When we launched Google Earth for Android about a month ago, we said that availability for DROID by Verizon was coming soon. Well, now that DROID phones are being updated to Android 2.1, we’re pleased to report that Google Earth is now available for DROID too.
Remember, with Google Earth for Android you can view the same 3D imagery and terrain that’s available in the desktop version of Google Earth, all from the palm of your hand. And you can travel around the globe with the swipe of a finger or a simple voice command -- Android’s voice recognition together with Google Local Search make it easy for you to search for cities, places, and businesses anywhere in the world. You can also browse layers of geographic information including roads, borders, Panoramio photos, and more.
Google Earth for Android will be compatible with most Android devices running 2.1, so as new Android phones that run on Android 2.1 or higher become available, they too will be able to explore the world with Google Earth. (Technically speaking, Google Earth requires hardware floating-point acceleration, so it will run on devices such as DROID and Nexus One, but not on devices such as myTouch 3G and DROID ERIS.)
Download Earth for your DROID for free today by visiting m.google.com/earth from your mobile browser or by searching for Google Earth in Android Market.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Mission Blue: filling in the blanks...
(cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)
Last year, we launched Ocean in Google Earth, expanding the scope of Earth to include 3D maps of the world’s oceans and videos, photos and narrative from the world’s leading scientists and media sources to bring them to life. We worked with more than 100 partners to begin to fill in the “blue” part of the planet, adding hundreds of placemarks in more than 20 ocean layers. Since then, we’ve added hundreds of new posts to the Ocean layer with the help of Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue Foundation and dozens of committed individuals around the world. The posts come from a diverse range of partners including National Geographic, independent videographers and dive enthusiasts, government organizations like the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and international organizations like the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Today, the layer will become part of the default set of annotations seen by all Earth users. Although a humble step given the dearth of information available about these vast expanses of geography, we are happy to take one more step to make the oceans a first-class part of Google Earth and to give them at least a starter portion of the thick soup of photos and places that describe the land part of the planet. One of the greatest things about Earth is that it allows everyone to see and experience the fullness of their planet, from revisiting places they know well to venturing out to formerly unknown mountain peaks, desert vistas, and increasingly, the blue heart of life on Earth. As Sylvia has said of the Ocean on many occasions, “With knowing comes caring, and with caring there’s hope.”
Soon after last year’s launch, Sylvia asked attendees at the TED conference to help her realize a wish: to create a series of marine protected areas she calls Hope Spots. Sylvia and a group of influential thinkers are now on a Mission Blue Voyage to the Galapagos Islands to brainstorm how they might best achieve better ocean protection. You can follow them on their journey by visiting the the Mission Blue Foundation website and on Twitter at @MissionBlue. There you can learn more about the launch of their Hope Spots initiative and visit all 18 of these spots using the Google Earth plugin.
We’ve also created a narrated tour featured in the Ocean Showcase to introduce you to eight of the regions proposed for protection: the Eastern Pacific Seascape including the Galapagos Islands, the Gulf of California, the Mesoamerican Reef in the Caribbean including Belize, the Sargasso Sea in the mid-Atlantic, the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, the Coral Triangle, the Ross Sea in the Antarctic and Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic.
We’d also like to take a moment to thank the partners who have helped us improve our 3D canvas of the world’s oceans in the past year: NOAA (global coverage), MBARI (Monterey Bay Canyon), The California State University at Monterey Bay (California Coast), The Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping - Joint Hydrographic Center at the University of New Hampshire (Arctic) and The Living Oceans Society (British Columbia and Canada).
As Earth Day approaches, we hope you’ll take a little time to explore the planet, including the blue part.
Last year, we launched Ocean in Google Earth, expanding the scope of Earth to include 3D maps of the world’s oceans and videos, photos and narrative from the world’s leading scientists and media sources to bring them to life. We worked with more than 100 partners to begin to fill in the “blue” part of the planet, adding hundreds of placemarks in more than 20 ocean layers. Since then, we’ve added hundreds of new posts to the Ocean layer with the help of Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue Foundation and dozens of committed individuals around the world. The posts come from a diverse range of partners including National Geographic, independent videographers and dive enthusiasts, government organizations like the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and international organizations like the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Today, the layer will become part of the default set of annotations seen by all Earth users. Although a humble step given the dearth of information available about these vast expanses of geography, we are happy to take one more step to make the oceans a first-class part of Google Earth and to give them at least a starter portion of the thick soup of photos and places that describe the land part of the planet. One of the greatest things about Earth is that it allows everyone to see and experience the fullness of their planet, from revisiting places they know well to venturing out to formerly unknown mountain peaks, desert vistas, and increasingly, the blue heart of life on Earth. As Sylvia has said of the Ocean on many occasions, “With knowing comes caring, and with caring there’s hope.”
Soon after last year’s launch, Sylvia asked attendees at the TED conference to help her realize a wish: to create a series of marine protected areas she calls Hope Spots. Sylvia and a group of influential thinkers are now on a Mission Blue Voyage to the Galapagos Islands to brainstorm how they might best achieve better ocean protection. You can follow them on their journey by visiting the the Mission Blue Foundation website and on Twitter at @MissionBlue. There you can learn more about the launch of their Hope Spots initiative and visit all 18 of these spots using the Google Earth plugin.
We’ve also created a narrated tour featured in the Ocean Showcase to introduce you to eight of the regions proposed for protection: the Eastern Pacific Seascape including the Galapagos Islands, the Gulf of California, the Mesoamerican Reef in the Caribbean including Belize, the Sargasso Sea in the mid-Atlantic, the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, the Coral Triangle, the Ross Sea in the Antarctic and Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic.
We’d also like to take a moment to thank the partners who have helped us improve our 3D canvas of the world’s oceans in the past year: NOAA (global coverage), MBARI (Monterey Bay Canyon), The California State University at Monterey Bay (California Coast), The Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping - Joint Hydrographic Center at the University of New Hampshire (Arctic) and The Living Oceans Society (British Columbia and Canada).
As Earth Day approaches, we hope you’ll take a little time to explore the planet, including the blue part.
Map Maker Graduation: Part IV
Since it opened in June 2008, Google Map Maker has served as a platform for individuals to share more about their part of the world. This has significantly enhanced access to mapping data of historically under-mapped regions of the world. We're now excited to add 17 new countries and territories that are now ready to graduate from Google Map Maker to Google Maps, bringing our total to 160 regions:
Brunei, Colombia, Cuba, Cyprus, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), French Southern and Antarctic Lands, Kiribati, Kuwait, Nicaragua, Panama, Saint Kitts and Nevis, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Syria, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yemen
Here are a few “before and after” snapshots highlighting some of the valuable contributions created by our mapping community:
Cyprus:
Damascus, Syria:
Panama City, Panama:
A big thanks to all of the wonderful Map Maker contributors. This wouldn’t be possible without you. We hope more of you will join us in mapping your world. Here’s the complete list of Map Maker countries now on Google Maps.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Collaborative mapping for major disasters
[cross-posted from the Official Google Enterprise Blog]
Editor’s Note: Today's guest author is A.J. Clark, President of Thermopylae Sciences and Technology, which helps developers build new applications with the Google Earth browser plug-in on Google Earth Enterprise through the iSpatial framework. A.J. works on the visualization, analysis, and dissemination of disaster/post-conflict data with a focus on emerging technologies that support participatory, collaborative approaches to spatial content creation and infrastructure development.
Editor’s Note: Today's guest author is A.J. Clark, President of Thermopylae Sciences and Technology, which helps developers build new applications with the Google Earth browser plug-in on Google Earth Enterprise through the iSpatial framework. A.J. works on the visualization, analysis, and dissemination of disaster/post-conflict data with a focus on emerging technologies that support participatory, collaborative approaches to spatial content creation and infrastructure development.
In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, an urgent need for geospatial data sharing arose. As aid organizations and governments rushed to help, the collection and sharing of large amounts of geographic information among many sources and users presented a daunting challenge.
In response, the United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) made information and tools available through an interactive mapping website which they call a User Defined Operational Picture (UDOP), built on the Google Earth Enterprise platform to make visualizing the map and overlaid data easy and clear. Public sites are now available both for the Haiti earthquake and the Chile earthquake, where thousands of users can view, create, and edit spatial data (please note that you will be prompted to download the Google Earth plugin to view this data through these links.)
The system was rapidly deployed using an enterprise geospatial framework called iSpatial, which provides an open platform for the integration of dynamic data and the development of interactive applications. The data is displayed using the Google Earth browser plug-in and API, which enables the visualization of geographic data layers in the rich, 3D Google Earth environment, on any web page.
The breadth of data sources and content producers contributing to and making use of the UDOP reflected the global community supporting the relief effort. The combination of participatory geospatial content, the collaborative nature of the UDOP and the ability to integrate mobile applications as direct content producers is available for ongoing relief efforts. This is an evolving capability within SOUTHCOM as we break new ground in providing collaborative tools for humanitarian aid and disaster relief efforts.
Note: to see imagery and maps in Google Earth, you can also download the Google Crisis Response KML files for Haiti and Chile.
In response, the United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) made information and tools available through an interactive mapping website which they call a User Defined Operational Picture (UDOP), built on the Google Earth Enterprise platform to make visualizing the map and overlaid data easy and clear. Public sites are now available both for the Haiti earthquake and the Chile earthquake, where thousands of users can view, create, and edit spatial data (please note that you will be prompted to download the Google Earth plugin to view this data through these links.)
The system was rapidly deployed using an enterprise geospatial framework called iSpatial, which provides an open platform for the integration of dynamic data and the development of interactive applications. The data is displayed using the Google Earth browser plug-in and API, which enables the visualization of geographic data layers in the rich, 3D Google Earth environment, on any web page.
The breadth of data sources and content producers contributing to and making use of the UDOP reflected the global community supporting the relief effort. The combination of participatory geospatial content, the collaborative nature of the UDOP and the ability to integrate mobile applications as direct content producers is available for ongoing relief efforts. This is an evolving capability within SOUTHCOM as we break new ground in providing collaborative tools for humanitarian aid and disaster relief efforts.
Note: to see imagery and maps in Google Earth, you can also download the Google Crisis Response KML files for Haiti and Chile.
Friday, April 2, 2010
A new look for Google Transit maps
At the beginning of last year, the Google Maps team launched the Transit Layer, showing the layout of public transportation networks on top of the map in over 50 cities worldwide. Since then, we have grown our coverage to nearly 450 cities and added more information to both the base maps and the transit layer.
We've now released a significant redesign of our transit maps that better highlights the information transit riders are most interested in seeing. Before, the transit map was placed on top of the base road map, obscuring some important information in the base map and competing visually with the complexity of the road network. With this redesign, we're changing the entire base map to put more focus on the transit lines, and lower the prominence of roads. We hope you'll agree that the result is a cleaner, less cluttered map that will make it easier for transit riders to get around.
Looking at the London Underground shows the immediate benefits of removing the clutter of the A-road badges, and the simplified map style which lets the transit lines and roads coexist more elegantly:
Mapping new drinking water sources in Haiti
We have all heard how the earthquakes in Haiti have uprooted millions of people, with many of them displaced from their homes in Port-au-Prince to the rural areas.
charity:water is a non-profit organization working tirelessly to bring clean and safe drinking water to millions of people in developing nations. People to donate money towards a well or other water project, and charity:water tracks all water projects on their Google Maps-powered Projects page.
After a water project is installed, local field partners report back to charity:water with photos and GPS coordinates. charity:water then adds this project to their online map, so that donors can track the water projects to which they contributed, and the whole world can track all the water projects.In the past few months, they have turned their attention to Haiti, and in honor of the recent World Water Day, they launched Unshaken, a new campaign to get support for new water projects in Haiti. So follow their map this year to see the support coming in for the Haiti rebuilding efforts!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Model Your Town finalists announced: Cast your vote!
OK folks -- it’s time to vote for your favorite 3D town. The submission phase of the Google Model Your Town Competition is over and the five finalists have been selected. Without further ado, they are (in alphabetical order):
Barranco, Lima, Peru
Modeler: Jorge De Albertis
Barranco’s collection of models
Braunschweig, Niedersachsen, Germany
Modeler: Leonhard Pröttel
Braunschweig’s collection of models
Donostia - San Sebastián, Gipuzkoa, Spain
Modelers: Pedro Domecq Aguirre, Eneka Mujica, Gabriel Garcia, Jan Wesbuer, Fermin Saraseta
Donostia - San Sebastián’s collection of models
Dursley, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
Modeler: John Wilkes
Dursley’s collection of models
West Palm Beach, Florida, United States
Modeler: Chris Sardinas
West Palm Beach’s collection of models
This overview video flies to each of the finalist towns:
On the voting page, you’ll find a separate one-minute video tour for each town, as well as a link to a KML file that you can use to see the models in Google Earth. Take a look at everything, decide which you think is best, then weigh in -- you have until May 1st, 2010 to cast your vote.
Congratulations to the finalists and to all of the teams who submitted entries. Choosing the top five certainly wasn’t an easy task. As you can see from this collection of the teams who entered, the competition was tough. Good luck!
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