Google has not updated its imagery updates map since December 17th last year. It has, nevertheless been pushing out satellite imagery at a fairly rapid pace. We can only speculate as to why it is not updating the maps. Perhaps its staff have been too busy with all the reorganization that seems to be going on at Google. Or perhaps the maps are hosted on Google Maps Engine, which has recently been deprecated.
This post is an appeal to Google to resume releasing its imagery updates maps. If the updates are now too frequent to do a map for each update, then a cumulative map once a month would be much appreciated.
Quite a lot of people enjoy looking through new imagery to see what can be found, and the imagery update maps make it a lot easier. A few sharp-eyed GEB readers manage to find new imagery, either by the date or by comparing Google Maps to Google Earth or to historical imagery, as the various systems tend to get updated in a staggered fashion. However, the updates are so numerous that it is not really worth trying to find them all and list them here.
Occasionally GEB readers let us know about interesting finds, such as the Costa Concordia we showed you in January. And thank you to GEB reader ‘Munden’ who recently let us know about a brush fire he spotted in new imagery in the south of Mississippi. The only copyright notice for the location is Google’s, and based on the high resolution, the imagery is likely aerial imagery. So is Google now capturing its own aerial imagery?
A brush fire in Mississippi. To view in Google Earth use this KML file
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Here in Cape Town, with some help from Frank, we were able to identify the Tahina docked in Simon’s Town on January 17th, 2015.
To view in Google Earth use this KML file.
About Timothy Whitehead
Timothy has been using Google Earth since 2004 when it was still called Keyhole before it was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and has been a huge fan ever since. He is a programmer working for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
Discovered new streetview images in Bloemfontein South Africa dated December 2014
Update satellite imagery
In Ukraine: Nemirov
Russia: Glazunovka
Newest imagery I’ve seen is January 15, 2015 in Singapore harbor.
@G du Preez: here’s a timeline of Google Streetview imagery. It’s kept very up to date. The South Africa imagery was added Feb 18th: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverage_of_Google_Street_View
Thanks. The update wasn’t for all cities. many places still show old images
Charlestown, MA image is from Prior to 2010.
Please explain why it’s more than 5 years old?
I updated the app on iPad and no change.
You’ve been following Google earth since 2004 and don’t know that google collects its own aerial imagery? What exactly do you follow than? Just when new imagery becomes available?
Even worse than not notifying about new imagery: e.g. in Bruges, Belgium, imagery is more recent when 3D buildings is turned on (with no date mentioned but I guess about a year old), but when turned off, this imagery is not even available in “historical imagery”: only the 2007 and 2009 (default) imagery can be seen!
Same in Portsmouth UK, but at least the older default imagery is of very good quality.
New imagery in Boyacá Colombia, also in Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires downtown, and south zone of Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Update in Xinhui area in China dating February 15. 2015.
Horyniec-Zdrój also update in Poland
Maiquetia, Venezuela
Images taken on February 16, 2015
Check out nearmap.com – they have growing high-resolution coverage in most of the major US cities and in Australia. They update their images at least every couple of months.
Isla de Margarita, Venezuela
Images taken on Janurary 15, 2015
Seems to me this is the plan. Sky box a paid subscription is the possible next plan for Google.
Nsw has not been updated since 2013 or before