Take off for the holidays with Google Street View

Whether it’s touring the canals of Venice, swimming with the seals in the Galapagos or climbing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, Street View has taken you to some of the most beautiful and exciting places around the world. Now, in addition to scoping out your destination, Street View can help you cut down the stress of traveling by giving you a preview of your journey, too. Our first efforts to map global transit locations include 16 international airports,...

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Take a hike with Street View through U.S. National Parks and Parks Canada

What do tents and hiking boots have in common? You don’t need either to start exploring or planning your next adventure to some of the best national parks and historical sites across North America. Working with the U.S. National Park Service and Parks Canada, our Street View cars, trikes and Trekker mapped more than 44 locations with beautiful, 360 degree panoramas.Leave your gear behind and still get a chance to marvel at the Sequoias in California....

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Street View floats into Venice

Venice was once described as “undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man,” and from these pictures it’s hard to disagree. You can now explore panoramic imagery of one of the most romantic spots in the world, captured with our Street View Trekker technology.It was impossible for us to collect images of Venice with a Street View car or trike—blame the picturesque canals and narrow cobbled walkways—but our team of backpackers took to the streets...

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Mapping the world’s deforestation over time

We’re excited to announce today that, in a collaboration led by Dr. Matthew Hansen at the University of Maryland, we’ve built the first detailed maps of the world’s forests, from 2000-2012, documenting and quantifying forest landscape changes such as fires, tornadoes, disease and logging.The most significant findings were that the overall rate of tropical deforestation is increasing, and global forests have experienced a net loss of 1.5M sq km during...

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Meet nonprofits using “Geo for Good”

This week, we are excited to welcome this year’s group of nonprofit mapping specialists to the annual Geo for Good User Summit – a workshop hosted by the Google Earth Outreach team. The 4-day intensive workshop gives these do-gooder techies hands-on technical training with Google mapping tools and guidance with their projects. Out of the 75 participating organizations this year, there are some truly amazing stories to tell.One of the attendees, Devin...

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Tour Builder: Tell your stories with Google Earth

As we’ve worked with veterans and their family members on projects like Map The Fallen and VetNet, we’ve heard many amazing stories and seen how helpful storytelling can be. So we thought it might be useful to make a very simple storytelling tool. One hallway conversation led to a joint project between the Google Creative Lab and Google Earth Outreach, and today, in honor of Veterans Day, we’re excited to share Tour Builder—a simple tool for recording...

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From where you are to where you want to go

As you gear up for the holidays, you can easily plan your vacation with the new Google Maps for desktop. With the latest updates, Earth Tours will take you on a virtual trip through cities and natural wonders in full 3D, while Street View imagery and real time traffic incidents will help to ensure smooth travels.Explore the world with PegmanStreet View’s comprehensive imagery has always been a great way to preview your destination before arriving,...

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Introducing Google Maps Engine Pro: Helping businesses create, visualize and share their data on a map

(Cross-posted on the Google Enterpise Blog) Maps are a part of our daily lives—from finding the best local Italian restaurant to planning a trip abroad. Maps are also a valuable tool in the workplace. Businesses use maps to help customers easily find their store locations or help travelers get to their final destination.Today we’re announcing a new professional mapping tool, Google Maps Engine Pro, which lets businesses visualize their data on a map. By importing data like addresses, names, office locations and sales leads from various file formats...

Posted by Brian McClendon

A long way home with help from Google Earth

[Cross posted from the Official Google Blog]In 1986, a five-year-old boy named Saroo Munshi Khan accidentally fell asleep on a stationary train in India. He woke up hours later, alone and in an unfamiliar place. This fateful train ride ripped Saroo away from his home and family. For more than a quarter century, he searched for them before finding his way back home with the help of Google Earth. This incredible true story spans decades, miles and...

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Hit the road with the New Google Maps preview

Though summer has come to an end – at least in the Northern Hemisphere – your feedback on the new Google Maps preview these past three months has been a great help in our continuing quest to build a better map, more tailored to you. Based on your input, we’re pleased to announce one of your most requested features – directions for multiple destinations – will begin rolling out today. And with two new tools to help manage your reservations and discover...

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Street View arrives at CERN

At CERN, the European particle physics laboratory based in the suburbs of Geneva, some of the world’s best physicists and engineers are using advanced particle accelerators to help solve age old questions about the universe — What is is made of? How did it start? We’re delighted that CERN opened its doors to Google Maps Street View allowing anyone, anywhere in the world to take a peek into its laboratories, control centers and its myriad underground...

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The HALO Trust: Helping communities reclaim the land with Google Maps for Business

(Cross posted from Official Google Blog)  From time to time we invite guests to post about subjects of interest and today we’re pleased to share a post from Guy Willoughby, Executive Director of the HALO Trust, a U.K.-based nonprofit dedicated to landmine clearance in post-conflict areas. Hear how HALO is using Google Maps for Business to fight the war against mines, clearing more than 1.4 million landmines worldwide. -Ed.When conflicts end,...

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Explore the Galapagos and be 'Darwin for a day' on Street View

Today, in partnership with the Directorate of the Galapagos National Park and Charles Darwin Foundation, we’re launching the 360-degree images from the Galapagos Islands that we collected in May with the Street View Trekker. Now, you can visit the islands from anywhere you may be, and see many of the animals that Darwin experienced on his historic and groundbreaking journey in 1835. The extensive Street View imagery of the Galapagos Islands will...

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Updated Street View imagery of tsunami-affected areas of northeastern Japan, including the exclusion zone

Two years ago we launched an initiative using Street View to digitally archive the 2011 tsunami and earthquake-affected areas in Northeastern Japan. Since then, we’ve captured 360-degree panoramas of the region, including the town of Namie-machi in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone and over 70 interiors of devastated buildings across the Tohoku region.Our digital archiving project aims not only to make a record of the disaster’s wreckage, but also to illustrate the process of Japan’s recovery. Towards that goal, we’ve driven our Street View cars throughout...

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Building Better Maps in Russia and Hong Kong

When you travel or look at a map of your city, you want it to be as accurate as possible. We do too. That’s why we’re launching our Ground Truth initiative in Hong Kong and parts of Russia (including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and large areas in the west of the country), so we can build a better map that helps you find what you need and get to where you’re going, quickly and easily. Ground Truth enables us to update a country’s...

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Visit lion, tigers and (panda) bears - Oh, my! - with Street View

Animal-lovers, rejoice! If you enjoy watching wildlife, but find yourself stuck in the urban jungle, never fear. You can now use Google Maps and Street View to preview the must-see spots at zoos around the world before heading there in person, or take a virtual trip to some of the most famous zoos and animal parks, right from your living room. Lions and tigers may be standard attractions, but starting today, you can also use Street View to see the panda bears noshing on bamboo and tumbling around the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding...

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