Post-tornado mapping in Google Maps and Earth

This past week, several devastating tornadoes struck across a wide swathe of the southern United States. Our Crisis Response team is activating to provide data and imagery we hope will be useful to first responders and the general public.In cooperation with our satellite partner GeoEye, we have imagery of the aftermath of several tornadoes, including in Tuscaloosa, Alabama as shown below. We have created several before-and-after comparisons in a...

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Celebrating Arbor Day with Save the Redwoods League and Google Earth

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)From time to time we invite guests to post about topics of interest and we’re pleased to have Emily Limm join us for U.S. Arbor Day. Emily is the science director for the non-profit Save the Redwoods League and is studying the impact of climate change on the redwood forests of northern California. To raise awareness about the League’s research, she worked with Google Earth Outreach to model old-growth redwoods...

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Post Japan Earthquake panoramas in Google Earth

In an effort to continue to help keep people informed about the extent of the tragedy that has recently struck Japan, Google Earth has added panorama photos of post-earthquake zones. These photos come from our partner 360cities and can be found in the “Photos” layer in Google Earth, along with other 360cities and Panoramio photos. These dramatic panorama photos are part of the work of photographer, Akila Ninomiya.In March 2011, Mr. Ninomiya took...

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A royal view of the wedding procession, right in your browser

As we approach Friday and the marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, many locations in central London are in the spotlight. Last month we expanded our 3D imagery of central London’s buildings and trees in Google Earth to help you explore the royal wedding procession route.As we get closer to the wedding day, we’ve also featured a few highlights along the procession route for you to explore in 3D using Google Maps with Earth View. If...

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Live from space: You talk to Commander Mark Kelly and the Endeavour Crew

(Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog)UPDATE 4/29: NASA has scrubbed the launch attempt today due to a technical problem. We'll provide an update here on the live streamed launch and live interview, and you can follow NASA updates here. We’ve always jumped at the chance to bring the wonders of space a little closer to home. We’ve announced a Moon office, a Moon race and an expedition to Mars and brought many nooks and crannies of the universe to Google Earth—Sky, Moon, Mars, NASA images and a Hubble tour, to name a few.On Friday, April 29, the crew...

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Imagery Update - Week of April 25th

The Google Earth and Google Maps Imagery Team has just published it’s latest batch of satellite and aerial imagery and as always, there’s all kinds of fascinating sites and features to see.This release will be our last for April and this month, in particular is always associated in the northern hemisphere with spring and new beginnings. We can trace the meaning of the word April to the latin word aperire, "to open," and what better way to describe...

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Celebrating top Geo contributors in the Asia Pacific region

In countries like India, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Kazakhstan, a community of passionate users is helping to bring geographic content online—in many cases for the first time. Using products like Google Map Maker, Google SketchUp & Building Maker, and Panoramio, these users are adding geographic information for millions of users to explore in Google Maps and Google Earth.Recently some of the most active Map Maker mappers, 3D modelers and...

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Celebrating Earth Day

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)Today, we’re celebrating Earth Day with an animated, interactive doodle on our homepage and events at Google offices around the world. At our headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., we’re holding an environmental fair for Googlers, complete with speakers and contests to strengthen Googlers’ green acumen, and a cookout using—what else—parabolic solar cookers (don’t worry, we’ll compost the leftovers).Our...

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A new photo browsing experience in Google Earth

Google Earth users love flying around the globe and checking out beautiful photographs in the “Photos” layer. Whether you are a photography fan or simply want to check out images of a place you'd like to visit, we’re pleased to announce a new photo browsing experience in Google Earth. With the new photo cluster feature, you can browse through several photos more easily and quickly.To start, make sure the “Photos” layer is checked in the left layers...

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Reflecting the ever-changing world around us

Yesterday we opened the map of the United States in Google Map Maker, enabling you to add your local knowledge of the U.S. to Google Maps. With this addition, the maps of 187 countries and regions—including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands—are now available for editing by users to improve freshness and detail. These edits are often visible immediately on Map Maker, but aren’t seen by most users until they’re published on Google Maps....

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Bringing Google’s Cloud technology to Google Earth & Maps Enterprise

Our vision for Google Earth and Google Maps has always been to create a digital mirror of the world where any user, anywhere, and from any device or platform can access current, authoritative, accurate, and rich information about the world around them. In order to provide fast and timely maps to our users, we’ve developed powerful geo infrastructure that lets us process and serve petabytes of imagery and basemap data to hundreds of millions of users.We frequently hear requests from governments and businesses - some of whom use our existing Enterprise...

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Add your local knowledge to the map with Google Map Maker for the United States

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]Before Google Map Maker—a product that enables people to add to and update the map for locations around the world—only 15 percent of the world’s population had detailed online maps of their neighborhoods. Using Map Maker, people have built out and edited the maps for 183 countries and regions around the world, and now, due to the contributions of citizen cartographers, 30 percent of people have detailed...

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An Update on Tags

[Cross-posted from the Google Small Business Blog]As users increasingly rely on tools like Google Maps and Places for information about the world around them, we're working hard to develop products that help local businesses highlight themselves and their offerings.Last year, we introduced our trial for Google Tags, a way for businesses to highlight their organic Google Places listing with a yellow tag that showcases offers, photos, videos, menu, and reservations for a flat monthly fee. Since that experiment began, tens of thousands of businesses...

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Imagery update: Japan and beyond

It was just two weeks ago that we announced new high resolution imagery of Sendai in support of on-going relief work. Today we’re announcing additional high resolution imagery of Japan, as well as other parts of the world.  Updated areas of Japan include Ishinomaki, Minamisanriku, Hitachi, Kamisu, and Chiba.Updates in red outlineIshinomaki, JapanAlso included in this update are images from around the globe. Below are a few of my favorite sights.Fort...

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New 45° imagery for fun in the sun

Spring is in the air and it’s time to put away those jackets, dust off your shorts and get ready to see some sunshine! The Geo Imagery team has been hard at work in our snow covered buildings in Mountain View to get the latest set of imagery ready for everyone to enjoy. When you think of sunshine, the first place that comes to mind for a lot people is Honolulu HI of course! With 45° in hand, scope out the ocean views from beachside hotels. You can check out Diamondhead, the coastline or the golf courses to reminisce on the vacation you’ve always...

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Helping you find the right route

With directions in Google Maps, we’re working on helping you find the quickest way to get around, and now finding the right route is a bit easier. For areas with transit information in Google Maps, previously you could compare driving and transit directions by selecting the appropriate icon. Now, when you search for driving directions, transit options may appear directly in the results.This comes in handy as I visit Madrid and want to find my way...

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Get a better view of mountains in Google Earth

Mountains have long been catalysts for inspiring artists and challenging the human spirit. Today, we're adding a host of new features to the "Mountains" layer in Google Earth, to more easily appreciate their elegance and beauty. To see the layer, make sure “Mountains” is checked in the left layers panel of Google Earth.Let’s fly to Mount Everest, the highest mountain on the planet, to see one of the latest features. A green icon () will now be visible...

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Hotpot is going Places

(Cross-posted from the Google Places Blog.)Last November, we introduced Hotpot, our recommendation engine to help people discover great new places when they search on Google. It’s simple: Rate and review the places you know, add friends whose opinions you trust and we serve you up personalized recommendations based on those tastes.Since then, we’ve released an iPhone and Android app, integrated Hotpot recommendations into Google.com and Google Maps,...

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Check in, gain status, and unlock offers at more places with Google Latitude

Last month, we rolled out Google Latitude check-in offers for 60 places around Austin. Today, we’re happy to announce that we’ve teamed up with some great partners to let you unlock check-in offers at thousands of places across the U.S. using Latitude for Android and iPhone. You can learn more at google.com/latitude/checkin.Checking in lets you share the places that you visit and add context to your Latitude location for friends and family. At the...

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See your location history dashboard and more with Google Maps 5.3 for Android

[Cross-posted from the Google Mobile Blog]Today, we’re happy to announce Google Maps 5.3 for Android, which lets you see your Google Location History dashboard, check in at “home,” and add your own aspects for places when rating them.Location History dashboardIf you’ve enabled Location History for Google Latitude, you’ve been able to visualize interesting trends in your location history with a personal dashboard at google.com/latitude on your computer....

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Pausing the Real-World Sightings experiment

[Cross-posted from the Google SketchUp Blog]On Friday we prematurely launched a feature called “Real-World Sightings,” showcasing fantastical creatures our users have spotted around the world. We’ve rolled back the test, but wanted to share an explanation in case you came across any surprising images in Google Earth and Google Maps.We’re always working to provide an up-to-date, accurate reflection of the real world through our products. On Friday we learned of many additional sightings through reports submitted by our users, and we have decided...

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Geographic Stars Compete in the National Geographic Bee State Championships

Understanding the world around you is imperative, especially since technology has made it easier and fun to explore places you could, otherwise, only imagine. Being geographically literate helps you interpret the plethora of information that comes your way each day (and that’s no joke)! Without the perspective of knowing where you are or where things happen, you can find it difficult to navigate your way through it all. That is why Google is excited and proud to sponsor the National Geographic Bee for the third year, which sparks student interest...

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Real-World Sightings, Now in Google Earth and Maps

[Cross-posted from the Google SketchUp Blog]Today we’re premiering our new Real-World Sightings series on Google Earth and Google Maps. As part of this experiment, we’ve added 10 images to the map based on stories we’ve heard from our users. As is common with betas, we’ll evaluate interest and engagement with this feature before determining future rollout plans.It all started with a recent visit to my friend Nessie in Boston. As I crossed the bridge...

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