-
Santa Tracker Popular – The Google/NORAD Santa Tracker was yet again a huge hit. On Christmas Eve, GEB had about 50 thousand visitors searching for Santa and overall about 4X the normal amount of traffic. We had the tracker running for a few hours where I was visiting 4 of my younger nephews. I had a great time showing different types of GE content to them. But, the boys enjoyed playing with the Google Earth flight simulator the most.
-
Volvo Ocean Race – The official site of the Volvo Ocean Race (a round-the-world sailboat race with multi-person crews in 70 mono-hulls capable of 30 knot speeds), has released a Google Earth file that lets you track the boats as they complete their journey. The GE Volvo Race tracker
includes placemarks with links to pictures, stories, and videos. -
Lost World Discovered – In 2005, some scientists looked at aerial photography in Google Earth of a region of Mozambique in Africa which appeared to have undocumented forests. The scientists conducted some expeditions and discovered some pristine primeval forests with previously undiscovered wildlife and vegetation. Read more at the Guardian.
-
Cold War KML – Stefan Geens discovers some really interesting cold war perspective Google Earth content. First there’s a detailed analysis of current Russian air defense installations, and then there’s a file which highlights the current condition of the former Berlin wall locations.
Navigation
Watch Santa Claus Make his Deliveries
It’s Christmas Eve! Thanks to NORAD and Google you can watch Santa make his deliveries around the world. The best place to watch Santa is with Google Earth. If you haven’t already, download Google Earth, then simply download the official santa tracker .
You can get more information about the santa tracker from the Norad Santa site, and there you will also find a Google Maps version of the tracker, or a version for your phone. Also, that site provides information in several different languages. Last night Google provided some information on the history of the Google Earth santa tracker in this post.
Read about other Santa Google Earth content here. And, have a Merry Christmas!
Don’t forget that Google Earth Blog is the best place to learn about the amazing things you can do with Google Earth. Save Google Earth Blog in your bookmarks, or better yet, use the RSS feed.
Vendee Globe in Google Earth
It used to be very difficult to follow the drama of an around-the-world-sailing race. But, the Internet changed all that. One of my all time favorite Internet experiences was following the 2000-2001 Vendee Globe solo non-stop round-the-world race. The shining star of that race was a young 20-something Ellen MacArthur from the UK who managed to take second place in a very dramatic race. Ellen was later awarded an MBE for services to sport – so she’s now Dame Ellen MacArthur. Being able to follow the racers’ positions on a map and read daily updates and even see pictures and video from solo competitors at sea was a revolution in the sport of round-the-world sailing races. But, the story of Ellen’s race was especially captivating.
The Vendee Globe is only held every four years. On November 9th, 2008 the current race began from Les Sables d’Olonne, France. The competitors are currently in the southern Atlantic Ocean and is a very close race so far. Since the last race was held in 2004-2005, this is the first time the Vendee Globe has been held since Google Earth was released. When the race started I was disappointed to find there was no published KML file for viewing the race in Google Earth. They do have a web based map and race tracker.
Fortunately, some enterprising French programmer has created some KML for following the race in Google Earth. You can visit his web site here (french). Here is a link to download the current positions of the racers . Alternatively, I’ve created a Vendee Globe network link which will automatically load his file and refresh every 6 hours so you can keep the file handy for putting in your My Places in Google Earth.
The data for the Vendee Globe racer positions is available in spreadsheet files at the Vendee Globe rankings page.
Norad Tracks Santa 2008 – With Google’s Help
[UPDATE: It’s Christmas Eve! The santa tracker is now live!]
Like last year, the Norad Tracks Santa site will open its web site on December 1st allowing kids everywhere to watch the countdown to Christmas Eve. The web site will feature fun holiday games and activities daily until December 24th. And, like last year, the official application to watch Santa fly around the world on Christmas Eve will be Google Earth.
The NORAD Tracks Santa (NTS) program began on Dec. 24, 1955, after an errant phone call was made to the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. The call was from a local youngster who dialed a misprinted telephone number in a local newspaper advertisement. The commander who answered the phone that night gave the youngster the information requested – the whereabouts of Santa Claus. This began the tradition of tracking Santa Claus, a tradition that was carried on by NORAD when it was formed in 1958. This Christmas marks the 50th anniversary of NORAD tracking Santa Claus as he goes around the world delivering presents.
In 2006 Google created a 3D game in Google Earth where you had to find Christmas presents somewhere on the Earth for the two weeks leading up to Christmas. They had Santa’s North Pole home and his sleigh rendered in 3D, and then the Santa tracker was linked to the Norad data. Google also used Google Earth to track Santa in 2005. Last year (2007) was the first year Google’s mapping applications were the official ones used by Norad for following Santa on the Internet.
Don’t forget that Google Earth Blog is the best place to learn about the amazing things you can do with Google Earth. Save Google Earth Blog in your bookmarks, or better yet, use the RSS feed.
Links: Location OS, GeoEye, Super Tour Mashup
-
Location OS – The introduction of location awareness to the Apple iPhone OS, and Google Android OS, means that phone applications on these systems can have standardized availibility to location. The iPhone released location awareness in their OS upgrade in June 2008. And Android’s location awareness was built in with the first phone released – the Tmobile G1. Already there are dozens of applications (if not hundreds) which support, or are built around, the location awareness capability. Applications like geotagging your photos, finding nearby friends for a meet up, finding the cheapest nearby gas station, and more are all available on your phone. According to Google’s Geo Team tech guru Ed Stone, Microsoft Windows has announced they will provide location awareness interfaces under the Windows OS. He also hints that Apple may announce such location awareness in the rumored January announcement of a new Apple OS dubbed “Snow Leopard”.
-
GeoEye – Satellite imagery provider GeoEye got some major public exposure with a big story in Friday’s USA Today. Of course, the paper’s angle had a negative slant telling how having these high resolution satellite images (the same ones we’ve been using in Google Earth for over 3 years) in the hands of the public is “worrying the government”. However, the article goes on to explain many of the positive uses of the imagery and makes it plain that this kind of imagery is here to stay. The good news for GeoEye is that it gets their name in the mainstream media in a mostly positive context. via AnyGeo
-
Super Tour Mashup – Another mashup called Gaiagi is using the popular Google Earth plugin milk truck driving simulator, but goes way beyond a simple mod. This mashup lets you do 3D driving tours in the GE plugin in various locations and simultaneously shows your position on Google Maps, shows you Street View imagery, and shows you Microsoft Virtual Earth Bird’s Eye imagery all at the same time! I like the way the developer handles the situation if you are using the Mac (or a browser that doesn’t support the GE Plugin) – it shows you a screenshot of what you would be seeing and suggests you load the plugin (if you can). This mashup is a great concept, especially with the increasing availability of imagery for all these sources. The developer has already released some tours in Europe as well as in the US. via GoogleMapsMania