Launching Google Game Developer Central

Today, the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) officially kicks off in San Francisco. From browser technologies to cloud storage solutions, Google has many products and services that can be useful to game developers. Until now, it was hard for developers to track down information on how Google can help them build, distribute and monetize their games. This is why we are excited to release Google Game Developer Central.

Google Game Developer Central provides an overview of Google products and services that are particularly relevant to game developers. You’ll be able to explore different platforms like Chrome, learn about technologies such as GWT, WebGL and HTML5, and check out monetization options like AdMob.

This is just the first iteration of Google Game Developer Central. In the next few months, we plan to add additional content to make this an even better resource for all game developers. If you’d like to give us feedback on how to improve the site, please join our developer forum or for those of you at GDC, stop by our booth on the expo floor. We look forward to meeting you in person!

By Ian Ni-Lewis, Game Developer Relations Team

The Street View Trike keeps on trucking

A few years ago, Google introduced the Street View “trike” — a three-wheeled bicycle that contained a StreetView camera, for the purposes of capturing areas that cars couldn’t reach. Since then, they’ve captured interesting areas such as Stonehenge and Sea World.

Today, Google has announced that additional Trike-generated Street View imagery is now available in a few different places around the world, including the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin, Ireland, as seen below.

botanic-gardens.jpg

If you’d like to see the Botanic Gardens for yourself, you can fly there using this KML file. Other new additions include the Château de Chenonceaux in Civray-de-Touraine, France (KML), the gardens at the San Diego Art Institute (KML) and some beautiful locations inside Balboa Park in San Diego (KML).

balboa-park.jpg

As you know, Street View was greatly enhanced with the release of Google Earth 6, making it much easier to browse this kind of imagery from within Google Earth. To enter one of these areas, or any other Street View-enabled location, simply drag the “Peg Man” from the controls in the upper right corner onto the globe.

At this point, we’re not aware of any new traditional Street View cities that have been added with this update, but please leave a comment if you notice anything else that is new today.

Imagery Update – Week of February 21st

We’re just nearly two months into the new year but the Google Earth and Google Maps Imagery team’s aerial and satellite imagery updates keep coming!

Since it’s February, love is in the air and romance is on people’s minds (I mean, why stop at Valentine’s Day). And when it comes to all things amatory, no features and locations conjure up those feelings better than châteaux, castles, and royal wedding sites. Lucky for all our quixotic Earth and Maps users, we’ve got all that and more in our latest batch of published images.

Let’s start with the big one in the room. The Royal wedding isn’t until April, but we’re getting ready for the big day by updating London, UK and wedding-related sites with high-resolution aerial imagery acquired this past June. In the image below, you can see the site of the royal wedding, the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, more commonly referred to as Westminster Abbey. While viewing this site in Google Earth, make sure you turn on the Photos Layer, and check out the several pano360 immersive images that dot the church confines.

Westminster Abbey, London, UK

Let’s move west a bit to the beautiful Emerald Isle. Below we’re looking at Trim Castle and adjacent grounds in the county town of Trim, in County Meath, Ireland. The castle is the remains of Ireland’s largest and dates to the 11th century. As with the Westminster Abbey location, make sure to click on the Photos layer and check out the pano360 images; the immersive images include 360° views of the castle interior.

Trim Castle, Trim, Ireland.

Lastly, let’s take a look below at some new aerial imagery of a section of the Biltmore Estate which contains the châteauesque house, the Biltmore (upper-right section of the image). The house was finished in 1895 and is located near Asheville, North Carolina. It is the largest privately-owned home in the U.S., owned continuously by members of the William Vanderbilt family.

The Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC.

Do you have a place you love that you’d want to receive notification from us when the Earth and Maps Imagery team updates your beloved site? We’ve got just the tool: The Follow Your World application!

As always, these are but a few examples of the types of features that can be seen and discovered in our latest batch of published imagery. Happy exploring!

High Resolution Aerial Updates:

USA: Asheville, NC; Charleston, WV; Chattanooga, TN; Daytona, FL; Fayetteville, AR; Key West, FL; Perry, FL; Wachula, FL

Ireland: Kells; Navan; Omagh; Strabane; Trim

UK: Greater London; Immingham; Somerset

Switzerland: Valais

Countries/Regions receiving High Resolution Satellite Updates:

Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burundi, Canada, Central African Republic, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czech Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, French Guiana, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Macedonia (FRYOM), Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar (Burma), Namibia, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, People’s Republic of the Congo, Peru, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, West Bank, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

These updates are now available in both Google Maps and Google Earth. To get a complete picture of where we updated imagery, download this KML for viewing in Google Earth.