Last night, Google released some new layer changes for Google Earth. The “Register to Vote” layer added a short while ago has been changed to the “2006 US Election Guide” and includes two sub-layers: “US Election Guide” (click on the placemarks for useful voting information), and “US Congressional Districts” (which shows the borders of those districts). These layers are NOT turned on by default, but the information is more useful.
It appears there have been some improvements to reduce the amount of clutter when viewing the large number of placemarks if you turn on the Google Earth Community layers. [EDIT 30-Oct: Apparently some of the changes to the layer won’t be visible until the next release of GE 4]. Google let me know these changes went live last night while I was visiting their booth today at the X PRIZE Cup.
By the way, Larry Page – one of the co-founders of Google – dropped by to visit the booth (and his employees). Larry was here to attend the X PRIZE Cup and attend a board meeting of the X PRIZE Foundation. I was fortunate enough to be invited to have dinner with Larry and some of the Google Earth team this evening.
There was a silly rumor in the blogosphere last night, but (as TechCrunch has already established) Google did not buy the original Space Ship One. Google has acquired a replica of the space ship for display at the GooglePlex.
I plan to summarize a few other highlights about my trip next week in a trip report, and I plan to share some of the photos I took. Sunday I will be spending all day trying to make it back to North Carolina from New Mexico in a small plane. Wish me luck for a strong tailwind!
Related:
- Flight back from New Mexico in Google Earth
- Same Day Aerial Photo in Google Earth
- Wirefly X PRIZE Cup in 3D
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.
An excellent effort, and useful. Great job, guys.
I should point out, though, that your dataset is a little old. In southern Texas, the districts were redrawn by court order recently. You still have the old, unconstitutional districts, which could confuse some voters.
Why is the Libertarian Party not being covered? There is more to the US political landscape than just “red state/blue state”. The Libertarian Party is the 3rd-largest party in the country, why wouldn’t it be represented on the map?
The Libertarian Party seems to be there (as are other third parties) – Libertarian Candidates have an (L) next to their name.