November Imagery Update

Having worked on updates to Google Earth/Maps imagery for some time, I've always enjoyed seeing how the world changes through our regular updates. But, I've wanted to see them more often. Today, I'm happy to announce that we're increasing the frequency of our updates to bring you the world's freshest and most complete imagery.

As a part of this announcement, we're also making some changes to the way that we tell you about new imagery. We'll continue to publish a blog post for our updates but instead of our regular 'Where in the World' quizzes, we're going to start to embed a web-based Google Earth view of the updates in our blog post (like we have below), and continue to link to the KML file for viewing inside the Google Earth application.

In addition, you can share your cool new imagery finds with us using Twitter! After looking at the updates in the viewer below, tweet your cool finds and add the #GEarthIMG hashtag to your tweets. For some added fun, point the Twittersphere to the precise location using EarthURL.org. In a few weeks time, we'll follow things up with a round-up of tweets from those of you using the hashtag and share them with all of you. We'll also be re-tweeting some of your finds from @googleearth.

Updates are noted with a red frame

We hope you have fun tweeting all of the great new imagery finds from the cities, countries, and regions we're making available in this new release.

Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior Geo Data Strategist

Autumn updates for Google Transit

The days may have just gotten a little bit shorter, but that's not going to stop the Google Transit team from working hard to add new agencies. Over the past few months, we've launched with several partners in many places all around the world.

If you're traveling to Europe, you may be particularly pleased with some of our newest additions in popular tourist regions. In France, we have completed the coverage of Bordeaux, a famous red wine hub, and an UNESCO World Heritage site. In Italy, we launched coverage for the entire regions of Tuscany, Reggio Emilia, and Brescia. If you are in need of some Spanish tapas and sun, the Asturias region in the north of Spain can offer you that -- and we can offer public transit to get you around. The Czech Republic now has the Student Agency and the city of Pardubice covered, and in the UK the launch of the East Anglia region joins the existing East Midlands and Southeast.

This represents great progress in Europe, adding partners in countries where coverage was previously quite thin. We're very excited about this, but we are still far from our end goal of having a public transit alternative for every driving directions search, so we're hoping to keep up our momentum.

We have not neglected the rest of the world, and we have launched many smaller regions in the US, such as Gainesville, Florida and Long Beach, CA. I'm particularly excited about the addition of Bear Transit in Berkeley, which is where Google Transit originated. We also launched our first routing in the Middle East, with data from the Roads and Transport Authority in Dubai, UAE. And coinciding with the announcement of the host of the 2016 Olympic games, we launched a full coverage for Rio de Janeiro. We also launched the first city in New Zealand - Wellington, the Kiwi capital.

Our mobile users also got special treatment. With the launch of Google Maps for Mobile 3.2, the transit layer is available on Symbian S60, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and the new Motorola DROID, and transit directions were added to the Palm Pre. This means now transit directions are available in Google Maps on all major smartphone platforms.

You can find more information about Google Transit and our current coverage at http://maps.google.com/transit.

Posted by Noam Ben Haim, Product Manager

More, more, more real estate in Google Maps

Since we announced the ability to see lots of real estate listings directly on Google Maps back in July, we've been working hard to make it even easier to use.  As we've added new features and updated Google Maps, with things like brand new high-resolution Street View imagery or detailed map data, Google Maps has become an even more useful tool for online real estate searching. Here are a couple of things you can look out for next time you visit.

First of all, we've made it easier to find real estate listings. Now, you can simply select "Real Estate" from the 'More' button on the top right of any Google Map to discover listings.  From there, it's a simple matter to refine your search using the left hand panel - price, bedrooms, bathrooms, and so on.  Of course, you can still pan the map to search for the perfect neighborhood and it'll automatically update with more listings.

We've also added the ability to search for rental listings in the US.  You can now find places for rent in New York or one bedrooms in San Francisco for rent simply by turning on the Real Estate layer via the 'More' button and selecting some refinements.

You'll also notice that Google Maps is now showing even more information about an area as you pan around and zoom in.  There are small icons on the map showing the names and location of businesses and prominent features of the neighborhood.  This means that during your property search, you'll be able to tell at a glance just exactly what shops can be found down the road from where you're looking, all without typing!

You can now find real estate in cities and towns across the US, Australia, New Zealand and India.

Of course, these aren't the only resources available for your new home search. You can use Street View on Google Maps to check out the neighborhood before driving to an open house; use driving directions to find out exactly how to get there; and transit information to work out what your new commute might be if you went ahead and moved house.

Also, if you're in the real estate industry and want to provide listings to be seen in Google Maps, it's really easy to get started.

Happy house hunting this weekend!

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager

Google Maps Navigation comes to Android 2.0

In 2005 we launched Google Maps, and later that year, we launched Google Maps for mobile, providing maps and driving directions to users on the go. Over the past few years we've continuously added new features to Google Maps for desktop computers and mobile phones, such as My Location, live traffic data, and satellite and street views. But our driving directions have always remained written in list form - not particularly useful while you're actually driving. Until now!

Today we're announcing the beta launch of Google Maps Navigation, an internet-connected GPS navigation system with voice guidance and automatic rerouting, as a feature of Google Maps on phones that run Android 2.0. Google Maps Navigation isn't like the GPS systems you might be used to - it was built from the ground up to use Google Maps services over your phone's internet connection. This means using Google search, by typing or by voice, to enter your destination (whether or not you know the address); viewing your route on 3D satellite views and in Street View; and always running on the freshest map, business, and live traffic data available from Google Maps.

Read more about Google Maps Navigation on the Official Google Mobile blog.

Posted by Iljya Kalai, Software Engineer

Wild about Africa

[We invited March Turnbull from the MAPA Project to write a guest post and describe the work they've done to create a detailed map of Africa's protected areas -- Ed.]

The greatest wildlife show on earth is about to arrive on your PC.

Africa is the last continent on earth to hold on to its ‘megafauna’ – the really big stuff like elephants, rhinos and herds of antelope tens thousands strong - and it’s hanging on to them by the skin on its teeth.

Here at the MAPA Project, we’re making sure that no one can say “We never knew!” when it comes to keeping African parks and wildlife in the public eye.

MAPA stands for ‘Mapping Africa’s Protected Areas’ and so far we’ve plotted the major parks, reserves, and protected areas for Southern and East Africa. Check them out on Google Earth and watch epic wildlife video snippets or just find out about places you didn’t even know existed. Download the MAPA layer and find out just how extraordinary our continent is. You can also find the layer in the Google Earth Outreach Showcase.

What’s the largest mammal migration on earth? You’d probably guess the wildebeest migration in East Africa with over a million wildebeest and zebra on the move every year. Well, it may be the heaviest one, but what about the two million fruit bats which gather in Kasanka National Park in Zambia every November and fly off every evening, darkening the sky for twenty minutes? Nobody knows why they all go there, but go they do – and you can too.

It’s a work-in-progress and we have thousands more parks, blog posts, research projects and icons to get up but we are really on our way now. We plan to be at it for another couple of years but if you need to know anything about conservation in Africa, start here and you will end up in the right place.

Conservationists and GIS enthusiasts all across Africa are helping us to pull this groundbreaking project together. You can too: each park and reserve on the map tells its story and each links to websites with even more info. Bloggers are welcome on the layer and over fifty are already keeping us posted with what they are doing for conservation.

Have you ever wondered what happens to all those tracks that researchers download from satellite collars on the National Geographic channel? Well we did too, so we’re looking for them and we’ve already put a couple online for you to unravel, with plenty more to come.

So, if you are considering traveling in Africa, if you need some really credible background to that news story or school project, or if you just know the value of something that is irreplaceable, load this layer and watch what Africa is doing to conserve its priceless environmental legacy. For more information on how to get involved, visit www.mapaproject.org.

Posted by March Turnbull, Mapping Africa's Protected Areas

Celebrating the heroes of Google Earth

We're thrilled to know that hundreds of millions of people use Google Earth to discover, explore, and learn more about the world around them. However, we're especially proud of the fact that Google Earth has been used as a tool to help people change the world. Today, to celebrate the individuals and organizations that have used Google Earth in their efforts to effect change, we're launching the Google Earth heroes project. We're highlighting the work of five organizations with this launch, with several other profiles soon to follow.

Project Kaisei
Right now, in the North Pacific Gyre, an 'island' of garbage twice the size of the state of Texas is floating across the surface of the ocean. This area was recently visited by the members of Project Kaisei who tracked their voyage using Google Earth and Maps. Project Kaisei researchers have experimented with converting plastic particles from the "Plastic Vortex" into diesel, and hope to eventually power their vessels with this fuel, creating fully sustainable expeditions. Video

Save the Elephants
For over 20 years, Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants, has worked to protect elephants in Mali from poachers using geofences and satellite collars, among other technologies. With Google Earth, Dr. Douglas-Hamilton can track these elephants on a map and has been able to save many animals' lives, rescuing trapped elephants and helping animals suffering from the effects of local drought and climate change. Video

Borneo Orangutan Survival
The number of Orangutans in the wild today is decreasing at a staggering pace largely because of the destruction of their rainforest habitats. In Sumatra, recent calculations show that the total Orangutan population has fallen from 12,000 in 1993 to approximately 6,500 today. Willie Smits and the Borneo Orangutan Survival Organization have used Google Earth as a platform to enable everyone to participate in their reforestation project by viewing and adopting forest acreage in the Samboja Lestari region. Video

Chief Almir and the Surui
Since he first observed the illegal logging of his tribe's territory with Google Earth in an internet cafe several years ago, Chief Almir Surui, along with Google Earth Outreach, have worked together to raise awareness about this issue, and Surui culture as a whole. Most recently, in addition to the launch of the “Trading Bows and Arrows for Laptops” Google Earth tour, members of the Google Earth Outreach team traveled to the Amazon to teach the Surui how mobile devices can be used to capture photos of illegal logging activity and uploaded to Google Earth. Video

Appalachian Voices
Mountaintop removal coal mining refers to a process of detonating explosives in order to mine coal seams that would otherwise be difficult to access. The practice is hugely detrimental to the surrounding environment, pollutes nearby drinking-water sources, permanently destroys the mountains themselves, and often causes cancer and other diseases. Appalachian Voices, a grassroots environmental group in North Carolina, has educated millions of people, including policy-makers and legislators, about this destructive mining process by flying users over the 470 mine sites in the Appalachian mountains with Google Earth. The organization also has a layer in Google Earth dedicated to these efforts. Video

We salute these individuals and groups, and share their wonderful stories with the hope that they will inspire more people to use Google Earth to make the world a better place. If you are using Google Earth to change your world, be it in small ways or large, and would like to share your story, we want to hear from you! Please submit your story here and you could be selected as the next Google Earth Hero.

For more information about these Heroes of Google Earth, visit http://earth.google.com/changetheworld

Posted by

Krating Poonpol, Product Marketing Manager, Google Earth

Tanya Keen, Program Manager, Google Earth Outreach

Google Earth Outreach in Africa

We are proud to announce that as of today, the Google Earth Outreach Program is available in Africa, making it possible for local NGOs and other public benefit organizations to take advantage of Google Earth Pro software grants and other opportunities.

In addition to the launch of the program itself, several amazing examples (listed below) of non-profit organizations' efforts to visualize their work in Africa with Google Earth and tell their stories to the world are now available.

Save the Elephants takes you to Mali and shows you their effort to protect the last of the Mali Desert Elephants. This Google Earth project uses KML touring, a feature in Google Earth 5.0 and above, which enables non-profit and other public benefit groups to tell their story with a narrated tour. Your narrator on this Google Earth journey is Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Founder of Save the Elephants in Samburu, Kenya. This is also the next tour in the 'Changing Climate in Google Earth' series in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate summit in December. Download the tour here, or view it at www.google.com/cop15.

The Mapping Africa's Protected Areas Project, or MAPA, has done just that: mapped Africa's parks and reserves in Southern and East Africa. See rich content including park boundaries, GPS tracks, images, and more, as this project makes available for the first time valuable data of land and wildlife in protected areas in Africa. Download the MAPA Google Earth file here to begin exploring!

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has done it again: with the release of their new Uganda Atlas of Our Changing Environment, they have mapped areas of drastic environmental change using historical imagery for 11 sites in Uganda. See the change for yourself in Google Earth, by opening Google Earth, turning on the "UNEP: Atlas of Our Changing Environment" layer in the the Layers panel, and zooming into Uganda to click on some of the placemarks. They have also created narrated Google Earth tours for four locations of environmental change: the City of Kampala, Mabira Forest Reserve, Mount Elgon, and the Mau Complex. [Update, 11/2: The sites in the "UNEP Atlas of Our Changing Environment" layer showing areas of dramatic environmental change in Kenya and Uganda are based on work in two recent hardcover publications: "Kenya, Atlas of Our Changing Environment from UNEP" and "The Kenya Government and Uganda, Atlas of Our Changing Environment" produced by the Government of Uganda with support from UNEP.]

Use these examples to get inspired, and to get ideas for what your organization can do! If you are an African NGO or other public benefit organization, visit http://earth.google.com/outreach/africa.html to learn more, apply for a Google Earth Pro software grant, and get training materials on various Google Geo products.

Posted by Karin Tuxen-Bettman and Tanya Keen, Google Earth Outreach