.’ On smartphones like iPhone, Palm, and Android devices, services such as Google Maps for mobile, Yelp, and Urbanspoon use location to provide relevant local search results, while apps like Foursquare and Google Latitude let you find your friends on a Friday night.

But how does this work? How do smartphones actually know where you are? Lots of people talk about GPS (the satellite-based global positioning system) but a lesser known fact is that GPS can be slow: it can take tens of seconds and sometimes much longer to “fix” your location depending on the specific hardware and your physical location. Consequently, companies have worked out other solutions. These are generally based around the idea of “listening” for nearby cell towers or Wi-Fi hotspots and using this data to quickly approximate a rough position. In fact the very first iPhone didn’t even have a GPS - it relied solely on this kind of triangulation for location information. By treating Wi-Fi access points or cell towers as “beacons,” smartphones are able to fix their general location quickly in a power-efficient way, even while they may be working on a more precise GPS-based location. This can be done without any intrusion into the privacy of a Wi-Fi network. We only use information that is publicly broadcast (for example, that list of Wi-Fi hotspots you see in the anytime you open the “join network” option on your PC). It doesn’t involve accessing the network to send or receive data. [**See 5/14/10 note above]

However, a database of known network locations is required for both cellular and Wi-Fi triangulation. Companies like Skyhook Wireless compile such databases which are used by many in the industry. Intel has promoted the use of Wi-Fi for “location aware computing” through projects such as its Location Technologies SDK. Google has contributed by creating its “My Location” API, which relies on a database of locations collected by Google Maps for mobile as well as by our Street View cars, which catalog the location of Wi-Fi access points (the public “beacon” part described above) at the same time as they are collecting Street View imagery and 3D laser scans of buildings. Google has also worked to help even notebooks and tablets find out their location in Chrome and Firefox through the W3C Geolocation API.

Location is clearly going to be a big part of the web going forward. It helps bring the power of the Internet to improve the real, everyday things we need to do. With location-enhanced searches on smart phones, mobile PCs and tablets, we can just do them faster and smarter.

Posted by Raphael Leiteritz, Product Manager
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/the-importance-of-geolocation-services/feed/ 0 Google Earth for Android now available on DROID https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-for-android-now-available-on-droid/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-earth-for-android-now-available-on-droid https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-for-android-now-available-on-droid/#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:20:00 +0000 launched Google Earth for Android about a month ago, we said that availability for DROID by Verizon was coming soon. Well, now that DROID phones are being updated to Android 2.1, we’re pleased to report that Google Earth is now available for DROID too.

Remember, with Google Earth for Android you can view the same 3D imagery and terrain that’s available in the desktop version of Google Earth, all from the palm of your hand. And you can travel around the globe with the swipe of a finger or a simple voice command -- Android’s voice recognition together with Google Local Search make it easy for you to search for cities, places, and businesses anywhere in the world. You can also browse layers of geographic information including roads, borders, Panoramio photos, and more.

Google Earth for Android will be compatible with most Android devices running 2.1, so as new Android phones that run on Android 2.1 or higher become available, they too will be able to explore the world with Google Earth. (Technically speaking, Google Earth requires hardware floating-point acceleration, so it will run on devices such as DROID and Nexus One, but not on devices such as myTouch 3G and DROID ERIS.)

Download Earth for your DROID for free today by visiting m.google.com/earth from your mobile browser or by searching for Google Earth in Android Market.

Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-for-android-now-available-on-droid/feed/ 0 Edit places using Street View images https://googledata.org/google-earth/edit-places-using-street-view-images/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=edit-places-using-street-view-images https://googledata.org/google-earth/edit-places-using-street-view-images/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:20:00 +0000 we announced that you can edit details about a business listing directly through the Place Page. But sometimes you may find a place in Google Maps that isn't quite positioned where it should be. Let's say you know that your favorite pizzeria is near the corner but the marker for it appears further down the block. You want all hungry pizza-cravers to be able to find this great spot, so you want to make sure the marker leads them directly to the storefront. You could use our map editing feature (the "move marker" edit) to move it to the right place, but moving the marker to the right location is not always that easy, especially in denser urban areas, if the only reference you have are maps or satellite images because you can only get a view from above. So now we have added one more very handy reference for making a map marker edit: Street View images. It makes the edit much easier.

Let me show you how the editing feature works.

When you find a place that is in a wrong location, click on the marker and get an infowindow open as what you did before.



Click on the "more" link, and then click the "Move marker" link in the drop down menu. You'll see two jumping markers in the map and the Street View image appear, which means both of them can be dragged. When you drag the marker on the map to a new position, the marker inside the panorama will be updated correspondingly, and vice versa.



Since you can now view a street-level image of where the marker will be placed, it's not difficult to find the exact spot in the image and place the marker to the right position. Isn't that convenient? After editing, all you need to do is to click the "Save" button above the Street View panorama. If you're not happy with the edit, or just not sure if it is correct, you can always hit the "Cancel" button. Edits with Street View images tend to be more accurate and precise because looking at the ground-level images provides very helpful local detail.

With the editing feature, we encourage our users to put the marker at the entrance of the place. However, users sometimes put the marker in the center of a street block, and we don't have an easy way of detecting this. By introducing this feature, we know approximately where the facades are from Street View images. Based on the information, we can snap the dragged markers to the closest facades automatically by using street view information. Of course, we have a threshold for the snapping: if you attempt to put a marker inside a large place with no Street View image (for example, a park or a stadium), we may end up with the marker in the center and a message box indicating there isn't a Street View image available.

Now you can make sure that everyone searching for your favorite businesses in your hometown can be directed to exactly the right spot, so do your part and move those markers.



Posted by Jie Shao, Software Engineer
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/edit-places-using-street-view-images/feed/ 0 Uploading your Picasa Web Albums pictures into Panoramio https://googledata.org/google-earth/uploading-your-picasa-web-albums-pictures-into-panoramio/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=uploading-your-picasa-web-albums-pictures-into-panoramio https://googledata.org/google-earth/uploading-your-picasa-web-albums-pictures-into-panoramio/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:42:00 +0000 Picasa Web Albums into Panoramio. By uploading your best photos of places into Panoramio you can share them with the Panoramio community and the world through Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Search, and more.

Panoramio is a community for hosting relevant photos about places, so every photo uploaded into Panoramio will be reviewed to ensure it meets the criteria to be included in Google Earth. We recommend you to check the Photo acceptance policy for Google Earth and Google Maps.

To upload photos from Picasa Web Albums, your photos need to be geo-tagged and in a public album. Eligible photos in Picasa Web Albums will display the "Upload to Panoramio" option below the Location map.


You'll need to log-in or create a Panoramio account to upload photos.

After uploading a photo to Panoramio, it will remain public as it was before in Picasa Web Albums. The process will create a second copy, so be aware that if you want to delete this photo in the future you will need to delete it from both Picasa Web albums and Panoramio.

We are looking forward to seeing your great pictures!


Posted by Roger Trias i Sanz, Panoramio Software Engineer
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/uploading-your-picasa-web-albums-pictures-into-panoramio/feed/ 0 Nearby places you might like… https://googledata.org/google-earth/nearby-places-you-might-like/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nearby-places-you-might-like https://googledata.org/google-earth/nearby-places-you-might-like/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:37:00 +0000 more interesting restaurants I've eaten at in NYC was recommended to me by someone who knew I loved a different restaurant by the same owner. And, when I told a friend I was heading to the Lower East Side to get some yummy knishes for lunch, he told me to make sure I checked out the famous Guss' Pickles right around the corner and that I might consider picking up some smoked fish at Russ & Daughters down the street.

Now on Google Maps, you can get these types of suggestions automatically. Just look up a place that you know or love, and we'll provide a set of "Nearby places you might like." Here we have a set of recommended places near Yonah Schimmel's Knishes Bakery:




You'll notice that we do not limit these suggestions to places sharing any specific characteristic; instead, we use a broad set of signals to come up with what are hopefully the most interesting suggestions. We're still working on refining these signals, so bear with us if your serendipitous discovery of a new place is even more unexpected than you'd anticipated.

So, the next time you want to try a new place to eat, need a replacement for an activity with long lines or closed for the day, are planning a vacation, or are just exploring a neighborhood, check out the "Nearby places you might like" - maybe something will catch your eye!

Posted by Tammy Stern, Google Maps
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/nearby-places-you-might-like/feed/ 0 Dive in to our Ocean Showcase https://googledata.org/google-earth/dive-in-to-our-ocean-showcase/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dive-in-to-our-ocean-showcase https://googledata.org/google-earth/dive-in-to-our-ocean-showcase/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:30:00 +0000 Ocean Showcase, you can now tour the ocean from the comfort of your web browser using the Google Earth plugin.

Follow along as National Geographic explorer, Sylvia Earle, narrates a tour through highlights of the Explore the Ocean layer in Google Earth. You can pause the tour at any time to watch videos of the surrounding areas and marine animals, like the humpback whales below.


Take a ride with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), as their Western Flyer research ship works off the U.S. west coast. View the discoveries they've made, like the transparent-headed barreleye fish.


Visit some exciting shipwrecks like the World War II USS Truxton Destroyer, and see divers explore the shipwrecks with video from Eco-Nova's Shipwreck Central.


Take a narrated tour of some of the world's best dive sites with Wannadive.net and the best surf sites with Wannasurf.com.




In addition, you can see some of the highest resolution data available of the ocean with the Underwater Terrain tour. And finally, let NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, GLERL, take you on a tour of the Great Lakes with a special feature on Lake Superior.


Over the past year, many photographers, naturalists, government groups and non-profit partners have added photos and videos to the Explore the Ocean layer in Google Earth, providing a great introduction to lots of ocean features. Enthusiasts continue to add photos and ratings to Wannadive.net and Wannasurf.com, improving the Ocean Sports layers.

Anyone can be a desktop Cousteau. And we welcome more contributions. Go here to tell us about your ocean data.

To take the plunge, download any tour and open it in Google Earth, where you can explore many more exciting ocean photos and videos by checking the Ocean folder in the left-hand layers panel.

Posted by Jenifer Austin Foulkes, Product Manager
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/dive-in-to-our-ocean-showcase/feed/ 0 WWII historical imagery in Google Earth https://googledata.org/google-earth/wwii-historical-imagery-in-google-earth/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wwii-historical-imagery-in-google-earth https://googledata.org/google-earth/wwii-historical-imagery-in-google-earth/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:15:00 +0000 historical imagery feature in Google Earth. They can now be compared directly to images from the present day.

The historical imagery feature gives people a unique perspective on the events of the past using today's latest mapping technology. We hope that this World War II imagery will enable all of us to understand our shared history in a new way and to learn more about the impact of the war on the development of our cities.

Images taken in 1943 show the effect of wartime bombing on more than 35 European towns and cities. Imagery for Warsaw, which was heavily destroyed at the time, is available from both years 1935 and 1945. They remind us all of the devastating impact of war on the people in those cities and also the remarkable way in which urban environments are reconstructed and regenerated over time.

You can explore the German city of Stuttgart, which was subject to over 50 air raids during the War.




Naples was the most bombed in Italian city in WWII and the impact of these attacks can be seen here:



The French city of Lyon was the center of France's resistance movement against the German occupation. See how it was damaged and rebuilt over the years:



Imagery from 1935 and 1945 for Warsaw in Poland is particularly compelling. The city was amongst those most badly damaged in the war and comparisons with today are striking.

Contrast can be seen for example by comparing the imagery of the Historic Centre of Warsaw, a UNESCO World Heritage site, described as an 'outstanding example of a near-total reconstruction of a span of history covering the 13th to the 20th century'. The Royal Castle was completely burned to the ground, for example, and subsequently reconstructed, between 1971-1988.



Read more about one Googler's impressions here.

To access all the imagery for yourself, and compare to the present day cityscape, click the clock icon in the top-level toolbar to activate a time-line in the Google Earth display. Move back in forth in time by dragging the time slider from left to right or by clicking the back/forwards arrows.

Posted by Laura Scott, Google Europe
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/wwii-historical-imagery-in-google-earth/feed/ 0 Spotlight on historical imagery: Warsaw in 1935, 1945 and today https://googledata.org/google-earth/spotlight-on-historical-imagery-warsaw-in-1935-1945-and-today/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=spotlight-on-historical-imagery-warsaw-in-1935-1945-and-today https://googledata.org/google-earth/spotlight-on-historical-imagery-warsaw-in-1935-1945-and-today/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:54:00 +0000 Babcia fondly recalled the Polish-American community of her childhood in Yonkers, N.Y., she told stories of traveling to Poland with my uncle, she read out loud the letters she received from our family there, and during Christmas she led aunts, uncles, and cousins in sharing a wafer called opłatek, which prompted hugs and kisses around the table. These are all good memories.

Like many, I have often used Google Earth to explore the world around me. When it comes to Warsaw, Poland, imagery now available from 1935 and 1945 reveals an opportunity to better understand the history of a city destroyed and rebuilt.

I studied the global devastations of World War II in school and read books about history, but the atrocities that took place during the 1930s and '40s bore little resemblance to much of the country I saw when I first visited in 2005. Poland had recently joined the European Union and brimmed with an overarching energy and enthusiasm toward the future, amidst reminders of a history that could not be forgotten. During three weeks spent traveling from Wrocław to Zamość and many places in between, I found myself mired in the contrasts between present and past: mesmerized by the beauty of Kraków, speechless with sorrow at Auschwitz.

In Warsaw, I stayed with cousins, ate plate after plate of pierogi and naleśniki, and explored the parks, squares, markets, and side streets that wove throughout the city. The realities of what had taken place only decades prior struck me powerfully at the Warsaw Rising Museum, which commemorates the resistance of the Polish Home Army. I left horrified and humbled. Four years later, here at Google I met with a representative working on the multimedia efforts of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, set to open in 2012 on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto. More than anything, we spoke about the fundamental importance of memory and the power of technology for sharing with a community around the world.

The following images are from 1935, 1945, and the present day. Click to enlarge.


The largest ghetto in all of Europe, the Warsaw Ghetto was the site of the deportations and murders of hundreds of thousands of Jewish people between 1940 and 1943, as well as the location of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.


























Founded in 1816, the University of Warsaw is Poland's largest university and the academic centerpiece of the city. Between 1939 and 1944, the university lost a majority of its buildings and collections, and many of its students and professors lost their lives.
























As we view these aerial scenes in Google Earth using the historical imagery time slider, we see the history of Warsaw against a much different landscape today. I think of how many grandparents, like my babcia, have shared stories of their childhoods and families, including memories both good and bad. Images like these help unlock and preserve the past even as we look to the present and the future.

Posted by Sean Carlson, Global Communications & Public Affairs
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/spotlight-on-historical-imagery-warsaw-in-1935-1945-and-today/feed/ 0 Wander the seafloor like never before https://googledata.org/google-earth/wander-the-seafloor-like-never-before/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wander-the-seafloor-like-never-before https://googledata.org/google-earth/wander-the-seafloor-like-never-before/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:36:00 +0000 bathymetry buff, we've got an update that you'll be excited about (and if you're not, I hope you will be one by the end of this post). Most of the underwater terrain currently featured in Google Earth comes from the low-resolution US Navy/NOAA/SIO global grid. They're able to predict what the seafloor looks like using an extrapolation of water surface heights to estimate undersea mountains and canyons, based on radar data collected by satellite (if you're curious about this process, you can read Smith and Sandwell's more detailed explanation here). For most of the sea, that's all that's available. But a small part of the ocean has higher-resolution data available, based on echosounding sonar from ships, and it's now available in Google Earth.

Several organizations have provided their ship-collected data for publication in Google Earth to improve our undersea maps. The Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping - Joint Hydrographic Center, has shared large swaths of underwater depth data collected from their expeditions north of Pt. Barrow, Alaska into the Arctic. The Living Oceans Society has shared their surveys off of the west coast of British Columbia, Canada, so you can now zoom around the Oglala seamount:


The California State University at Monterey Bay has collected high-resolution underwater terrain data for the entire California coast out to three nautical miles. We've published their data north and south of San Francisco Bay down to Ano Nuevo, where you can see the underwater ridges that elephant seals must navigate.


You can now also explore large undersea areas newly published from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), including our highest resolution underwater depth data featured to date: 1-meter terrain collected by MBARI’s Autonomous Underwater mapping Vehicles in Monterey Bay Canyon (see screenshot below), which is an underwater canyon larger than the Grand Canyon nestled between Santa Cruz and Monterey, California. MBARI has also shared ship echosounding maps that they've collected on the Davidson seamount, the Rodriguez seamount off of Santa Barbara, and terrain along the Juan de Fuca Ridge, as well as data collected off of the Oregon coast, from Beaver basin to the Heceta bank.






Photo caption: The MBARI Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) being launched from the Research Vessel Zephyr and one underwater. The MBARI Mapping AUV is a torpedo-shaped vehicle equipped with four mapping sonars that operate simultaneously during a mission. The sonars are a swath multibeam sonar, two frequencies of sidescan sonars, and a sub-bottom profiler. The multibeam sonar produces high-resolution bathymetry (analogous to topography on land), the sidescan sonars produce imagery based on the intensity of the sound energy's reflections, and the subbottom profiler penetrates sediments on the seafloor, allowing the detection of sediment layers, faults, and depth to the basement rock. All components are rated to 6000 m depth. The vehicle is launched on programmed missions and runs on its own battery power until it returns to the ship, as programmed, for recovery. The mapping AUV was christened the D. Allan B. in honor of MBARI's long-time Board member Dr. D. Allan Bromley of Yale University, who passed away in 2004.

Download this new undersea tour and open it in Google Earth to explore for yourself. Remember that only 5% of the world’s oceans have been explored, so much remains to be discovered.
We continue to publish new data in Google Earth, so check back. We thank all of the ocean exploring groups who have shared their data and welcome new contributions.

Posted by Jamie Adams, Geo Data Strategist
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/wander-the-seafloor-like-never-before/feed/ 0 4 8 15 16 23 42 https://googledata.org/google-earth/4-8-15-16-23-42/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=4-8-15-16-23-42 https://googledata.org/google-earth/4-8-15-16-23-42/#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:15:00 +0000 Lost starts today. Our users are excited as well, and they've created maps to track the adventures of the Oceanic 6 around the world:
Please don't share these with Charles Widmore, as we don't really want him to know where to find our heroes! We're still working on that map of the island's movements and will post it when we catch up.

Posted by Lior Ron, Product Manager, Google Maps
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/4-8-15-16-23-42/feed/ 0 February imagery update https://googledata.org/google-earth/february-imagery-update/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=february-imagery-update https://googledata.org/google-earth/february-imagery-update/#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:03:00 +0000 this KML, for viewing in Google Earth, or view the updates in Google Maps.


Updates are noted with a red frame

Also included in this update is additional Haiti imagery from January 21st.

Posted by Matt Manolides, GIS Specialist
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/february-imagery-update/feed/ 0 Madrid in 3D! https://googledata.org/google-earth/madrid-in-3d/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=madrid-in-3d https://googledata.org/google-earth/madrid-in-3d/#comments Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:55:00 +0000 (cross-posted from the Official Google SketchUp Blog)

Madrid, Spain is the latest city to be introduced to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth.

The City of Madrid contains scores of beautiful structures ranging from art museums and classical monuments to palatial government buildings. The prevalence of architectural wonders may explain why passionate geo-modelers have created thousands of models there (using both Google SketchUp and Google Building Maker) -- the largest concentration of 3D models anywhere the world!



To start your virtual tour, I recommend you fly-to El Palacio real de Madrid (Royal Palace of Madrid), the official residence of the King of Spain. From there I'd fly over to the Puerta de Alcalá, a famous classical monument located in the Plaza de la Independencia (Independence Square), and then over to the Monumento a Alfonso XII en el Parque del Buen Retiro, a beautiful monument that is among the greatest in Europe.



And don't miss the Plaza de Cibeles where the famous statue Fuente de Cibeles is surrounded by trees and beautiful buildings, including the stunning Palacio de Comunicaciones (Madrid City Hall) and Banco de España (Bank of Spain) buildings.

If I were to visit Madrid for real, I think I'd want to stay at the Palace Hotel, which is a short walk to the famous Prado Museum (one of my all-time favorite models in Google Earth) where you can fly inside and experience the great works of art.

Fútbol (American soccer) fan? Madrid is the home to Real Madrid, who play in the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. Olé!


Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/madrid-in-3d/feed/ 0 Earth Engine, powered by Google https://googledata.org/google-earth/earth-engine-powered-by-google/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=earth-engine-powered-by-google https://googledata.org/google-earth/earth-engine-powered-by-google/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:09:00 +0000 Official Google.org Blog)

I'm here in Copenhagen this week, at the COP15 International Climate Change Conference. Whether you're attending in-person, or reading news headlines from home, you can't miss the fact that addressing climate change requires the world to solve a mind-boggling mix of science, policy and political issues. These are formidable challenges, but new technologies can help provide solutions for these complex problems. For example, one of the most promising areas of compromise has been an accord to compensate countries for preserving forests and other natural landscapes that play a crucial role in reducing emissions. Implementation of the agreement, known as Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD, will require the ability to accurately track deforestation at a regional and global level.

Despite the widespread availability of global satellite imagery through products like Google Earth and Google Maps, it hasn't been easy for tropical nations to understand the state of their ecosystem, and to quantitatively monitor changes in forest coverage or other key indicators. That's why I'm proud to announce a new computational platform for global-scale analysis of satellite imagery: Earth Engine, powered by Google.

At an event today hosted by Avoided Deforestation Partners, global leaders from the President of Guyana to the Prime Minister of Norway expressed their support for REDD. Earlier today, the U.S, Australia, France, Japan, Norway and Britain pledged $3.5 billion over the next three years to protect rainforests. At the event, I demonstrated a prototype forest monitoring application built on top of Earth Engine that we developed together with the Carnegie Institution for Science, IMAZON and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Traditional forest monitoring is complex and expensive, requiring access to large amounts of satellite data, lots of hard drives to hold the data, lots of computers to process the data, and lots of time while you wait for various computations to finish. Our prototype demonstrates how Earth Engine makes all of this easier, by moving everything into the cloud. Google supplies data, storage, and computing muscle. As a result, you can visualize forest change in fractions of a second over the web, instead of the minutes or hours that traditional offline systems require for such analysis. The prototype applications running on Earth Engine aren't yet available to the public, but you can see screen shots in our earlier blog post.

We want to ensure this technology is widely available when it's ready, so today I formally announced Google.org's commitment to provide our Earth Engine free to tropical countries to support their forest monitoring programs. I believe that this is just the first of many Earth Engine applications that will help enable scientists, policymakers, and the general public to better monitor and understand the Earth's ecosystems.

Posted by Brian McClendon, VP Engineering
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/earth-engine-powered-by-google/feed/ 0 Armchair travel with environmental heroes https://googledata.org/google-earth/armchair-travel-with-environmental-heroes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=armchair-travel-with-environmental-heroes https://googledata.org/google-earth/armchair-travel-with-environmental-heroes/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:00:00 +0000 Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest prize for grassroots environmentalists. Informally known as the “Green Nobel,” the Goldman is awarded to six environmental heroes each year – one from each inhabited continent – with a cash prize of $150,000.

For 2009 - the prize's 20th anniversary - Goldman has used Google Earth to illustrate the environmental issues being addressed by this year’s winners. The Goldman Prize layer and tour narrated by Robert Redford, available on the Goldman Prize Web site and the Google Earth Outreach showcase include images, videos and information about the Prize winners.

The 2009 Goldman Prize winners, announced on April 19, include a mom from West Virginia who is taking on the U.S. coal industry, and a Bangladeshi lawyer who is cleaning up the perilous ship breaking industry. Learn about the 2009 winners on the Google Earth layer, and look for details on all 133 Goldman winners to become available in 2009.

Previous winners have been at the center of some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges, including seeking justice for victims of environmental disasters at Love Canal and Bhopal, India; leading the fight for dolphin-safe tuna and fighting oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Since receiving a Goldman Prize, eight winners have been appointed or elected to national office in their countries. The 1991 Goldman Prize winner for Africa, Wangari Maathai, won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.


Posted by Rebecca Moore, Manager, Google Earth Outreach
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/armchair-travel-with-environmental-heroes/feed/ 0 University of Michigan exploring the applications of Google Earth https://googledata.org/google-earth/university-of-michigan-exploring-the-applications-of-google-earth/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=university-of-michigan-exploring-the-applications-of-google-earth https://googledata.org/google-earth/university-of-michigan-exploring-the-applications-of-google-earth/#comments Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:34:00 +0000 The University of Michigan is continuing their recent advocacy efforts by hosting an event focused on science applications of Google Earth. The conference,which will take place on Wednesday, April 22nd (Earth Day!) in Ann Arbor, will feature a series of presentations on active efforts in the natural resource sciences that use Google Earth and KML to visualize and communicate their work.

Additionally, two of the recent KML in Research contest winners that have Michigan ties will be on hand to discuss their work.

Student Winner - Kerry ArdProfessional Winner - Tyler Erickson


Our hope is that efforts like this will continue to spawn new work and new resources. Go Blue!

Posted by Ryan Falor, Systems Engineer
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/university-of-michigan-exploring-the-applications-of-google-earth/feed/ 0 Tips & Tricks: Shedding Light on Layers https://googledata.org/google-earth/tips-tricks-shedding-light-on-layers/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tips-tricks-shedding-light-on-layers https://googledata.org/google-earth/tips-tricks-shedding-light-on-layers/#comments Fri, 17 Apr 2009 01:33:00 +0000
Combing the Google Earth Help Forum, I found I wasn't the only one perplexed. The cause, as it turns out, is the NASA Earth City Lights layer, that darkens the planet so you can see light emissions from urban areas. It was switched on, and I didn't know it. You can find it in the Layers panel by clicking Gallery > NASA > Earth City Lights. If you turn off the layer, you'll find it sheds some light on things (literally!).

Layers hold the key to most of the content available in Google Earth and, since there are so many, it's not always easy to remember which layers to toggle on or off to get the content you want. Looking for the name of a street? Make sure you've turned on the Roads layer. Can't dive under the ocean? Chances are, it's because your Terrain layer is turned off.

Sometimes the layer you need isn't quite intuitive: If you're having trouble viewing the shipwreck of the Titanic, it's probably because you need to turn on your 3D Buildings layer (and you'll be able to check out plenty of other underwater 3D models, too).

So, when it seems like there's something missing (or, when it's too dark to tell), the Layers panel can be your golden ticket. And don't be too quick to flip the switch back to daytime on the City Lights layer -- there's plenty to see under cover of darkness, too.

Posted by Sarah Gordon, Tips Guru
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/tips-tricks-shedding-light-on-layers/feed/ 0 Making Google Map Maker more accessible and useful https://googledata.org/google-earth/making-google-map-maker-more-accessible-and-useful/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=making-google-map-maker-more-accessible-and-useful https://googledata.org/google-earth/making-google-map-maker-more-accessible-and-useful/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:00:00 +0000 last June, we have heard a steady stream of users asking us to make the data created with it more available. We have recently pushed more Map Maker data on to Google Maps and Google Maps for mobile and now allow users to access the latest Map Maker tiles through the Maps API.

There are some cases, however, where this is not enough. For example, during last year's hurricane season when we opened Haiti and Cuba for editing, it would have been useful to combine Map Maker data with other data sets like flooding polygons derived from remote sensing to assess road conditions and populations affected. We've been approached by several organizations, including NGOs such as the UN's Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), scientists attending the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference, university students at Stanford, and our users on our community forum, all asking to get access to the raw data to support planning, analysis and other use cases that can not be easily supported through the Maps API.

To address those needs, we've announced recently in Kenya that we are now making Google Map Maker source data for Kenya available for download as kml and shp file. This download license is available for non-profits, government agencies, and individuals to create and enhance their own non-commercial map-related projects as long as attribution is given back to Map Maker. To download the data and see the full terms and conditions of this license, please see our download site.

The day after the launch we held a mapping party in the University of Nairobi that was well attended by a mix of amateur and expert mappers from a wide range of organizations. We met with people from Kenyan universities, local media, branches of the UN, branches of the Kenyan government, other NGOs, and are very excited to see in what ways they will use the new downloadable data so we can all collaborate on improving maps for Kenya, and the world.

Happy Mapping!




Posted by Jessica Pfund, GIS Specialist and Lior Ron, Senior Product Manager, Google Maps
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/making-google-map-maker-more-accessible-and-useful/feed/ 0 Google Earth now includes US “Third Coast” https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-now-includes-us-%e2%80%9cthird-coast%e2%80%9d/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-earth-now-includes-us-%25e2%2580%259cthird-coast%25e2%2580%259d https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-now-includes-us-%e2%80%9cthird-coast%e2%80%9d/#comments Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:26:00 +0000 back in February, it included the capability to view the world ocean landscape from beneath the water surface. This capability now extends to the “Third Coast” of the United States, the Great Lakes. Through a cooperative effort with the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) and the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, Google Earth now incorporates detailed bathymetry for the five Great Lakes. Users will be able to explore features such as the canyons and shoals in eastern Lake Superior, the Lake Michigan mid-lake reef complex, and the old river channel, now underwater, that once connected Lakes Michigan and Huron at the Straits of Mackinac.

The Great Lakes are the largest system of fresh surface water on earth, containing roughly 18 percent of the world supply. The lakes contain enough water to cover the entire surface of the continental United States to a depth of 9 feet. The Great Lakes span more than 750 miles from west to east and their shoreline is equal to almost 44 percent of the circumference of the earth. Michigan's Great Lakes coastline alone is over 3,200 miles long, which is more coastline than any state but Alaska.

To highlight some of the interesting coastal and subsurface features of the Great Lakes, the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory has assembled a narrated Google Earth tour, which you can download here. You can also watch the tour, using the Earth API, below:



The original Great Lakes bathymetric data were compiled by a NOAA (NESDIS-NGDC and OAR-GLERL) and Canadian Hydrographic Service team from archival U.S. and Canadian soundings spanning more than 75 years. Dr. David Schwab (GLERL) generated a gridded 3-arc second dataset from the NOAA-CHS project and provided it to Google to form the basis for the Great Lakes topography.

Dave Schwab, Physical Oceanographer, NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-now-includes-us-%e2%80%9cthird-coast%e2%80%9d/feed/ 0 Roman history comes to life in Google Earth https://googledata.org/google-earth/roman-history-comes-to-life-in-google-earth/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=roman-history-comes-to-life-in-google-earth https://googledata.org/google-earth/roman-history-comes-to-life-in-google-earth/#comments Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:02:00 +0000
Were you someone who struggled to stay awake in ancient history class? If so, perhaps this was due to those uninspiring "artist renditions" in your textbook. Reading countless pages that described how a monument, building or city may have appeared at the time can be pretty difficult to imagine.

Well, today we introduced a new approach to learning about ancient history: the ability to go back in time and explore Rome as it existed in 320 AD -- in 3D!

All of this is possible through the new Ancient Rome 3D layer in Google Earth. To activate the layer, simply open the "Gallery" folder in the "Layers" panel and select "Ancient Rome 3D."

The new layer, produced by the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) and based on its Rome Reborn model, contains over 6,700 3D buildings and 250 Google Earth placemarks that allow Google Earth users to explore and learn about this fascinating period of history.

This is the first time that we have incorporated an ancient city in Google Earth. Going back in time presented some new challenges, such as how to handle the ancient terrain which was clearly different than modern day. We needed to ensure that modern day imagery, terrain and buildings didn't interfere with the ancient Rome model so we opted for a simple overlay.

This exciting new layer also serves as the inspiration for the Google Ancient Rome 3D Curriculum Competition, a first-ever Google contest geared towards K-12 educators in the US. Whether your lesson plan involves teaching geometry through Roman architecture or re-imagining ancient history with this new visualization tool, there's fame and an awesome prize package waiting for you! The submission deadline is February 9th, so get those creative engines revved up soon!

So go ahead, fly down to the Roman Forum and experience what it may have felt like to stand on the Rostra of Augusta and make a political speech. Or, if you've fantasized about being a gladiator in the Colosseum, go for it. Simply fly there in Google Earth, enter through the ground level door and envision the crowds cheering you on! Take a look at this video to see what adventures await:



Omnes viae Romam ducunt (all roads lead to Rome).

Update @ 12:15 PM: Rome wasn't built in a day! The Ancient Rome 3D layer will be available soon. We're sorry for the delay, and we'll post here when it's live.

Update @ 6:15 PM: The layer is now live in Google Earth, in the Gallery folder of the Layers panel. When you zoom in on Rome you will see yellow Ancient Rome 3D icons. To load the terrain and buildings, click on any icon and then click the links at the bottom of the bubble.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager, Google Earth
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/roman-history-comes-to-life-in-google-earth/feed/ 0 Google Earth now available for iPhone https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-now-available-for-iphone/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-earth-now-available-for-iphone https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-now-available-for-iphone/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:49:00 +0000 (cross-posted from the Official Google Mobile Blog)

The world just got a little bit smaller. Google Earth is now available for the iPhone and iPod touch, allowing you to fly to the far reaches of the world from the palm of your hand. Since we launched Google Earth for the desktop in 2005, we've had over 400 million unique downloads, and people from around the world have used it to view their house, research travel destinations, learn how to make the world a better place, find local businesses, and view geo-located photos. Now, with a free download from the iTunes App Store, you can fly through the same 3D immersive world of Google Earth you've come to love, without having to fire up your desktop computer.


Check out this video tour to see Google Earth for iPhone in action:



Not only is having Google Earth on your iPhone convenient, but the touch interface is a very natural way to interact with the Earth. Just swipe your finger across the screen and you fly to the other side of the globe; tilt your phone and your view tilts as well. You can pinch to zoom in or out, or just double tap with one finger to zoom in and two fingers to zoom out. We also integrated the My Location feature, so with a touch of a button, you can fly to where you are in the real world on your phone. In addition, we have over eight million Panoramio photos, which are geo-located photos of places, and you can view any and all of them from your iPhone. Besides being beautiful, high-quality pictures, they're specifically of places, so you don't have to see some guy's family on vacation in Thailand--you can see the beaches, the temples, all the things that give you a real sense of the place. Here is a nice shot of the Grand Palace that I found on my virtual tour of Bangkok:



All versions of Earth include search, and the iPhone version is no exception. You have access to the same great local search that you get with Google Maps, so you can search for places, businesses, and landmarks. With Google Earth you get to the full detail page for businesses, so you can get reviews, photos, user content, business hours, and other useful information. We also added a "search near me" feature, so with one touch you can find businesses near your location, without having to navigate there first or type in the name of the city. Looking for a good cafe when you're in Trento, Italy? It's a snap:



To get Google Earth on your iPhone, visit the App Store in iTunes or your iPhone, and search for "Google Earth."

Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager, Google Earth
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-now-available-for-iphone/feed/ 0 Google Earth Outreach connects with Bioneers https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-outreach-connects-with-bioneers/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-earth-outreach-connects-with-bioneers https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-outreach-connects-with-bioneers/#comments Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:39:00 +0000 Google Earth Outreach has been at the 2008 Bioneers conference in San Rafael, CA. The annual conference brings together non-profit and public benefit groups from all over the country for three days packed with talks, booths, music, films, food, and other fun-filled activities.
Google Earth Outreach is manning a computer lab at the conference, where attendees can stop by to get an introduction to Google Earth, and learn how they can use it in their work. During the day Friday and Saturday, we met individuals from the Women's Forest Sanctuary, Nonviolent Peaceforce, Ocean Conservancy, and numerous community and non-profit organizations from all over the country. We gave individual and group demos - how to create a Google My Map and add data in Google Earth. We also demoed a lot of different Google Earth projects by NGOs, including the new Bioneers project, Dreaming New Mexico, which has an amazing Google Earth Plug-in site developed by Googler John Gardiner in his 20% time.



We also saw interesting things like the Bag Monster



and a giant rotating globe!



This morning, Sunday, Oct. 19th, Rebecca Moore, Manager of Google Earth Outreach, presented during the Bioneers plenary session, followed by two in-depth afternoon sessions highlighting NGO uses of Google Earth. Stay tuned for more!

Posted by Sean Askay, Google Earth Outreach
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-earth-outreach-connects-with-bioneers/feed/ 0 Geo Education’s Alaska Trip Diary – Day 5 https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-education%e2%80%99s-alaska-trip-diary-%e2%80%93-day-5/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=geo-education%25e2%2580%2599s-alaska-trip-diary-%25e2%2580%2593-day-5 https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-education%e2%80%99s-alaska-trip-diary-%e2%80%93-day-5/#comments Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:59:00 +0000
Nome

After a short flight from Kotzebue, we landed in Nome in pleasant weather and caught a cab to our hotel. Our cab driver wistfully mentioned that he had just arrived home from Fairbanks, where he had played his last round of golf for the year. A university vehicle awaited us at the hotel and we discovered that our cab driver is also the mechanic who had just serviced our borrowed rig. He is an example of a phenomenon quite common in small Alaskan towns, where many people display numerous talents and fill a variety of roles within their communities.

We had another great school experience at Nome Beltz Jr-Sr High School. As with our earlier school visits, we saw quite a few hands go up when students were asked if they had used Google Earth before, but then the students were amazed to discover so many new layers and features they hadn’t known about. During the lessons, it was so great to see the light bulbs go on when students realized that they can even go beyond exploring these layers and can create and view their own content in Google Earth. That’s what this is all about – helping students have an “aha” moment.

After school, we met with faculty and staff to share information and discuss classroom activities and school projects. Some teachers had already come up with ideas for geo-based projects and lesson plans, and although we were at the tail-end of an extremely busy week, I was suddenly re-energized by the conversation.

We were lucky enough to be offered a quick tour – and an opportunity for the school to use their new GigaPan. All of the principals have been so generous with their time! We piled into a school van and saw the sites, with commentary from the school’s director of technology and the principal at the wheel. We drove up to the top of Anvil Mountain on a rugged gravel road. This mountain was the site of a White Alice communications station during the Cold War. Nome is only 160 miles from Siberia and the Anvil White Alice was designed to detect planes or missiles coming from Russia. The site has been cleaned up, but at the request of the people of Nome, the shells of the towers still remain.

We continued up the road and set up the GigaPan to take a panoramic view of the fall tundra, old gold dredges, and the waters of Norton Sound. The undulating hills of red and gold were gorgeous to behold – take a look for yourself by panning around and zooming in on this image:




Farther along on our impromptu tour, we were on the lookout for musk-oxen, but unfortunately, none revealed themselves to us. Back in town, we saw monuments to the past in the statues of the “Three Lucky Swedes” and the renovated St. Joseph’s church. Nome is a city rich in history and the students are well aware of it. When asked what they would like others to know or see about Nome, I heard such responses as, “the golden beaches” and “the Iditarod.” I can’t wait to see how these students use their new found skills with Google Earth and Maps to share their stories of Nome with the rest of the world!




Posted by Katie Kennedy, University of Alaska Geography Program
]]>
Nome

After a short flight from Kotzebue, we landed in Nome in pleasant weather and caught a cab to our hotel. Our cab driver wistfully mentioned that he had just arrived home from Fairbanks, where he had played his last round of golf for the year. A university vehicle awaited us at the hotel and we discovered that our cab driver is also the mechanic who had just serviced our borrowed rig. He is an example of a phenomenon quite common in small Alaskan towns, where many people display numerous talents and fill a variety of roles within their communities.

We had another great school experience at Nome Beltz Jr-Sr High School. As with our earlier school visits, we saw quite a few hands go up when students were asked if they had used Google Earth before, but then the students were amazed to discover so many new layers and features they hadn’t known about. During the lessons, it was so great to see the light bulbs go on when students realized that they can even go beyond exploring these layers and can create and view their own content in Google Earth. That’s what this is all about – helping students have an “aha” moment.

After school, we met with faculty and staff to share information and discuss classroom activities and school projects. Some teachers had already come up with ideas for geo-based projects and lesson plans, and although we were at the tail-end of an extremely busy week, I was suddenly re-energized by the conversation.

We were lucky enough to be offered a quick tour – and an opportunity for the school to use their new GigaPan. All of the principals have been so generous with their time! We piled into a school van and saw the sites, with commentary from the school’s director of technology and the principal at the wheel. We drove up to the top of Anvil Mountain on a rugged gravel road. This mountain was the site of a White Alice communications station during the Cold War. Nome is only 160 miles from Siberia and the Anvil White Alice was designed to detect planes or missiles coming from Russia. The site has been cleaned up, but at the request of the people of Nome, the shells of the towers still remain.

We continued up the road and set up the GigaPan to take a panoramic view of the fall tundra, old gold dredges, and the waters of Norton Sound. The undulating hills of red and gold were gorgeous to behold – take a look for yourself by panning around and zooming in on this image:




Farther along on our impromptu tour, we were on the lookout for musk-oxen, but unfortunately, none revealed themselves to us. Back in town, we saw monuments to the past in the statues of the “Three Lucky Swedes” and the renovated St. Joseph’s church. Nome is a city rich in history and the students are well aware of it. When asked what they would like others to know or see about Nome, I heard such responses as, “the golden beaches” and “the Iditarod.” I can’t wait to see how these students use their new found skills with Google Earth and Maps to share their stories of Nome with the rest of the world!




Posted by Katie Kennedy, University of Alaska Geography Program
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-education%e2%80%99s-alaska-trip-diary-%e2%80%93-day-5/feed/ 0 Geo Education’s Alaska Trip Diary – Day 4 https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-education%e2%80%99s-alaska-trip-diary-%e2%80%93-day-4/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=geo-education%25e2%2580%2599s-alaska-trip-diary-%25e2%2580%2593-day-4 https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-education%e2%80%99s-alaska-trip-diary-%e2%80%93-day-4/#comments Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:24:00 +0000
Kotzebue: guns, drugs and helicopters

Now that’s an attention-getter! What kind of crazed situation did the Google Geo Education group get itself involved in? I'll get there soon enough, but first let me spend some time providing the back-story. Kotzebue consists of a little fewer than 4,000 people and is on the up-and-up, having gotten all of its roads paved within the past few years (the asphalt serves as effective dust control compared to the previous gravel-based roads). My entry into Kotzebue started stressfully enough, as our airline had left my luggage in Anchorage during our flight transfer. Although they said my bags would be on the following morning’s flight into town, when our decommissioned yellow school bus, driven by Principal Dave, pulled into the airport at 7:30 am, no bags had come in and I was told they couldn't find them in their baggage system. Not the best mind-set to be in for teaching high school students.

As with our previous day in Barrow, our first moments at Kotzebue High School consisted of a mad scramble of getting online and setting up projectors, microphones and the Gigapan camera. Due to bandwidth limitations Anna and I had to change our hands-on My Maps-making lesson to more of a show and tell, but we had a great time searching for and mapping out the students’ subsistence camps, where they go to hunt and fish with their families. Everyone posed enthusiastically for Gigapan photos in the library, sometimes switching seats as the camera panned around so they would appear two or three times in the image. The students were engaged and attentive, and asked great questions. Their behavior and aptitude for learning supported the results that the principal and his teaching colleagues have obtained, taking the school from a graduation rate of ~50% to greater than 85% in just eight years.

After class, Dave took us in the yellow bus to the local field office for the State of Alaska Department of Fish and Game. There we met wildlife biologist Jim Dau and learned about how his team tracks caribou migration patterns. Jim's dataset spans more than twenty years and consists of following radio-tagged caribou across the western half of Alaska. In the early days, researchers used to tag the caribou by shooting them with drug-tipped darts shot from a gun on a helicopter. Now they use boats and volunteer high-school students to reach the caribou in the water and safely tag them. Long story short, his team is very excited to get started using Google Earth in their research! Not a bad day after all.





Posted by Eric Kolb, GIS Specialist
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-education%e2%80%99s-alaska-trip-diary-%e2%80%93-day-4/feed/ 0 Geo Education’s Alaska Trip Diary – Day 3 https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-educations-alaska-trip-diary-day-3/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=geo-educations-alaska-trip-diary-day-3 https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-educations-alaska-trip-diary-day-3/#comments Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:15:00 +0000
En route from Barrow to Kotzebue

In order to get from Barrow to Kotzebue you need to fly all the way back to Anchorage first, so Wednesday was a travel day. We spent our layover refining our lesson plans, so I thought I would share the activity I've been presenting in classrooms this week. I call it “Our Changing World: Using Google Earth and KML imagery overlays to visualize change over time."

The Earth is a dynamic planet that is not static and changes frequently through landslides, volcanic eruptions, tectonic movements, weather patterns, and the changing of seasons. Visualizing these changes can be accomplished easily with Google Earth by using the “Imagery Overlay” tool to drape additional imagery information on top of the existing globe. The "UNEP: Atlas of our changing environment" layer in the Global Awareness folder has some great examples of these kinds of overlays.

My colleague Josie and I created a simple lesson plan using two imagery overlays from the Alaska Scenarios Network for Alaska Planning (SNAP) program which includes recorded average winter temperature data from 2000 to 2009, and estimated average winter temperatures for 2090 to 2099. Students will learn how to load an example dataset -- using the Keyhole Markup Language (KML) -- within Google Earth, and the skills needed to correctly place non-georeferenced data on the ground.

Figure 1: Starting positions of two imagery overlays. The 2090 – 2099 imagery overlay is incorrectly placed in the Gulf of Alaska. Students can move the overlay into the correct location.

Students will then be able to make their own investigations to visually compare where temperatures change in Alaska based on the recorded temperature values and estimates provided by Alaska SNAP.

Figure 2: The two image overlays, correctly placed in the Alaskan borders, may now be used to visually compare average winter temperatures from 2000 – 2009 (left) versus estimated average winter temperatures in 2090 – 2099 (right).

Figure 3: Students can use the Google Earth “Places” panel to activate each imagery overlay and make visual comparisons.

I also wanted to share the steps in how the Overlays KML can be used in your own class to demonstrate how imagery overlays are moved within Google Earth, and how these data may be used for visual interpretation of temperature data.

1) Download the Overlays.kml file to students’ workstations.

2) Have students load Google Earth.

3) Have students type the word ‘Alaska’ in the “Fly To” search tab; they will be flown to the state and ready to load the imagery file.

4) Have students turn on the “Borders & Labels” Layer in Google Earth (if it's not already on) by checking the box next to the name.

5) Load the ImageryOverlayLesson.kml file into Google Earth by clicking “File” and “Open.” Browse to the folder you saved it in and load the ImageryOverlayLesson.kml file.

6) A folder will be loaded into the Google Earth “Places” pane that looks like Figure 3. The Google Earth screen will now have a SNAP logo file and a temperature legend along the left screen edge, and two Alaska-shaped images will be visible on the globe. One image is in the correct location over Alaska while the second image is incorrectly located in the Gulf of Alaska.

7) Direct students to uncheck the box next to the “Average Winter Temperatures 2000 – 2009” layer (which displays the average winter temperatures recorded for January-March for 2000-2009) This will turn off the “correct” Alaskan imagery overlay and make it easier to move the second image correctly into place next.

8) Right-click on the “Estimated Average Winter Temperatures 2090 – 2099” layer (which estimates the average temperatures for January-March for 2000-2099) and select the “Properties” entry. A new dialog box will appear named “Edit Image Overlay“ and a green box of lines will surround the image.

9) Move the Alaska image by clicking and holding the left mouse button and pushing the image into place. Release the left mouse button once the image is in place.



10) Use the other green lines surrounding the image to modify image height and width as needed.

11) Click the “Ok” button to exit “Edit Image Properties” window.

12) Direct students to uncheck the “Estimated Winter Average Temperatures 2090 – 2099” layer and check the “Average Winter Temperatures 2000 – 2009” layer.

13) Correlate colors on the temperature legend with values displayed in Alaska for the “Average Winter Temperatures 2000 – 2009” layer.” Identify temperature regions for the state during winter.


14) Turn on the “Estimate Average Winter Temperatures 2090 – 2099” layer and compare the estimated values in 2090. Identify differences between this layer and the current “Average Winter Temperatures 2000 – 2099” layer.

This lesson is specific to Alaska, but it's easy for teachers to find data relevant to their own geographic region, state, or city. I suggest looking at some of the KMLs in the Google Earth Gallery to find interesting data examples such as "World Oil Consumption" or a "Rising Sea Level Animation," or other examples available on the Internet such as Google Lit Trips or the National Snow and Ice Data Center Virtual Globes Gallery. These example KML files could be integrated into existing lesson plans or used as the basis for new lesson plans. Some possible lesson plan integrations include:
  • Identifying site locations for literature studied in class to place a story in context to the surrounding geography of an area – example includes “Candide” from Google Lit Trips (Hyperlink).
  • Tracing seasonal animal migrations between regions – example birds flying South for winter and returning in the Spring.

The flexibility of KML allows creative integration possibilities for teachers in normally non-spatial topics, and can further enhance students’ learning experience of the world around them locally and globally.

Our flights from Barrow to Kotzebue, AK were very smooth and gave us plenty of time to discuss changes to our lesson plans and how we can better share information with students in Kotzebue. I look forward to visiting Kotezebue, AK and continuing our Geo Education adventure.


Posted by Jason Cain, Geo Education Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-educations-alaska-trip-diary-day-3/feed/ 0 Geo Education’s Alaska Trip Diary – Day 2 https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-educations-alaska-trip-diary-day-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=geo-educations-alaska-trip-diary-day-2 https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-educations-alaska-trip-diary-day-2/#comments Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:41:00 +0000
Barrow

The flight from Fairbanks was a nice one, not too much out of the ordinary except that the front of the plane was blocked off to hold cargo, and the back half was reserved for passengers. The only way to get goods to Barrow, the most northern point of the United States, is by plane or by barge. The scenery between Fairbanks and Barrow was beautiful to say the least. First there were tall evergreens poking through fires of yellow leaves coating the many mountain ranges, then the land was flat and the landscape was dotted with round lakes and sinewy river paths. I saw no roads. Then we landed on the top of the world, Barrow, Alaska.



The outskirts of Barrow from the descent


The first thing I noticed at the airport was that everyone knew each other. Neighbors greeted neighbors and groups of marine biologists and researchers milled about, chatting with each other while waiting for our luggage (which takes a while, because there is so much cargo to unload). I instantly felt a sense of community; people rely on each other here. We were met at the tiny airport by the principal of Barrow High School. Our hotel was conveniently located across the street from the airport, with the high school right around the corner. The skyline of Barrow consists of a collection of dwellings, hotels, and odd-shaped dome structures, some of which hover above the ground on stilts, so as to not disturb the frozen arctic tundra.


No snow yet

Our first day of teaching was also a day of learning for us. Our day began with a general assembly for the approximately 100 freshman and sophomores who trickled into the auditorium after homeroom. After an introduction and demonstration, we split into groups to teach three different lesson plans. I worked with John Bailey from UAF to teach the group about GPS technologies and navigation around Google Earth. Barrow High is part of Apple's 1 to 1 program, so each student has their own laptop to work from.

I asked a few groups of students to describe their favorite part of the day's lessons. Their answer was always enthusiastically the same – the flight simulator in Google Earth. They also enjoyed learning how to discover content by zooming in and out of places in Google Earth and turning on different layers. They said the elephants in Africa (referring to Michael Fay's Africa flyover in the National Geographic layer) and that measuring the length of hippos in Smoots was also fun.


Barrow High School

I had one particularly enlightening moment with our last group of students, who were juniors and seniors. A student asked me to show her how to view the Panoramio photos in the town of Barrow using Google Earth. I popped an icon, and she exclaimed that the picture I showed was "ugly." I didn't think so. I attempted to explain to her and the class that people who have never been to Barrow would find this snapshot fascinating. We talked about how people like to explore and see what other less familiar places look like, and that what may be boring and mundane to her may be fascinating to someone who has never been north of the Arctic Circle. The class was silent and reflective, and someone else said that they should go and take more pictures of their town. I hope they are inspired to find a digital camera and capture their town through their eyes for the world to see.


The arctic blue football field of the Barrow Whalers

Cheers to Barrow, I found it to be a tight-knit community, where everyone knows everyone, you can walk into THE grocery store, chat with your neighbors, and where you can join the "polar bear club" any time of the year. Visiting the Land of the Midnight sun for two days was not long enough. I travel a lot for work but I still get excited about going to new and unique places, and I have to say that this will be one of the most memorable. The vice principal of the High School took us on a lovely tour north of the city after our day of teaching. We went to the blue BLUE High School football field and we drove as far north as you can go, almost to the very tip of northern Alaska. The air is dry and crisp, and the sun shines but the wind takes your breath away. And the whole idea of a polar bear walking down Main Street, or rather, "North Star Street," is incredible.


One of the landmarks on the edge of town, the "gateway" to Barrow


Here we are at the top of the world

Posted by Megan Goddard, GIS Specialist

]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-educations-alaska-trip-diary-day-2/feed/ 0 Geo Education’s Alaska Travel Diary – Day 1 https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-educations-alaska-travel-diary-day-1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=geo-educations-alaska-travel-diary-day-1 https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-educations-alaska-travel-diary-day-1/#comments Wed, 17 Sep 2008 07:40:00 +0000
From Fairbanks to Barrow
Our first full day in Alaska started out at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center’s Discovery Lab. To get there we descended to the lower depths of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Rasmuson Library. This location is fitting, because the D-Lab, as it’s known, feels a lot like a cave – a cave from the future, that is. The room is dark except for a huge 3-walled screen, onto which you can project all kinds of interesting imagery. It makes for a very immersive environment, and the lab has been used for projects ranging from virtual reality experiments to virtual dance performances. We spent the first part of our day there, demonstrating Google Earth and talking to representatives of the University and local press.

Next we stopped off to visit UAF’s Geophysical Institute, where our friend John Bailey, a volcanologist and avid geo developer, spends his time. He gave us a tour of the Alaska Volcano Observatory, where researchers track volcanic activity using Google Earth and other tools. These very cool animations simulating the movement of volcanic ash caught my eye.


We arrived in Barrow just in time for dinner and a windy stroll. We're only a little over an hour away from Fairbanks by air, but it’s unlike anywhere I’ve ever been. Polar bears are regularly spotted in town (here's one checking out the football field), and our hotel has thermal shields to keep it from melting the permafrost. Here are some pictures from our first day, and we’ll be back tomorrow with stories from our time in Barrow.




Posted by Kate Hurowitz, Lat Long Blog Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/geo-educations-alaska-travel-diary-day-1/feed/ 0 Google Map Maker for Haiti and Cuba in response to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-map-maker-for-haiti-and-cuba-in-response-to-hurricanes-gustav-and-ike/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-map-maker-for-haiti-and-cuba-in-response-to-hurricanes-gustav-and-ike https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-map-maker-for-haiti-and-cuba-in-response-to-hurricanes-gustav-and-ike/#comments Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:00:00 +0000
For those who are familiar with Haiti or Cuba and want to lend a helping hand, we urge you to help map these countries. Our Google Map Maker engineering and operations teams are also contributing to this effort, and hope to make available quality maps of Haiti and Cuba to help in planning and delivering relief to the affected population. When Cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawaddy delta in Myanmar (Burma) earlier this year, we mobilized a similar effort with our teams to put together a Mapplet within a week.

In addition, users can also help map the Caribbean Islands, several of which were affected by the recent disasters. A list of countries where Google Map Maker is launched is available here.

For a quick tutorial on Google Map Maker, watch the video below or refer to our help pages for more information.






Lalitesh Katragadda, Software Engineer and Jessica Pfund, GIS Specialist
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/google-map-maker-for-haiti-and-cuba-in-response-to-hurricanes-gustav-and-ike/feed/ 0 New data for Georgia https://googledata.org/google-earth/new-data-for-georgia/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-data-for-georgia https://googledata.org/google-earth/new-data-for-georgia/#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:10:00 +0000 blog post explaining why our map of Georgia was blank, and letting users know that that we would soon be adding more data to the region. As promised, we've just released new data for Georgia and a number of other countries. This means that you'll now see labels for cities, and as you zoom into the map more labels will appear for smaller towns. Remember that you can get additional information about an area by turning on the Photos or Wikipedia layers (look for the "More..." button in the upper-right corner of the map). I find the Photos layer to be particularly helpful in getting a feel for a place that I've never visited. Here's what the Photos layer looks like for Georgia's capital city of Tbilisi:



We will continue improving this data and adding more coverage as we have it available. Thank you to our users for their helpful feedback, and for continuing to provide content like photos to make our maps better for everyone.

Posted by Dave Barth, Product Manager, Google Maps
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/new-data-for-georgia/feed/ 0 Tracking Hurricane Gustav in Google Earth https://googledata.org/google-earth/tracking-hurricane-gustav-in-google-earth/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tracking-hurricane-gustav-in-google-earth https://googledata.org/google-earth/tracking-hurricane-gustav-in-google-earth/#comments Mon, 01 Sep 2008 06:10:00 +0000


Expand the folder to find the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center, a forecast track (also from the NHC), and a set of webcams in and around Louisiana, provided to us by Weather Bonk. We may be adding more information into the folder as the situation unfolds.

Please keep in mind when tracking the storm in Google Earth that the "Clouds" layer is 1-3 hours behind "real time," so the storm is actually farther ahead than it looks. The "Radar" layer should be accurate within 15-30 minutes of real-time.

For more detailed data on the approaching storm, including individual images from various satellites, load this KML into Google Earth, produced by the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey.

The volunteer-run Gustav Information Center has embedded a map of Evacuation Centers & Routes on their site.

If you happen to be in one of the affected areas, please stay tuned to your local authorities for specific instructions.

Posted by Cris Castello, Google Earth Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/tracking-hurricane-gustav-in-google-earth/feed/ 0 Off to the Games! https://googledata.org/google-earth/off-to-the-games/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=off-to-the-games https://googledata.org/google-earth/off-to-the-games/#comments Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:25:00 +0000 The 2008 Summer Games will soon commence in Beijing and will run from August 8th to August 24th. You may have noticed that we recently updated our satellite imagery in Beijing, have added detailed bilingual maps in China, and have created a collection of 3D stadiums using Google SketchUp.

In addition to all of this, today we're launching the 2008 Summer Games on Google Maps. It's a one-stop shop for viewing live updates from the Games, including up-to-date medal counts by country, events by date, and results by sport.




To track medal counts, click on the 'Medals' tab and zoom or pan the map to see updates around the world. Clicking on a country or region will display medal information as it's received. Use the 'Events' tab to view the latest schedules by date, country, and sport. All data--including country and region participants, sport results, and medal counts--is provided through an official feed from the World News Press Agency (WNPA).

As a bonus, we've also included a way to view sports stadiums and venues in 3D. By clicking the 'Earth' tab, PC users can access the Google Earth plug-in and virtually explore the Beijing Village. Not a PC user? No problem. All users are also able to preview the venue information and 3D fly-through videos within the map.



If you'd rather follow the Games from your desktop, we've launched a Google Earth KML that highlights similar information and provides a unique virtual experience. To whet your palate, here's a video tour of the 3D Village:








Posted by Brittany Bohnet, Google Maps Special Projects
]]> https://googledata.org/google-earth/off-to-the-games/feed/ 0