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April 30, 2010
NASA releases updated imagery from the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico
A few days ago we posted imagery from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Today, NASA has released new imagery that show the spill's approach toward the Louisiana coastline.
Here is the updated KML file (with both images included), or you can view the high-res JPG
(via NASA).
UPDATE: Virgil Zetterlind at EarthNC has created an animation of the spill. You can view it here or read more about it here.
UPDATE #2: You can now access the latest imagery directly within Google Earth. Turn on the "Places of Interest" layer and click the red icon that appears in the Gulf of Mexico.
Posted by mickmel at 10:44 AM
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April 27, 2010
New Google Earth Imagery - April 27
Google has just released new imagery for Google Earth. We don't know the full extent of the update yet, but we've found some of it.
[Update, 29-April -- The official KML file has been released.]
As is often the case, you can use Google Maps to determine for sure whether or not a specific area is fresh. This new imagery isn't in Google Maps yet, so you can compare Earth vs. Maps to see what's new; the fresh imagery is already in Google Earth, but the old imagery is still in Google Maps. If you compare the two side-by-side and they're not identical, that means that you've found a freshly updated area in Google Earth!
You could even use the new "Earth View" in Google Maps to swap back and forth between Maps and Earth view.
[UPDATED -- 28-April, 6:58am EST]
- Argentina: Rosario -- thanks '3done'
- Brazil: Sao Paulo -- thanks 'Tiago'
- Canada: BC -- thanks 'Craig'
- United States: Arizona (Phoenix, Tucson), Iowa (Des Moines), Nevada (Las Vegas) and Texas (almost the entire state) -- thanks 'Andreas', 'cristi', 'Chris', 'McMaster_de' and 'ChristianNL'
If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!
Posted by mickmel at 6:47 AM
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Google Earth plug-in now tied directly into Google Maps
Google has just unveiled a new feature in Google Maps called "Earth view". It's quite simple -- there is a new button in Google Maps for "Earth", which loads the Google Earth Plug-in into your viewing window.
Loading the Earth view gives you almost all of the same features that you get in standard Google Maps. The only exceptions appear to be a few layers (Webcams, Buzz and Bicycling) and the Traffic Info. I'm not sure why those were omitted, but I'm sure we'll see them added in the future.
You can get directions using the Earth view, and even load your favorite MyMaps in there. Once loaded, toggling back and forth between Maps and Earth is virtually seamless.
For more information, you can read the Google Lat Long blog, watch the video below, or go try it yourself!
Posted by mickmel at 6:37 AM
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April 26, 2010
Hubble Tour for Google Earth
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Hubble telescope, Google has released a new Hubble tour to show off the best of the imagery that it has captured. In addition, Google Sky Map, a slick application for Android-powered phones, now includes a Hubble Gallery.
You can download the tour here, or see a preview of it in the video below.
Posted by mickmel at 4:42 PM
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Northeastern University adds 88 3D models to Google Earth
Concept3D has just published 88 3D buildings from Northeastern University in Google Earth. Like their other work, the buildings look phenomenal. In addition, the 3D trees look very sharp and add quite a lot to the realism.
We've previously shown their work on Boston University, and it's great to see them continue to expand. Much like the preparation for our trip to Disney last year, I can see this being a very valuable resource for incoming freshmen; it's a great way to get familiar with the campus before you even arrive!
For more, you can check out the details in the 3D Warehouse, or just fly there yourself using this KML file.
Posted by mickmel at 9:53 AM
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April 23, 2010
Running the Copper Canyon UltraMarathon
From Steven's "Google Earth my Virtual Globe" blog comes a very creative 3D tour. In the book Born to Run, they discuss "the greatest race", a 47 mile ultramarathon held in Copper Canyon (in southwestern Chihuahua, Mexico).
However, in all of the book's discussion of the race, no map or visuals are provided. Using the book and some GPS tracks, Steven has built a virtual tour of the route.
It's a neat way to visualize a race like that. He even includes an overlay of Arnulfo Quimare "running" the route. A bit cheesy perhaps, but it certainly adds to the experience.
Steven has also done a tour of Disney's Magic Kingdom, giving you a neat way to experience the park.
Posted by mickmel at 7:00 AM
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April 22, 2010
Using Google Earth on Earth Day
Once again it's Earth Day. A time to sit back and think about our wonderful planet, and some of us will be out picking up some trash, or just enjoying nature. For those of you stuck inside due to weather, work, or other reasons - perhaps you might want to spend the day exploring our wonderful planet through the power of Google Earth. Here are a few links of stories from Google Earth Blog (GEB) in the past year describing environmental related content available for viewing in Google Earth:
• Largest Proposed Urban Solar Power Plant in the US -- A look at the proposed solar power plant near Chicago, Illinois.
• Huge Waste of Energy Visible in Google Earth -- Showing the "gas flares" in the Persian Gulf.
• US Drought Conditions in Google Earth by NOAA -- Covering drought information in the United States from 2000 through today.
• Kaisei Project - Researching the Plastic Vortex -- Research into the Pacific Garbage Patch.
• Climate change tools for Google Earth -- Various tours that Google released in preparation for the COP15 meetings in Copenhagen.
• Google releases more tours to highlight climate change -- More tools from Google in preparation for COP15.
• Tracking the migration of Osprey -- Tracking Osprey as they migrate from their nest in Loch Garten, Scotland.
• Deforestation of the Amazon is uncovering Geoglyphs -- A combination of deforestation and high-resolution satellite imagery is uncovering geoglyphs in the Amazon.
• A climate change tour of cold places -- NSIDC released this project to show the snowy and icy regions of the world covering sea ice, glaciers, ice shelves and permafrost.
• Marine Scientists dive into Google Earth -- Covering the 2010 Pew Fellows in Marine Conservation.
• Town being eaten by a mine -- The sad story of Cerro de Pasco, Peru being destroyed by a mine.
• Ocean layer is now a default for all users -- All users now see ocean layers as a default.
For more, you can check out Frank's post from last year and read stories that go back even further.
Posted by mickmel at 8:25 AM
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Another city for Building Maker - St. Louis
We haven't talked much about Building Maker lately, but Google is still adding more features to it. Today they've released St. Louis for use inside of the application.
This brings their total to 88 cities now available in Building Maker, which is quite impressive. While I expect that number to keep growing, I hope they're able to expand the coverage area for those cities soon. I'd love for the Atlanta area to reach my part of town, as I'd probably go nuts modeling houses and stores around our house. It's a great tool and is helping to get thousands of new models into Google Earth with each update.
Posted by mickmel at 8:14 AM
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April 21, 2010
StreetView finally heading indoors?
We've discussed the idea of "indoor StreetView" a few times in the past, with concepts from companies like Peekspy and Urbanimmersive, and I recently had a nice conversation with Mok Oh from Everyscape. These companies are all working to make StreetView-like experiences indoors, but now it appears that Google may be bringing their own solution to the party.
As part of their new "Google Places", you'll be able to request a photo shoot of the inside of your business. While the photos are only promised to be going on the Place Page for that company, it's not much of a stretch to imagine them being seamlessly integrated into StreetView and I imagine it'd be somewhat similar to the indoor Bing Maps (see the 4:00 mark of this video).
It's inevitable that StreetView-like technology will be available inside of major retailers at some point. It's unclear if that will come from Google directly or from a third party like Everyscape, but this certainly seems like it could be a step in that direction.
Posted by mickmel at 9:37 AM
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April 20, 2010
The longest suspension bridges in the world
Having already covered the tallest buildings and the highest mountains in the world, I thought it'd be fun to look at the longest bridges.
For this list, we're looking at the longest suspension bridges. I was a bit disappointed that a few of them didn't have 3D models available yet (or even decent imagery), but most of them look pretty sweet in Google Earth.
1. Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, Japan -- 1,991m -- KML
The Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge, also known as the Pearl Bridge, has the longest central span of any suspension bridge, at 1,991 metres (6,532 ft). It is located in Japan and was completed in 1998. The bridge links the city of Kobe on the mainland of Honshū to Iwaya on Awaji Island by crossing the busy Akashi Strait. It carries part of the Honshū-Shikoku Highway. (wikipedia)
2. Xihoumen Bridge, China -- 1,650m
The Xihoumen Bridge is a suspension bridge built on the Zhoushan Archipelago, the largest offshore island group in China. The main span was completed in December 2007. The entire bridge, along with Jintang Bridge, was opened to traffic on a test basis on 25 December 2009. The opening date was put off because of a ship collision on 16 November 2009 that slightly damaged the side of Jintang Bridge. (wikipedia)
3. Great Belt Bridge, Denmark -- 1,624m -- KML
The Great Belt Fixed Link is the fixed link between the Danish islands of Zealand and Funen across the Great Belt. It consists of a road suspension bridge and railway tunnel between Zealand and the island Sprogo, as well as a box girder bridge between Sprogo and Funen. The "Great Belt Bridge" commonly refers to the suspension bridge, although it may also be used to mean the beam bridge or the link in its entirety. (wikipedia)
4. Runyang Bridge, China -- 1,490m -- KML
The Runyang Bridge is a large bridge complex that crosses the Yangtze River in Jiangsu Province, China, downstream of Nanjing. The complex consists of two major bridges that link Zhenjiang on the south bank of the river and Yangzhou on the north. The bridge is part of the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway. (wikipedia)
5. Humber Bridge, UK -- 1,410m -- KML
The Humber Bridge is the fifth-largest single-span suspension bridge in the world, near Kingston upon Hull in England. It spans the Humber (the estuary formed by the rivers Trent and Ouse) between Barton-upon-Humber on the south bank and Hessle on the north bank, connecting the East Riding of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. The bridge carries an average of 120,000 vehicles per week, which pay a toll of £2.70 each way for cars (higher for commercial vehicles). (wikipedia
6. Jiangyin Suspension Bridge, China -- 1,385m
The Jiangyin Suspension Bridge is the most seaward bridge to cross the Yangtze River of China. It connects the cities of Jiangyin and Jingjiang. The main span of the bridge is 1,385 metres meters long, making it the sixth-longest span suspension bridge in the world and the largest in China at the time of its completion in 1999. With the completion of the Runyang Bridge in 2005 and the Xihoumen Bridge in 2007 it became the third largest in China. (wikipedia)
7. Tsing Ma Bridge, Hong Kong -- 1,377m -- KML
The Tsing Ma Bridge is a bridge in Hong Kong. The bridge was named after two of the islands at its ends, namely Tsing Yi and Ma Wan . It has two decks and carries both road and rail traffic, which also makes it the largest suspension bridge of this type. The bridge has a main span of 1,377 metres (4,518 ft) and a height of 206 metres (676 ft). The span is the largest of all bridges in the world carrying rail traffic. (wikipedia)
8. Verrazana-Narrows Bridge, USA -- 1,298m -- KML
The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge that connects the boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City at the Narrows, the reach connecting the relatively protected upper bay with the larger lower bay.
The bridge is named for Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first known European navigator to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River, while crossing The Narrows. It has a center span of 4,260 feet and was the largest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its completion in 1964, until it was surpassed by the Humber Bridge in the United Kingdom in 1981. It now has the eighth longest center span in the world, and is the largest suspension bridge in the United States. Its massive towers can be seen throughout a good part of the New York metropolitan area, including from spots in all five boroughs of New York City. (wikipedia)
9. Golden Gate Bridge, USA -- 1,280m -- KML
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, it connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County. The Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed during the year 1937, and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California. Since its completion, the span length has been surpassed by eight other bridges. It still has the second longest suspension bridge main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City. In 1999, it was ranked fifth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. (wikipedia)
10. Yangluo Bridge, China -- 1,280m -- KML
Posted by mickmel at 8:24 AM
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April 19, 2010
New imagery from the Qinghai earthquake
Google has just released some fresh imagery from the earthquake that struck Qinghai, China last week.
To view this new imagery, simply download this KML file and view it in Google Earth. You're also encouraged to check out their Crisis Response page and assist in any way that you can.
Posted by mickmel at 1:08 PM
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Town being eaten by a mine
Yahoo has a very sad story about the town of Cerro de Pasco, Peru, and how the city is slowly being devoured by a mine.
For more than 50 years, the zinc and lead mine has slowly grown in size. Not only is it slowly consuming the city (a town square and colonial church were recently destroyed), but the rest of the city is facing the effects of the pollution. I encourage you to read the full story on Yahoo.
The area is remarkably sharp in Google Earth, and you can can fly there to check it out yourself using this KML file. Not only is the imagery high-res, but the terrain in the area is sharp as well, allowing you to literally go down into the hole created by the mine.
Posted by mickmel at 10:01 AM
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April 16, 2010
Imagery of the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland
By now, most of you have heard about the volcano that has erupted beneath the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland. Not only is it causing substantial flooding in Iceland due to the melting glacier, but it's causing the cancellation of the thousands of flights across Europe. It's the largest disruption in air travel since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States.
NASA has released some incredibly sharp imagery of the ash cloud, which is seen here:
You can download the KML file yourself if you'd like to check it out in Google Earth. Be aware that it's a very large image and could take a minute or so to load.
You can also view some fresh imagery that GeoEye has published of the area, but it takes a few steps to get there:
Open Google Earth, open the More category in the Layers panel, and turn on GeoEye Featured Imagery. Then search for Iceland, click on the GeoEye logo at the south end of the island, and then click "View Full Resolution Image in Google Earth" in the window that pops up
Posted by mickmel at 7:22 AM
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April 15, 2010
New StreetView imagery - April 15
Google appears to have just released another batch of fresh StreetView imagery. So far it doesn't seem to be a huge update, but includes a good bit of imagery from the StreetView trike.
Updated areas include: [UPDATED 8:31am EST, 15-April]
• Mexico: Expanded coverage
• UK: Various Theme Parks, including Alton Towers and Legoland (details)
You can browse StreetView using the normal Google Maps interface, but don't forget that you can also use StreetView inside of Google Earth.
If you know of any more updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!
Posted by mickmel at 8:31 AM
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April 14, 2010
Taking Google Earth to school
Some high schools in Israel are adding Google Earth to their geography exams. Not only will students be allowed to use it instead of a traditional atlas, but parts of the exam will require the use of Earth to successfully complete the test.
According to the head of the Education Ministry Supervisors Department, Dalia Fanning, "Incorporating Google Earth in the final allows students to use interactive maps, observe geological layers and computer animation. It allows students to 'fly' over the area and 'land' according to the test's requirements."
I've not been able to find much information outside of this single article, but it's certainly interesting. What do you think? Is it a valuable step forward to help students learn to use software such as Google Earth? Or should testing force them to use a standard atlas in order to better grasp the basic concepts?
Posted by mickmel at 8:45 AM
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April 13, 2010
New York City gets lifelike facades
Last year we told you about a variety of cities that got detailed facades, after Google used their StreetView imagery and mapped it onto the sides of the buildings. Now they've added the detailed facades to New York City and they look great!
They're not saying how much of the city has gotten the treatment, but it seems to be a massive area. While the coverage is a bit spotty at times, they seem to have covered virtually all of Manhattan. You can read more about it on the Google LatLong blog or watch the video below:
Posted by mickmel at 7:16 AM
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April 12, 2010
Lots of new 3D: Machu Picchu, Luna Park ferris wheel, and various cities
SketchUp user 'pmolsen' has just made me aware of a new addition to the 3D warehouse that he constructed -- an exact 3D replica of Machu Picchu in Peru. Using data from a laser scan of the site, and putting in around 1,200 hours of work, the result is quite amazing.
Below is a video of the model, you can check it out in the 3D warehouse, or you can use this KML file to fly there yourself (make sure that you have the "3D Buildings" layer turned on):
He also built a ferris wheel animation at Luna Park in Sydney, similar to the London Eye animation we showed you a few years ago. You can download the animated file from the 3D Warehouse, or watch this video below:
Lastly, Google has added three more 3D cities to Google Earth, all in South Africa: Nelspruit (KML), Polokwane (KML) and Phokeng (KML). The coverage areas aren't especially large, but the quality of the buildings is solid.
Posted by mickmel at 6:52 AM
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April 9, 2010
How to request blurring of a face or license plate in Street View
We get a few emails every week from people wondering how to get their face or license plate blurred in Google's Street View. This is a big deal to a lot of people, and it's quite easy to do.
From Google's recent post in the Google Maps Help forum, here's all that you need to do.
Have you found your house on Street View and prefer it isn't show for privacy reasons? Have you found a face or license plate that hasn't been automatically blurred? If so, reporting an image for review is simple. All you have to do is:
1. Locate the image in Street View
2. Click "Report a problem" in the bottom-left of the Street View image window
3. Complete the form, and click "Submit".
We definitely understand the privacy concerns users may have, so once you submit your report, we will review your request promptly. You can find more information regarding this process at the following help-center topic:
http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=68385
Posted by mickmel at 8:46 AM
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April 8, 2010
Using Google Earth to find fossils
There's a neat story on the Google LatLong blog today about a professor that has been using Google Earth to find caves and fossil deposits, eventually leading to the discovery of a hominid fossil dated between 1.78 and 1.95 million years old.
Before Professor Lee Berger began this project using Google Earth, there were around 130 cave sites and 20 fossil deposits that they were aware of, identified by him and his colleagues over the past few decades. Since beginning to use Google Earth, they've found over 500 previously unidentified sites!
Here's a brief video from Google's Chief Technology Advocate Michael Jones about this discovery:
Posted by mickmel at 11:52 AM
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Google Earth for more Android users
A few months ago, Google released Google Earth for the Nexus One. Now that Android version 2.1 is reaching the Motorola DROID phone, so is Google Earth. In fact, Google Earth will be arriving on most of the high-end Android devices as soon as they reach version 2.1. If your phone is on 2.1, you can download Google Earth for free by going to m.google.com/earth from your mobile browser, or by searching for "Google Earth" in the Android Market.
The only phones that won't be able to run Google Earth are those that lack hardware floating-point acceleration, such as the myTouch 3G and the DROID ERIS. Most others can handle it once they get the 2.1 update.
Here is video of Google Earth running on the Nexus One, which is essentially the same version that is now running on the DROID;
Of course, you can always get the Google Earth Blog app on virtually any Android device to keep up with our latest posts, videos and tweets. Just search for "Google Earth Blog" in the Android Market to find us.
Posted by mickmel at 8:07 AM
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Ocean layer is now a default for all users
Just over a year ago, Google unveiled their 3D ocean in Google Earth. Since then, they've added a variety of features to it such as improving the visualizations, adding high-res terrain and even adding Frank's expedition to the layer.
Now they've announced that it will be one of the default layers for all users. In addition, they've added a narrated tour to their Ocean Showcase to show some regions that are proposed to be marine protected areas.
With the addition of the Ocean layer to the default set of annotations for all users, it will help expose it to a wider audience of users.
Posted by mickmel at 7:46 AM
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April 7, 2010
Explore Civil War Trails in Google Earth
The state of Pennsylvania has just launched a new portal to enable people to explore the Pennsylvania Civil War Trails online. The system uses the Google Earth Plug-in, then overlays various placemarks, information and imagery.
Of particular note is the impressive GigaPan imagery throughout the map; massive images of battlefields and other noteworthy areas that can be explored similarly to the Gigapxl Photos in Google Earth.
You can check it out for yourself from the Google Earth page on the pacivilwartrails.com site.
Posted by mickmel at 7:34 AM
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April 6, 2010
New Google Earth Imagery - April 6
Google has just released some new imagery for Google Earth. We've only been able to verify a few locations so far, but plenty more is certainly out there.
As is often the case, you can use Google Maps to determine for sure whether or not a specific area is fresh. This new imagery isn't in Google Maps yet, so you can compare Earth vs. Maps to see what's new; the fresh imagery is already in Google Earth, but the old imagery is still in Google Maps. If you compare the two side-by-side and they're not identical, that means that you've found a freshly updated area in Google Earth!
[UPDATED -- 6-April, 5:21pm EST]
- Brazil: Various areas, including Encantado and Nova Petrópolis -- thanks 'Rafael'
- Chad: Northern parts of the country -- thanks 'Andreas'
- China: Most of Liaoning Province and south of Shanghai -- thanks 'Zdk' and 'Munden'
- Japan: Various spot imagery -- thanks 'Thilo'
- New Caledonia: Noumea -- thanks 'Valentin'
- Russia: Moscow -- thanks 'Rider'
- United States: Georgia (Southeast areas of the state), Idaho (Bovill, Potlatch), Minnesota (St. Cloud), Texas (San Angelo) -- thanks 'davidz', 'Cameron' and 'Jody'
- Vietnam: Kep -- thanks 'Snakeye'
In addition, 'Patrick' has noticed that all of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Stadiums have new imagery, though it often doesn't extend very far into the surrounding city.
If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!
Posted by mickmel at 8:35 AM
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April 5, 2010
"Helicopters" is looking pretty cool
About a year ago, we told you about a cool Google Earth game called "Ships". More recently, we showed you how Ships had been improved to show bow waves.
Now the folks at PlanetInAction are working on a new game called "Helicopters", and it looks great!
The game isn't available yet, but they plan to release it during the Google I/O Developers conference in May. However, Paul has provided a handful of screenshots and videos to help whet our appetites.
Here is a screenshot where they are chasing a car using a spotlight in San Francisco, which is one of the missions:
Here is a video of the helicopter in action in Auckland New Zealand:
More recently, Paul has released this video that shows a bit more of the game mechanics:
It looks like this could be a fun game, and we'll certainly let you know when it's released.
Posted by mickmel at 7:43 AM
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April 1, 2010
Where 2.0 - Day 3
The final day of Where 2.0 saw a bunch of great keynotes. Here are some of the highlights:
Walter Scott of DigitalGlobe gave us some staggering numbers. In their database, they have over 1 billion square kilometers of imagery, which is more than the surface of the earth a few times over. Some locations have hundreds of different images. Walter's main point was that while road maps are great, far less than 1% of the earth is covered with roads -- raw imagery provides the details.
Ted Morgan of Skyhook Wireless gave some equally impressive numbers. Of note:
• There are 200m wifi access points, 1.9m cell towers in the US.
• The skyhook system receives over 300 million location requests daily.
• They're releasing "Local Faves" on April 15, which is a very easy way to add location-based actions into your application. This will be a free service for up to 100,000 Faves per month, with minimal cost beyond that.
Next up was Jeremy Stoppelman of Yelp. He provided a lot of background on how Yelp was formed, and gave us some fun numbers as well:
• In the past 30 days, they've had 31 million unique web visitors.
• They have 1.3 million active iPhone users
• They have roughly 10 million local reviews, with a million more being added every three months.
• They have a staff of 25 that help moderate content. They also use Amazon's Mechanical Turk to help with that.
• When they unveiled "Monicle", mobile traffic rose 40-50%.
• When they added "check-ins" to the iPhone app, "quick tips" increased 6x and photos increased 4x.
Dave Fetterman of Facebook covered a variety of topics, but didn't have anything groundbreaking to say. He's quite entertaining, though -- if you can picture someone after they've had 7 Red Bulls, that's Dave.
Next we heard from Jeffrey Johnson of the Open Solutions Group, John Crowley of STAR-TIDES and Schuyler Erle from SimpleGeo. They discussed how technology is changing with each major crisis that occurs. Of note is that after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, it was roughly three weeks before they had aerial imagery available to assist in the relief effort. After the earthquake in Haiti is was only 26 hours! They also spoke at great length at how incredible OpenStreetMap was during the rescue efforts in Haiti.
The last speaker of the morning was Josh Williams of Gowalla. Since SXSW (The "South-by-Southwest" Conference) a few weeks ago, they've grown more than 50%. At that conference over 600 people checked-in at @ev's (Twitter CEO Evan Williams) keynote address. In addition, they're now teaming up with various companies to give away more cool stuff.
After lunch, I had a chance to sit down with Mok Oh from EveryScape. They're doing some cool stuff that is essentially "StreetView Indoors" and it's quite slick. A good example to check out is the "Cheers" bar in Boston. You can also browse through their site to see other locations.
There is no tie to Google Earth yet, though he's a fan of the KML format and it's something they're considering. Dropping these into Google Earth as a layer would be pretty slick. They're also working on mobile versions of the site, but details were still fuzzy.
Posted by mickmel at 8:33 PM
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Google Earth in the Audi A8
Late last year, we told you that Audi was working on a car that integrated Google Earth as the base for its navigation system. Yesterday at Where 2.0, a test version of the car was available at the event for us to look at.
Even better, they offered to give me a ride to show me the system in action! It's quite slick, and certainly better than the standard Garmin/TomTom/etc units on the market.
The video below goes through pretty much the whole system, with Rob Simpson, an engineer at their Palo Alto Research Center providing the answers to our questions. The device is mostly explained in the first few minutes, but check out the entire video if you want to see everything it has to offer.
Posted by mickmel at 9:18 AM
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