New improvements and cities in Building Maker: Google continues to improve the slick (and popular) Building Maker tool. This update makes it even easier to see which other buildings are under construction by fellow modelers, which is a much-requested enhancement. When viewing the map for potential locations to build, blue icons will appear to show where nearby buildings have recently been modeled. In addition, they’ve added the cities of Milan, Italy and Miami, Florida to the list.
Get the GEB iPhone app: With the help of MotherApp, we’re pleased to announce the launch of our first iPhone app! The app gives you quick access to our recent posts, recent videos on
our YouTube page, and our recent tweets (@GEarthBlog). It’s nothing too remarkable, but it’s free! Download it from the app store here, or simply search for “Google Earth Blog”.
New SketchUp Build: A new build of Google SketchUp has just been released, which tackles some bugs and security issues (full details). It’s a free update, so it’s recommended if you’re a SketchUp user.
Applications
Links: Audi A8 with Google Earth, Liquid Galaxy, Deer Hunting, StreetView in the snow
Audi A8 with Google Earth: The new Audi A8 comes with a lot of neat toys, including integrated Google Earth! The car connects to the internet via 3G, which it uses for a variety of purposes. It pushes the 3G out via wifi for anyone in the car that needs it (similar to the Verizon MiFi), and it also streams Google Earth imagery to the navigation system.
Detailed information about the Google Earth integration is lacking, but you can see it in action for a just a few seconds in the video below (skip ahead to the 7:24 mark). It shows 3D buildings (some photorealistic, some gray), just like you’d see in Google Earth.
Liquid Galaxy: At Google I/O earlier this year, they showed off a cool thing they called the “Holodeck” — a 360 degree booth that surrounds you with StreetView imagery. They’ve now renamed it “Liquid Galaxy” and integrated a special version of Google Earth to work with it. They’ve brought it to the COP15 conference in Copenhagen, and they’ll be bringing it to other conferences in the future. I hope to maybe try it out at Where 2.0 this spring.
Deer Hunting with Google Earth: A man in Illinois shot a 25-point buck after studying Google Earth to determine probable routes that the deer would take. He staked out his position based on that information and was able to get his shot just before dusk. It turned out to be a lucky shot (deflected off a tree branch, pierced the deer’s ear, which then fell down a bank into the creek and drowned), but it’s interesting that he used Google Earth to find the best location.
StreetView in the snow: A few days ago, in preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics, Google hit the slopes in Vancouver and captured some StreetView imagery using a snowmobile outfitted with their cameras.
I would have to guess that the development of the StreetView trikes helped make this possible, as it was likely a similar system.
No word on a release date for this imagery, but the Olympics begin on February 12, so I’m sure we’ll see it sometime before then.
Egiate is a neat way to look for colleges
As you (or your children, as the case may be) start hunting for colleges, there’s a slick new tool to help you out. Egiate (as in coll-egiate) is a database of colleges in the US, with lots of slick Google Earth Plug-in use on the site.
They offer some nice tools to help you filter down to the school you want based on the type of degree offered, minimum test scores to get in, and a variety of other filters. They have data for 4800 schools, and will fly you there via the Google Earth Plug-in when you find one (it automatically defaults to Google Maps if you don’t have the plug-in).
For some campuses (such as Dartmouth, shown above), they use the plug-in to give a tour of the entire campus. When viewing a campus, try out the “Yelp” search box on the right. If you search for something like “coffee” or “wifi”, the results populate on the map instantly! When making a decision about a school, little things like that can sometimes make a difference and it’s a very slick implementation of it.
In addition, they have an iPhone app (with Google Map support) and an Android app due out next year. They’re even looking at support for Google Wave in the near future.
It’s got a few shortcomings — you can’t link directly to a school, you can’t search for abbreviations (“USC”, “UGA”, etc), and some minor things like that. I know the development team is working hard to iron those out, and it’s shaping up to be a neat project. It’s a great example of how you can use the Google Earth Plug-in to showcase this kind of data.
If you need to do some college shopping, check out Egiate.
Links: Seero for sale, i-gotU GPS logger review, Best of Building Maker expands
Seero For Sale: We’ve talked about Seero a few times in the past. They offer live video with GPS and did some cool stuff with Where 2.0 2008. Recently, the Seero team decided to sell the site (eBay auction) and all assets so they can focus on other projects. The site would be a serious investment, with a starting bid close to $50K. A good example of Seero’s capability can be seen in this Steve McQueen video.
i-gotU GPS: The folks at @trip have a nifty new GPS device to help you put your activity into Google Earth. I’ve been playing with it for a few days and I tend to agree with them — it’s a great little device. It’s tiny, waterproof and can be used for 80 hours non-stop; quite impressive!
The only big problem I had with it is that it’s not very compatible with Windows 7. My primary desktop and my primary laptop are Windows 7, and my netbook doesn’t have a CD drive. That meant I had to dig out my old XP laptop and fire it up. To their credit, it worked reasonably well on there. However, they need to solve the insane Windows 7 directions as quickly as possible. As neat as the device is, having to boot Windows in a special manner each time just to use the device is a bit too much. Also, there is no Mac version of the software available; they simply recommend Windows 2000, XP or Vista.
If you have a computer that can handle it, the cost isn’t too bad (under $100 for both models) and would probably be excellent if you do a lot of travel and/or hiking. I’ll keep an eye on it and let you know when they finally release decent software for Windows 7 and/or Mac. In the meantime, I’d hold off on this purchase unless you have an older Windows machine with no intention of upgrading to Win 7. Here’s a short sample video from their site to show what a track looks like:
Best of Building Maker: We’ve mentioned this collection before, but felt it was worth showing off again. With all of the Building Maker models that are arriving in Google Earth, the Best of Building Maker collection is a great way to see some of the best. None of my models have made it in there — have yours?
Update for Google Earth 5.1 released
Google Earth 5.1 (beta) has been widely regarded as a great update, with a much faster, more responsive interface. Being a beta release, though, means it’s still got a few kinks to work out. Last night, Google pushed out an update to 5.1. Presumably, this latest release fixes some of the bigger issues. See below for one we know about.
It won’t auto-update to this latest release, so you’ll need to go to earth.google.com and download it for yourself. Downloading it from there will get you from version 5.1.3506.3999 to 5.1.3509.4636.
Perhaps more importantly, this will also upgrade your Google Earth plugin to the latest version. Some of you had issues with Al Gore’s new COP15 tour that Google released yesterday, and this latest update seems to resolve the issues.