Google Earth News

Tahina Circumnavigates the Earth

June 16, 2015

My name is Frank Taylor, and I am the founder and publisher of Google Earth Blog. I also recently completed an expedition to sail around the world. One of the many reasons I was immediately attracted to Google Earth in 2005 was that my wife Karen and I had for many years planned to circumnavigate the real Earth by sailboat. Google Earth provided a fantastic way to explore the places we planned to visit. We finally departed in 2009, and we have just completed (on June 11, 2015) our journey after sailing for over 5 years, more than 44,000 nautical miles, and visiting more than 30 countries. We used Google Earth to help share our experiences, and plan further explorations.

We spent years preparing for the trip, and in 2008 bought a beautiful catamaran we named Tahina, sold our house and cars and many other belongings, got our kids started in universities, and prepared to depart in November 2009. You can see the route of our circumnavigation in the screenshot of a map below. If you click this link, you can use Google Earth to zoom in to parts of the route in the Atlantic and Pacific and it will load detailed GPS tracks and maps of significant places, and geo-tagged photos of the places we visited (zoom in to New Zealand for example). You can also see many of the 360 panoramas I photographed along the way (a sort of mini-Street View of exotic places). The detailed maps have so far only been completed through the Pacific to New Caledonia, but I will update the rest later.

We thoroughly documented our adventures, with our TahinaExpedition.com web site and blog. We took nearly 100,000 photos and videos along the way, the best of which were shared on our site, Panoramio and Google Earth, and Google Picasa Web Albums. Google Earth and Maps were used extensively to map and show the places we visited including GPS tracks of our passages over water, and sometimes our trips on land. And the locations where our photographs were taken were mapped as well. We even used Google Earth on numerous occasions to help guide us to some of the more dangerous approaches to passes and bays where we visited. The satellite and aerial imagery of these locations proved invaluable to improving our situational awareness to both the land, the waters, and other hazards (sunken ships, reefs, and more) of the areas. [Read tips for sailors using Google Earth]

I have to thank many businesses who partnered with us to help share our experiences using many devices along the way. In particular, I want to give special thanks to Google who was very supportive in my crazy schemes to use Google Earth to share the places we visited. For example, I would sometimes fly a kite with a special camera rig (this was before drones became popular) to capture aerial photography of unique places and then Google would process and include the imagery in Google Earth (see example). The 360 photography I took sometimes involved setting up with a tripod on the edges of cliffs or buildings while turning around in circles to capture full spherical imagery. We also took video with an underwater remote operated vehicle (ROV – or drone in today’s terminology) of many places we visited (the ROV was made by our partner VideoRay).

We tried to raise awareness of many issues we saw facing our oceans and the marine life we witnessed along the way. Everything from trash in the oceans, overfishing, and many dying coral reefs were experienced by us on numerous occasions throughout our travels. We are greatly worried that our own children will find environmental devastation if they visit these same places in just a few years from now, or even worse when our grandchildren attempt it.

We stayed in contact with family and friends, and shared our experiences through a variety of means – primarily the Internet of course. On long passages we had both long-range radio communications (which we could use E-mail to get weather and share position reports over the Internet), and we also could use onboard satellite communications to do more Internet when needed (although quite expensive). When near land, we could sometimes get SIM cards for unlocked phones and use shore-based cell service for Internet. Other times we could find WIFI to use from our boat, other times we would have to find hotels or restaurants with WIFI service. In some locations there was no Internet, or even people, to be found at all.

Although our boat was far from home for many years, we would sometimes fly home to visit with family and friends back in the United States, usually once a year. And some friends and family would fly out to join us for a few days or weeks along the way. Even so, we missed many events in the lives of our friends and families, and sadly even the loss of a few. But, our lives were forever enriched by the the amazing experiences we had on this trip of a lifetime. We saw so many places, met so many wonderful people from the countries we visited, and shared our travels with many new and old friends along the way. There are a vast number of stories told of some of the more exciting or even terrifying moments on the Tahina site. We hope you’ll spend some time and explore our experiences some day.

Although our trip is now over, we plan to still share a few of the continuing experiences as we try to figure out what we are going to do next with our lives. We have a lot of reconnecting to do, and a lot of work unloading our boat and reorganizing our lives again. And, of course, I plan to update our maps with even more details of the entire trip and share them with Google Earth in the coming months. But, the real question we are asking ourselves is what will we do next? The answer to that question right now is that we will decide that when the time is right. Right now, we’re just going to enjoy being back home and we’ll decide when its time to pull the anchor up and move on to our next destination.

Panoramio Gets Reprieve from Google

June 8, 2015

In 2006, Google bought Panoramio – a fast growing user community with geo-tagged photos from around the world to add to Google Earth and Maps so people could better identify locations through photos people had taken. Google hired all three of its developers and they helped them scale up the system to handle a much larger load of users and photos.

The Panoramio site grew at a much more rapid pace and the resulting photos have been a fantastic resource for people throughout the world. Many of the original Panoramio members are professional or enthusiast photographers who have enjoyed the online community associated with Panoramio. Google helped add many more community features and contests were held for the best photos. Panoramio had a very happy and growing community for several years, myself included. I have contributed thousands of photos to Panoramio over the years while traveling to the far corners of the world.

As most people know, in subsequent years Google has grown a lot, and in the process they have been getting a more corporate, and less community-friendly attitude. They have been closing down (or using the most common Google word: “deprecating”) products on a frequent basis. Shutting down products sometimes is necessary with technological progress, but there are better ways to help communities surrounding the products to transition to alternatives. Google could be doing a better job.

Last September, Google announced they would migrate users off Panoramio and have them use a new Google Maps based photography site they had built called Google Views. Google said everyone would be moved off Panoramio in the next year (2015), and they assured the Panoramio community they would not lose key features. But, the new Views site did not have many of the same community features Panoramio had developed, and the community did not at all like the new site. Google’s Brian McClendon tried to address the concerns. But, a petition was created by the Panoramio community and over 10,000 users signed the petition within a few weeks. However, Google said little in response to the petition even after several months.

Suddenly, this week, Google announced: “After listening to community feedback about the future of the platform, we’re pleased to let you know that there won’t be any immediate changes to Panoramio. Instead of aligning the community with Views, we’ve gone back to the drawing board to work on a more integrated solution that supports you and your content directly within Google Maps.” So, they aren’t going to immediately kill off Panoramio after all. But, this probably doesn’t mean Google will repair features that have been broken with Panoramio for months. It’s apparent this supposed reprieve has more to do with the new Google Photos platform and the fact Google is now going to close down Google Maps Views (according to this post) and putting panoramic photos into the Street View platform. Meanwhile, Google has to continue to rely on Panoramio for its huge archive of geo-referenced photos.

So, although Google won’t be killing off Panoramio as planned this summer, there is no guarantee the stay of execution will be held off indefinitely (unlikely even). Let’s hope the additional time will give Googlers the opportunity to think of innovative ways to capture the essence of Panoramio – maybe even re-use the name – in the transition to their next photo mapping product. An even better step would be to at least address some of the problems with the current Panoramio product that has been plaguing the community in the meantime.

Bringing Google Earth to VR

April 28, 2015

It was recently announced that Michael Jones, one of the original founders of Google Earth, has left Google and is now CEO of a cool new VR glasses maker called Wearality. These glasses are unlike other VR glasses because of an ultra-wide 150 degree field of view thanks to patented fresnel lens technology. If you hurry, you can still join their Kickstarter campaign and get early access to these new VR glasses, which are reportedly awesome to behold. They are 88% of the way to their goal of raising $100K, and 8 days are left to the deadline.

I have always dreamed of seeing Google Earth done right in VR. Now we have someone at the wheel of a major new technology who has a serious interest in making that happen! You can already view Google Earth data in the Wearality glasses thanks to its interface with Google Cardboard, which shows StreetView data in stereoscopic 3D. It won’t be long I think before we see more Google Earth goodness from this company.

You can see a short (12 seconds) direct view of what its like looking through the glasses (view of a roller coaster) by someone who used their LG G3 smartphone looking through one lens (select HD mode for best viewing):

I’ve known Michael since he worked at Silicon Graphics over 20 years ago, and we have all used technology he helped create like OpenGL and Google Earth. The fact he has left Google to run this VR glasses company tells me he thinks this one will usher in yet another major computer graphics revolution.

New Version of Google Earth 7.1.4.1529

April 24, 2015

Google has pushed out a new minor update to the desktop version of Google Earth. The new version is 7.1.4.1529 dated March 30th, 2015. Thank you to GEB reader AC for letting us know first (we have had several other readers since comment on the new version). AC told us about it over 2 weeks ago, but we were unable to confirm until last week as Google pushes out updates of this nature gradually. Your Google Earth should automatically update over the coming weeks, or you can, as we did, re-download and install it from the Google Earth website. We have successfully done this with Google Earth and Google Earth Pro on Windows and the consumer version for Mac OS X. We have also seen comments from Linux users on the help forums.

The previous version was 7.1.2.2041 dated July 10th, 2013, so this is the first update in nearly two years! Still, this is very good news as it suggests Google is still working on Google Earth for desktop and supports recent comments from Google about future updates to Google Earth coming.

We asked Google and confirmed just recently what we suspected. That this is a minor bug-fix release for the different versions of Google Earth, and they have not yet started rolling it out to all users yet due to testing with new installer software for some of the platforms. They said release notes will be forthcoming once it becomes more widely available. We’ll report here on the GEB when we know more.

GEB reader AC reported that it still crashes in Street View. We have so far failed to get it to crash in Street View in either the old or the new versions, despite testing a number of places that used to cause the crash. If any of our readers gets it to crash in Street View, please let us know the coordinates in the comments. There have been a few installer issues mentioned in the Google Earth help forums, and Google has responded they are working on them.

The New Google Earth Community

April 6, 2015

Last Friday, Google made an announcement that they plan to “retire” the Google Earth Community (GEC) forums starting May 1st. Google wants to continue managing the Google Earth product help forums, but let the community migrate to something new. So, at the same time, Google is supporting the announcement of a new Google Earth Community run by the same group of volunteer Google Earth enthusiasts who have been instrumental in its creation and popularity during the past 10+ years (see below for more explanation). The new forum software is much more like the original GEC community (when the GEC was most popular) and will have some key technical advantages which were limiting the community’s effectiveness in the past. I especially like the part in the Google announcement where they say: “…we look forward to sharing new and exciting updates to Google Earth with you in the future.”

Google’s announcement really isn’t about closing down the Google Earth Community. Google intends to keep the existing posts (and KML content) available in read-only format so people can see the content, and the GEC layer will still be viewed in GE. This also means that hopefully the countless links to interesting stories on the GEC will stay preserved. This change in the community is really a decision that should have happened sooner.

Years ago, the GEC had become a source of data for Google Earth. Early in Google Earth’s history database connections between the forum and Google Earth were created. One was a decision to allow anyone to make a post in GEC from within Google Earth. Another, is a layer that allows notable placemarks by the community to be shown in a GEC layer in Google Earth (see layer in GE called: “Gallery->Google Earth Community”). When the GEC reached its max in popularity, it outgrew previous forum software, Google engineers thought they could do better. They took product support forum software and attempted to “enhance” it to make it into a community support forum with features of the previous GEC. But, it didn’t work as they hoped. The same feeling of a community just wasn’t there. It wasn’t long after the transition that many enthusiasts of the forum started leaving – or at least they didn’t stay and linger on a regular basis like before. And the GEC has continued to dwindle in activity ever since.

Moving back to a community forum platform, with many of the original enthusiasts, may actualy reinvigorate the GEC. I spent time this weekend with the new GEC and it feels much more like the older better platform, and the older better community. Many of the people who were part of the older community are already enthusiastically posting some of their favorite old stories, and significant new content is being added as well. I think it is off to a great start, and I hope the new forum will for a while avoid the influx of random people who have no conception of a community forum, or real enthusiasm for the information for which the GEC was created. And, now the lack of ties to the database between the GEC and Google Earth will take the pressure off in ways that, in my opinion, will actually improve the quality of the community.

For those of you who really like Google Earth, and perhaps were fans of the older GEC, I suggest you give the new Google Earth Community a try. I think it will be better. Google Earth has exponentially more data than ever before, and the opportunity to discover and share things is far greater today than ever in the past. Even though the product hasn’t seen new features, it is still getting better because of the data. This new forum will show people things they never dreamed could be found, and learn things about people and places they never knew.

And, maybe the new GEC can put their heads together and help convince Google to breathe new life into Google Earth. There’s a lot that can be done to make the product better. Sometimes the users of a product have to force a company realize the true value of what they have and do something about it. I, for one, am not giving up on Google to keep Google Earth going. It’s a product that is far better than Google Maps in many ways, and its technology could be evolved into new and exciting directions that could become even more useful to the world at large.

Meanwhile, the Google Earth Blog will continue to share some of the better stories from the new GEC whenever possible and encourage enthusiasts to join the new Google Earth Community.

I’ve written some more background information about the Google Earth Community for those who want to know more. See below:

Background on the Google Earth Community

When Google Earth was first released (2005), it already had a strong core of people who were enthusiasts. This is because Google Earth was an application that came from a product called Keyhole that Google bought in the previous year (2004). These Keyhole enthusiasts had already formed an online forum where they shared things they discovered in the imagery of the Earth. It wasn’t just about finding your house to these people, they would find significant historical sites and tell the story about the history. Or point out how the imagery captured an airplane in flight and identify what type of planes, and then categorize all the planes found. There’s a whole world of information out there and these people enjoyed knowing and sharing more about the places they found. One of the best things about Google buying Keyhole and making Google Earth was Google also greatly increased the amount of data. Now these enthusiasts had far more places to discover and write about.

One of the smartest things Google did when they first released Google Earth was to also welcome this community of enthusiasts and supported them while Google offered the forum to the much wider community of users who downloaded Google Earth. In the matter of just a couple of years, the number of registered forum members went from a few thousand, to over a million! And, the amount of in-depth and interesting content about our planet revealed through all this new data similarly grew exponentially. Some of the core enthusiasts became “moderators” of the forums with administrator priveledges allowing them to curate the stories that people shared in the forums to make sure they were properly categorized, appropriate material, and to enhance the quality of the data whenever possible. The job was enormous, and few people have a real appreciation of just how hard the job was to moderate content from so many people. Many people would share data that was simply wrong, non-sensical, or worse, malicious. The moderators have done an amazing job of reducing the influx of poor information while highlighting the useful and interesting contributions, and often enhancing it.

When Google Earth Blog started shortly after the release of Google Earth in 2005, many of our stories were based on content first posted in the GEC. And that has continued ever since. The moderators have not only provided pointers to useful stories, but they also often create very interesting Google Earth-based content themselves and many have been featured in the blog as well.

The Google Earth Community moderators worked tirelessly for years (and many still do) on a volunteer basis with a very noble goal of not only providing quality information, but trying to maintain a quality community of people who enjoyed sharing knowledge, about the data found in Google Earth, and enthusiasm. Google again did a smart thing and recognized the value of these people and supported annual face to face meetings for the moderators, who worked from many parts of the world, so they could recognize their efforts, and provide a means for them to work better together to keep the forum and Google Earth running effectively.

The bond between some of the moderators and other enthusiasts has been strong. Many have developed lifelong friendships because of the community. And, as usually happens in a community, there have been friendships broken, and friends lost. And, I imagine the deterioration of the community has not been a pleasant experience. I sure hope that the new GEC will generate some new excitement and I’m sure there will be new and interesting content and community members. Here’s hoping the new GEC will last a long time – along with Google Earth.