An innovative an dinteresting venture by the University of Southern California called Viewfinder seeks to spatially locate 2D pictures within a 3D environment like Google Earth. The end result places the pictures within Google Earth so that they seamlessly integrate within their environment. Can't picture it? Just check out the video after the jump, and check out the site for more information on how it works.
The goal is to eventually create a service that basically mixes something like Flickr with Google Earth, enabling users to view and post photos within their virtual environment. Flickr currently allows for geotagging, but viewing the pictures within their environment adds tons of more fun to the idea.
Perhaps Flickr should consider expanding its photo services instead of adding video, which it is trying to do right now, since Flickr users seem to hate the presence of moving pics on the Yahoo owned site. It seems a partnership with Viewfinder and Google Earth would be a better move, and -- since Yahoo's busy intermingling with all sorts of companies right now -- why not?
When we told you about the new Google Sky feature in the latest version of Google Earth, what we didn't know is that this version actually contains an Easter Egg, of sorts. It turns out that if you press Ctrl-Alt-A on a PC, or Command-Option-A on a Mac (making sure that the focus is not in a text field), you'll enable a flight simulator. It's not particularly well hidden, and once you've successfully flown one of the planes it actually shows up as an option on the Tools menu in Google Earth, but still it's a pretty cool feature.
In fact, it's one of those "why didn't we think of it?" types of features. It seems obvious to use Google's satellite imagery and on-the-fly (sorry for the pun) map loading technology in the context of a flight sim.
So, what is the experience like? Better than you might expect. You get the choice of flying either an F16 jet or an SR22 prop plane, with the obvious speed difference. The controls are pretty delicate and difficult to master, particularly on a keyboard. It appears that Google Earth actually supports joystick input for the flight sim mode, although we haven't had a chance to try it yet. Most of the world's biggest airports are represented in the list of starting spots, but you can also choose to start at the current position you were viewing in Google Earth before invoking the flight sim mode.
Before taking to the sky, it is worth reading through the Flight Simulator Keyboard Controls, but if all you want to do is get off the ground, press Page Up repeatedly then press the Down Arrow key a few time as the plane's velocity increases. This will effectively pull back on the plane's joystick and vault you into the air. Good luck!
Forget about going to a planetarium, Google Earth has expanded its view and is starting to focus on the stars.
Sky in Google Earth has launched. This new addition to Earth enables viewers to check out different areas in the universe, from distant galaxies light years away, to constellations and planets. You must download the new version of Google Earth to get the features, then you're on your way to checking out planets in motions and supernova explosions.
This data was partly built with Google's NASA partnership and through the Hubble Space Telescope Observations.
Google has acquired a company that makes high resolution cameras for capturing aerial images. ImageAmerica supplied Google with up to date images of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
No word on how much Google paid for this latest acquisition or how long we'll have to wait before we see the new images start to appear. Product Manager Stephen Chau says Google is still in the research and development phase, so it could be a while.
In the meantime, voyeurs looking for up close and personal views of city streets will have to bide their time with Google's recently announced and somewhat creepy Street View feature.
Between your television, radio, newspaper, and the Internet, there are hundreds of ways to get the weather forecast for your area, but few are as cool as guiWeather. This free download works with Google Earth to bring you information on the current conditions in your area, complete with radar and weather alerts. It even keeps track of global lightening strikes all over the world. guiWeather makes extensive use of Google Earth's ability to zoom in, out, and around a chosen location so you get an up close and personal look at what's happening right in your neighborhood.
If you want to access guiWeather without downloading anything, the site also offers a Google Earth-based pop-up applet with current and forecasted conditions for various world locations. Although the website's tools are pretty basic at the moment, there are more in the works including ones that will track tropical weather and wildfire hazards. Overall, guiWeather is good site to keep an eye on when you're not searching the skies outside your house for storm clouds.
If you've ever tried watching a movie with the sound off, you know how important audio can be for sucking you into the experience. Sure, you can catch the dialog via closed captioning, but you're missing out on music and ambient sounds that set the mood for each scene.
For the most part, the web is a visual medium. When audio's available, it tends to be part of a separate experience like podcasts or music.
Wild Sanctuary has released KML files that bring soundscapes to locations in Google Maps and Google Earth. Open the KML file, navigate to one of the locations covered, and click the play button to hear sounds recorded on that spot, whether it's in New York city or Antarctica.
It's now quite the same as being there, but it's a little closer. Now if someone can just come up with a way to sell you perfume that smells like a particular location.
Google has updated the imagery for Google Earth, providing high definition views of many more locations, including:
UK images have been updated so that most of England is now in high resolution
New color mapping for Germany
Parts of Antarctica, Greenland, and Canada have been updated (we'll refrain from making jokes about similar numbers of people living in each of these places)
High resolution updates for parts of Japan, Russia, New Zealend, Iran, Spain, Austria
More high resolution images for U.S. cities including Washington D.C., St. Paul Minnesota, and Houston Texas
It looks like Google is prepping a new feature for Google Maps that will include a street-level view. While it's not clear what that view will look like, how users will navigate, or if it will be easier to use than Microsoft's version (shown to the right), Google has registered a series of domain names related to the project:
ZDNet reports that Google could be set to announce the new feature, along with 3D buildings for Google Earth at the Where 2.0 conference beginning on Tuesday. It'll be interesting to see if Google can find a good way to make street level maps useful as well as impressive to look at. Sure, it'd be cool to virtually drive down the street and look in your office window to see if you can find yourself. But being able to search for driving directions, and then actually see the route before getting in the car could make navigating the road a whole lot easier.
Google Earth 4.1 beta is available for download with a few new features. Probably one of the cooler announcements for Mac user is support for the SpaceNavigator 3D controller, which had up until now only been available for Windows users. Check out this video of the SpaceNavigator in action to see what kind of control you can get of the Google Earth interface with a 3D controller.
Other new features include:
A "view in maps" button that lets you open the location you're viewing in Google Earth with the online version of Google Maps
A new "starting location" added to your "my places"
Support for more languages including Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Korean, Arabic, and Czech
For the vast majority of people throughout history war crimes and genocide have taken place in dark distant places. The crimes of genocide in Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia were served up through old media: news reports on the breakfast table, heart rending photographs in Time magazine or gripping reports with shaky camerawork on the nightly television news. Yet despite the media coverage of ongoing war crimes in locations like the Balkans or such tragedies often lack immediacy for many people when contrasted against the normality of daily life.
A new collaboration between Google Earth and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is seeking to address that distance by a new project to draw awareness to the ongoing genocide in the East African nation of Sudan. Called 'Crisis In Darfur' the project is designed to draw awareness to the ongoing human rights tragedy in that country by using the Web 2.0 functionality of the Google Earth program.
Since 2003 Arab militia groups called Janjaweed, which are backed by the Government of Sudan, have conducted a vicious campaign against African rebel groups in the Western Sudan region of Darfur. In an attempt to suppress the rebel groups, the Janjaweed have targeted innocent civilians on a massive scale, carrying out rape, murder and theft or destruction of property against the indigenous African population resulting in an estimated 300,000 deaths and 2.5 million refugees.
Honestly, it's starting to feel like there's a new feature in Google Maps every day. Well, here's the latest.
Back in February, Google added building outlines to maps for selected cities. This week they've made those outlines a little more Google Earth-like, with the addition of 3D building outlines.
They're not completely three dimensional, in that you can't view them from multiple angles. But they're still pretty cool if you're you're looking for landmarks or just want to know what the world would look like if you were a color-blind bird.
Google has acquired a company that makes high resolution cameras for capturing aerial images. ImageAmerica supplied Google with up to date images of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Between your television, radio, newspaper, and the Internet, there are hundreds of ways to get the weather forecast for your area, but few are as cool as guiWeather. This free download works with Google Earth to bring you information on the current conditions in your area, complete with radar and weather alerts. It even keeps track of global lightening strikes all over the world. guiWeather makes extensive use of Google Earth's ability to zoom in, out, and around a chosen location so you get an up close and personal look at what's happening right in your neighborhood. 
If you've ever tried watching a movie with the sound off, you know how important audio can be for sucking you into the experience. Sure, you can catch the dialog via closed captioning, but you're missing out on music and ambient sounds that set the mood for each scene.
Google has updated the imagery for Google Earth, providing high definition views of many more locations, including:
It looks like Google is prepping a new feature for Google Maps that will include a street-level view. While it's not clear what that view will look like, how users will navigate, or if it will be easier to use than Microsoft's version (shown to the right), Google has registered a series of domain names related to the project:
For the vast majority of people throughout history war crimes and genocide have taken place in dark distant places. The crimes of genocide in Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia were served up through old media: news reports on the breakfast table, heart rending photographs in Time magazine or gripping reports with shaky camerawork on the nightly television news. Yet despite the media coverage of ongoing war crimes in locations like the Balkans or such tragedies often lack immediacy for many people when contrasted against the normality of daily life.
Honestly, it's starting to feel like there's a new feature in Google Maps every day. Well, here's the latest.
