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January 12, 2012

New Google Earth Imagery - January 12

It's taken a few weeks, but we finally have our first imagery update of 2012! Thanks to 'Ali' for tipping us off to it on our Google+ page and thanks to 'Steven' for being the first to discover and confirm some fresh imagery. Also thanks to @NoelBallantyne for noticing a few other changes, such as some brightened imagery in Ireland.

As is almost always 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 -- 12-January, 5:12pm EST]

• Austria: Innsbruck, Linz -- thanks 'McMaster_de'
• France: Libourne and other areas -- thanks 'McMaster_de'
• Libya: Homs -- thanks 'McMaster_de'
• Trinidad: Port of Spain -- thanks 'Mark'
• United States: Arizona (Kingman), California (Colfax, Oakland), Mississippi (Grenada), New Mexico (Las Cruces), South Carolina (Greenwood), Texas (Brownwood, El Paso, Levelland, Longview, Lufkin, Ozona, San Angelo) -- thanks 'Steven'

If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!

Posted by mickmel at 8:00 AM | Comments (42)

January 11, 2012

iSTAR: Using Google SketchUp to bring out the best in those with autism

It's amazing to see some of the ways that Google products can connect people, often in very unexpected ways. Cheryl Wright, Associate Professor in Family & Consumer Studies at the University of Utah, recently hosted some SketchUp camps known as iSTAR. The camps are designed for children on the autism spectrum, and have proven to be very useful for a variety of reasons.

The idea came from a seed planted almost eight years ago, as told by the Google SketchUp Blog:

About 8 years ago, the SketchUp team started receiving some pretty intriguing calls: parents of children on the autism spectrum were calling to let us know how SketchUp was changing their kids' lives. People with autism tend to be unusually strong visual and spatial thinkers, and it became clear that SketchUp plays to those strengths. With that bit of information (and help from the Autism Society of Boulder County), we launched Project Spectrum with a single goal: connecting the autism community with SketchUp.

The video below provides a brief look at the iSTAR camps:

Cheryl and her team have studied hours of footage from the iSTAR camps and have published a paper that details their findings. In addition, you can read more in this article on the University of Utah's web site.

SketchUp is an amazing tool to help model our 3D world, but has uses that go far beyond its original intent. Learn more about these excellent programs on the Google SketchUp Blog.

Posted by mickmel at 8:57 AM | Comments (3)

January 10, 2012

Track Sea Turtle migrations in Google Earth

Over the years, we've seen some great ways that Google Earth can be used to track the migration of various animals, including birds in Russia and Osprey.

Today's tool is used for tracking a single animal - Jklynn, a female Hawksbill sea turtle - as she makes her annual migration.

WIDECAST, the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network that is a 2011 Google Earth Outreach grant awardee, tracks Jklynn via a transmitter and plots her location on a map. They've also turned it into a game ("The Great Migration Game"), encouraging students to try to predict where Jklynn will end up after nesting season.

Thanks to the transmissions of her location, they were able to capture video of Jklynn's first hatchlings on Klein Bonaire, seen here:

If you wish to follow Jklynn's journey, you can also track her via Twitter or Facebook. Be sure to also check out the other various organizations on the Google Earth Outreach site.

(via Google Lat Long Blog)

Posted by mickmel at 8:15 AM | Comments (1)

January 9, 2012

Wave mechanics in Google Earth

As you know, Google Earth contains a staggering amount of high-resolution imagery. Thanks to this, it provides a great opportunity to study interesting things such as wave mechanics.

Fabrizio Logiurato at Trento University in Italy has been studying wave mechanics in Google Earth and is finding it fascinating. He's cited a number of examples in his paper, including these below:

Interference on the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Thailand | KML

Diffraction and the reflection of circular waves at Port Elizabeth, South Africa | KML
(Use the historical imagery from 11/7/2006 to see the image below)

Wave diffraction at the opening of the port of Alexandria in Egypt | KML

Google Earth can be used for an amazingly wide variety of things, and this research by Fabrizio is another great example of that.

(via Technology Review)

Posted by mickmel at 8:00 AM | Comments (1)

January 6, 2012

Captain James Cook's circumnavigation of South Island, New Zealand

A few months ago, we showed you the awesome tour that Colin Hazlehurst put together of Captain James Cook's circumnavigation of North Island, New Zealand. Colin has now completed the tour of Cook's South Island circumnavigation, and it's equally impressive.

To see the file for yourself, simply download this KML file. Colin has also put together a blog showing Cook's day-by-day journal, which is pretty neat.

I encourage you to check out those links to learn more, and below is some info from Colin that tells more about this voyage that Cook made.

On February 9, 1770, Endeavour reached Cape Turnagain after completing the circumnavigation of North Island, New Zealand. Cook turned southward with the intention of sailing round Tovy Poenammu (South Island), a voyage which the people of Queen Charlotte's Sound had told him could be achieved in 3 or 4 days. The belief in this possibility persisted until 19Feb1770 when land was seen stretching off to the south-west, showing Cook that there was more to discover in that direction.

The voyage down the east side of the island identified the major features of the coast: Cape Campbell, Banks Island (actually a peninsula), Cape Saunders, and South Cape. On two occasions, exploratory trips were made away from the coast towards the south-east, in which direction people thought they could see land. What they saw turned out to be cloud which dissipated as the sun rose.

As when rounding North Cape on North Island, Endeavour was buffeted by storms and encountered strong swells as she rounded South Cape, and this convinced Cook that there was no land for a considerable distance to the south-west and that they had indeed reached the southernmost point of the land.

On the west coast they saw many of the bays that are now called the New Zealand Sounds, but were prevented from anchoring either by winds sweeping them past (Dusky Bay) or the uncertainty of being able to sail out at will (Doubtful Bay). There was much mist and fog as they explored this coast and typically they would hove to at night to avoid running aground.

Endeavour anchored for a few days in Admiralty Bay, not far from Queen Charlotte Sound. After refreshing the supplies of wood and water, Cook left the shores of New Zealand from Cape Farewell with the intention of exploring the east coast of New Holland (Australia).

Posted by mickmel at 8:07 AM | Comments (2)

January 5, 2012

Great new 3D San Francisco site

After launching 3DHawaii and 3DLasVegas in the past few years, 3DTravel.com has just launched their ,3DSanFrancisco site and it's great!

I'm heading to San Francisco in a few months for Where 2.0, and I'm not familiar with the city, so it's been fun to use it to cruise around and check things out. While the San Francisco site isn't that much different from the Hawaii and Vegas sites, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's clear that they've spent a lot of time plotting destinations, adding content, creating tours, and building all of the other items that make the sites so useful.

You can read more about the new site here and visit it for yourself at sanfrancisco.3dtravel.com.

Posted by mickmel at 9:46 AM | Comments (1)

January 4, 2012

More ideas for using Google Earth in the classroom

Lucas Van de paer has a blog at teacher.be that highlights great ways to use technology in the classroom. One of his recent posts was titled 100 Ways Google Can Make You a Better Educator. It's full of great ideas using a wide variety of Google products (Sites, Gmail, Calendar, etc), but we'll focus on his ideas for using Google Earth specifically:

• Share a 3D model of the world: With Google Earth, students will have access to a 3D model that can be grabbed, spun or zoomed in on.
• Set up science projects: Science projects like global warming can be done using Google Earth.
• Create a Google Earth tour: You can create a quick Google tour of any location.
• Work on Google Earth models: Using Google Earth and SketchUp, you can create models of a location.
• Scavenger hunt: Use Google Earth to create a scavenger hunt for students.
• Travel the real earth: Use Google Earth to travel explorations, migrations, history, and more.
• Make placemarks: Include live pictures and more with placemarks.
• Share heritage: Students can use Google Earth and other tools to show where they and their families are from.

Over the years, we've shown you a variety of ways to use Google Earth in the classroom. In fact, just a few weeks ago we highlighted Josh Williams and his excellent GEteach site.

If you're a teacher and have incorporated Google Earth into your class, leave a comment and tell us about it!

Posted by mickmel at 8:07 AM | Comments (5)

January 3, 2012

Fun Easter Egg: Morrissey in front of the Salford Lads Club

On the cover of the 1986 The Queen is Dead LP, you'll find a photo of Morrissey standing in front of the Salford Lads Club in the UK with his arms folded across his chest. If you view the building in Google Earth, you'll see the same thing!

To see it for yourself, fly out there using this KML file and make sure that the [3D Buildings] layer is enabled.

The model was created by Ste Allan, who has created over 70 models that have been accepted into Google Earth.

That was a great little addition to the building, Ste!

(via Animal NY)

Posted by mickmel at 8:30 AM | Comments (0)

January 2, 2012

3D Fireworks in Google Earth

In celebration of the new year many people shot off fireworks, and we love to show off the work of GEB reader 'Steven' who took it a step further and created some great 3D fireworks in Google Earth! As you can read about in his blog, the fireworks are intended to duplicate the 2011 Taiwan New Years Eve show, based on the simulation that you can view here.

As you can see from the photo above, the fireworks aren't just simple animated images -- they're fully 3D! Some of them shoot into the sky, and some wrap around the Taipei 101 tower. As Steven points out in his post, animations like this are only possible because of the work of 3D modelers that created the buildings. In this case, credit goes to user tang Huang who created the exceptionally detailed model of the Taipei 101 tower.

To see the fireworks in action, you can view them here using the Google Earth Plug-in, download this KMZ file, or watch the video below:

For another fun way to view fireworks, Keir at Google Maps Mania built a map that allows you to view video from celebrations around the world. It's a simple map that does a great job.

Happy New Year!

Posted by mickmel at 8:23 AM | Comments (2)

December 30, 2011

The Year 2011 in Google Earth

Google Earth had a tremendous year in 2011. Our most popular story of the year, by far, was from people searching for Osama bin Laden's compound in May. There was also quite a bit of interest in resources for the Japanese earthquake, as Google Earth is an excellent platform to share imagery and information for an event like that.

Here's a quick look back at the biggest stories for each month of 2011.

January
There wasn't any major Google Earth news in January, but we saw cool things like Louis Zamperini's journey mapped in Google Earth and Google hosted the 2011 GSA Penrose Conference.

February
Google brought art galleries into Street View and GeoEye provided some amazing imagery of the protests in Egypt.

March
Google was quick to respond to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami with high-resolution post-earthquake imagery shortly after the disaster and 3DConnexion sold their one millionth 3D mouse.

April
This month Google made some great enhancements to the mountain layer in Google Earth and we got some fresh imagery from the tornadoes that ravaged Alabama.

May
Google added 3D building support for Android tablets and people flocked to Google Earth to try to see Osama bin Laden's compound.

June
More 3D trees started appearing in a few cities and fresh imagery was released from the Nabro Volcano in Africa.

July
July brought the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Machu Picchu, South Sudan became a new country and the final space shuttle launch was tracked in Google Earth.

August
In August we showed you some fresh imagery of the damage from Hurricane Irene and we explored the true size of the Stone Mountain carving.

September
Google Earth 6.1 was released, bringing some nice new KML features with it. We also looked at the past, present and future of the World Trade Center complex in New York on the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

October
Peter Olsen created an excellent 3D model of the MLK National Memorial and Google Earth reached the one billion download milestone.

November
We took an early look at the 2012 London Olympic venues and enjoyed the cool new Fluid Nebula tool for Google Earth.

December
We played with Google Earth on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and saw a new island being formed in the Red Sea by a volcano.

It's been another amazing year for Google Earth. What was your favorite story of the year?

Posted by mickmel at 8:48 AM | Comments (1)

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