Earth

In a blog post on its official enterprise blog today, Google announced that it is opening up its collection of Google Earth data to businesses. Businesses and governmental organizations will now have the ability to purchase imagery collected by Google and use them for whatever they need. Since it launched 9 years ago, Google Earth has built up an incredible collection of image data, and it only makes sense for the company to continue to profit off of it.

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Google updated its Google Earth app for iOS and Android today with a few new features including a revamped interface that includes the left side panel it has been bringing to lots of its mobile apps.

Also new in version 7.1.1 of Earth is Google’s Street View feature, as well as improved directions and search with the ability to “visualize transit, walk, bike and drive directions in 3D while update search result list will let you browse search results quickly.” Google also announced that it is now making Google Earth available in over 100 countries worldwide:

Also with this release, we’re making Google Earth for mobile available in more than 100 countries worldwide, so you can start their virtual journey in Google Earth from almost anywhere on Earth. To unleash your inner explorer, check out your local Google Play store or iTunes to download the latest version of Earth for Android and iOS.

Version 7.1.1 of Google Earth is available on the App Store and Google Play now. 
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THxJHcR1D2c&feature=player_embedded

We showed you significant updates to Google Maps which leaked early this morning, and Google just announced updates to Maps at Google I/O.

Google also announced that its Maps API is used by over 1 million active sites and accessed by 1 billion unique visitors weekly.

Maps will now feature a 5 star rating system for locations across all platforms. Users can now swipe across results in a simple, gesture user interface. Zagat reviews are now more prominent with badges and cards simplifying its appearance. These cards now include a new Offers experience with partners including Starbucks.

Google Maps for Mobile also includes improvements to rerouting in transit and explore features. Google Maps for iPad was demoed during the keynote, which we expect to see this summer, and all of the updates will come to the iPhone and Android as well.

Maps on the desktop now includes a new fly-in view for supported locations, which is like a  street view for specific landmark interiors. Public transit information on the desktop is now comparable side-by-side with standard transit and now features a new schedule view.

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Google has provided these incredible animated GIFs illustrating the Earth’s landscape changes over the decades for Time‘s Timelapse project.

The images show deforestation in the Amazon of Brazil, glaciers retreating in Alaska, and lakes drying up in Las Vegas sprawls as well as other landscapes.

Check out more illustrations below…

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Google announced today on the Google Earth Google+ page that it is launching a major update to the iOS, Android, and desktop Google Earth apps. Google is updating the tour guide and 3D imagery features it launched in October with Google Earth 7, and it announced the addition of 100,000 new tours of “popular sites, cities and places across 200 countries.” It is also adding as over 1 million user-generated Panoramio photos:

The new, richer tours combine 3D flyovers, Wikipedia snippets and – for the first time – place highlight and more than 1 million user-generated Panoramio photos in order to create an immersive and educational exploration of your favorite places. Each tour ends with a selection of photo thumbnails which were selected from Panoramio as the best representation of a given place. Clicking on one of the thumbnails enables a full screen photo experience.
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Feeling adventurous? Soon, you will be able to float down the Amazon River — Google Earth Street View style. The Google Earth team is currently on the Amazon River taking images to stitch together in the 360 panoramic view that you know and love. Google has partnered with the Foundation for a Stable Amazon (FAS) to take these images of the river, as well as local communities and forests.

In this first phase of the project, the Google and FAS teams will visit and capture imagery from a 50km section of the Rio Negro River, extending from the Tumbira community near Manaus—the capital of the state of Amazonas—to the Terra Preta community. We’ll then process the imagery of the river and the communities as usual, stitching the still photos into 360-degree panoramics.

After the Earth team is done they will leave equipment for the FAS to continue to take more images. While you wait for the Amazon to become available, you can view Stonehenge and the Whistlers slopes. This is sure to be exciting for Amazon enthusiasts who can’t travel.

Google has optimized the Google Earth service for Android Honeycomb-driven tablets, tailoring the user experience and features to a larger canvas compared to that of smartphones. “It makes Earth look better than ever on your tablet”, Google said. “It’s like moving to IMAX”, product manager Peter Birch joked in a blog post.

Moving from a mobile phone to a tablet was like going from a regular movie theatre to IMAX. We took advantage of the larger screen size, including features like content pop-ups appearing within Earth view, so you can see more information without switching back and forth between pages.

Features include a handy action bar that provides quick access to commonly used functions including flying to a location and navigating to various places of interest. Visually, the web app will take advantage of 3D-accelerated chips powering the latest Android tablets like the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab…

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