Last October, Google Earth got a new layer that showcased YouTube videos. Starting today, those videos are now available in Google Maps as well.
When viewing an information bubble, simply click on the “Photos & Videos” tab. More information about this release can be found on the Google LatLong blog
.
As reported by the Google LatLong Blog, KML has now officially become an OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) standard.
According to Google, there are tens of millions of KML documents available online, hosted on over 100,000 unique domain names. The number of files isn’t a huge surprise, but 100,000 unique domains seem like a ton!
As part of this, Google has transferred ownership of the standard to the OGC. To quote Google:
This transfer of ownership is a strong reflection of Google’s commitment to open standards. Fundamentally, our interest is not to control information, but rather to encourage its spread.
Microsoft started adding support for KML last October
, so getting KML accepted as a standard is another step toward making it the ubiquitous mapping standard on the web.
I’ve long felt that two things would need to happen to get to the next level in 3D imagery — trees and highway overpasses.
Since one of the neat features in Google Earth is the ability to fly a route, having proper overpasses would make things look much better. The latest version of Virtual Earth has some cities modeled in “version 2.0”, which include a number of advances. To the right is a bridge over a river. While the bottom is still solid (you can’t see the river under the bridge) and the edges are rough, it’s really coming along nicely. The tighter mesh of elevation data is getting us closer to where I’d like to see it. I would think we’ll see some real progress in this area within the next year or so.
The bigger problem is the lack of trees. Amazingly, Microsoft has begun to fix that already, too! I really felt that was still well off in the future, but I’m glad I was wrong. It only works in their “version 2.0” cities (Las Vegas, Dallas, Denver and Phoenix), but it’s really neat. As Google Earth Blog had speculated, the trees are generated automatically by Microsoft. Hand-placing thousands of trees would be an impossible task to keep up with.
In addition, the trees don’t affect load time very much. They only have to load a given tree type once, then tweak the height and diameter for each placement of it. As such, I’ve found the trees load very quickly — usually before most of the buildings.
I’m a bit concerned about performance, though. The tree models look excellent, and with thousands of them scattered around a city, I have to think that it’ll make things move a little slower. I’m currently out of town on an old laptop, so everything is slow right now. When I get home to my primary PC I’ll really start putting it through it’s paces.
Microsoft says that the updated data will roll out to the current set of 250 3D cities “soon” and I’m really looking forward to it.
Microsoft has just released “ClearFlow” traffic data on Live Maps, but it’s far more interesting than you might think. While it shows the colored traffic speeds in a similar manner as Yahoo, Google and Mapquest, it also goes much deeper.
From Search Engine Land:
In addition to real-time traffic data, the service offers traffic predictions across highways and improved information on secondary routes and surface streets. Horvitz said that this predictive modeling has proven to be very accurate in Microsoft’s ongoing development and refinement of the program. Based on artificial intelligence, as well as dynamic traffic monitoring, ClearFlow appears to be quite a bit more sophisticated that competing systems.
This could easily become the best traffic data on your PC. Of course, therein lies the problem — it’s chained to my PC. It’s very useful to get traffic data when I’m at my desk, but it’s brilliant to be able to get it while I’m on the road.
Here’s what needs happen next:
The real estate info site Trulia has just added support for Google Maps StreetView, according to the Google LatLong blog.
This is an excellent use of the StreetView technology. I’ve found that when looking at houses online, you want all the photos you can possibly get. This gives you a great way to see the house, as well as cruise the neighborhood a little bit to get a feel for it.
Of course, this wouldn’t help me if I was in the market for a new home, since StreetView still hasn’t made it to Atlanta yet. At least we can hope it gets here soon.
I wonder if Zillow will add StreetView imagery next?
As many of you know, I am a huge fan of the SpaceNavigator. As Stefan Geens says, there is simply no better way to navigate Google Earth. Today, 3Dconnexion has released a portable version of the SpaceNavigator, at about half the size and twice the cost ($129 vs. $59). Is it worth it?
My initial thought was that the lower weight could be a problem. I wouldn’t mind if the current one was a bit heavier (and it’s already pretty heavy). PC Magazine listed that as their primary gripe about the new model, though they seem to like it pretty well overall.
More info can be found in their press release
, on their site or at the Google Earth Blog. If I get my hands on one, I’ll be sure to post an in-depth review.
Google Earth has just added a new layer into the “Geographic Web” folder for the New York Times. This layer updates automatically every 15 minutes and shows news stories on the map.
It’s not an overly exciting addition, but it adds one more bit of great info. Combine this with the Panoramio layer, the YouTube layer, the weather/traffic layers, and any other custom layers that you have, and suddenly you can get quite a lot of information about any particular area.
When I first turned on this layer, I noticed a placemark up near Traverse City, Michigan, so I went to check it out. The placemark is actually in Lake Michigan near South Manitou Island. The problem is that the story is about Bay City, Michigan, hundreds of miles away on the other side of the state. Oops!
It appears to have just been a simple error and not a major bug, as the other stories I checked seem to be placed correctly.
This certainly won’t be a major source of news for me, but it’ll be a fun little addition to have when I’m using Google Earth.
In a classic case of the Streisand Effect, Aaron and Christine Boring have filed suit against Google for posting images of their home (which is located on private road) in StreetView. As a result, the Smoking Gun
(and other sites, like this one) have posted pictures of the residence, thus making their “private” property even more public.
The suit has some merit, as it appears Google did indeed take the photos while on private property. However, in addition to asking for the imagery to be destroyed, they’re asking for $25,000 in damages and we can’t figure out where that number came from. It seems a bit excessive.
The funny part is that the road number in StreetView is considerably mis-aligned on their street, making it very hard to determine which house was theirs — until now. 🙂
Late last year, Google introduced terrain maps, which were 3D-looking maps of the earth — kind of a cross between flat maps and satellite imagery.
Today they’ve added contour lines to many of the maps around the world, helping to show the elevation changes in even greater detail. Their explanation is:
Contour lines depict elevation change by connecting points of equal elevation. Where contour lines are close together, you can expect a steep slope; where they are spread out, you can expect flatter terrain. They help highlight the elevation of areas like cities or plains where shading alone doesn’t capture gradual changes in elevation.
It’s not a huge new feature, but it’s very nice nonetheless. Check out places like Mt. Fuji or Mt. Rainier to get a see the contour lines in action.
According to Rafe Needleman of Webware, StreetView will be available inside of Google Earth
“within a few weeks”. Rafe quotes an unnamed source with that info. He states that it’s not clear if this will be a public release or an internal testing release.
If done smoothly, this could be very slick. It’ll be interesting to see how Google implements it. I found one odd statement in his post, though. He states:
Google’s aerial images are seamlessly integrated into Google Earth already, in contrast to Microsoft’s Live Search Maps, which forces the user to turn on the “Bird’s-Eye” mode to see aircraft imagery.
What? Either he’s never used Virtual Earth (Live Maps, etc), he’s confused, or I’m mis-reading his statement. Still, it sounds way off-base. Bird’s Eye imagery is in addition to the “aircraft imagery” (which I assume means “satellite imagery”), and it’s a neat option to have. For just viewing normal, flat imagery, Google Earth works essentially the same as Virtual Earth.
Anyhow, this StreetView news is pretty cool. It’s been a long time coming, so I’m hoping it’s integrated in a creative and useful manner.