UPDATE: The new imagery is now live in Ireland, Brazil and Antarctica.

Also additional imagery in Hawaii (thanks ‘Munden’)
The Google Lat Long Blog has details.

According to the Irish Times, the imagery will cover more then 80,000km of road in the country including cities such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.

While Ireland is the only confirmed country so far, there are rumors that Brazil, Poland and perhaps others will finally get Street View coverage with this update. We’ll know for sure once it goes live later today.

If you’re not familiar with using Street View in Google Earth, check out this great tutorial that Frank created last year.

If you notice any updated areas in Street View, please leave a comment and let us know.

This past weekend at the 2010 World Expo, UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and Google gave a joint presentation and informational session about their recent work together in global humanitarian mapping.

Illustrating his remarks with information about the Pakistan 2010 flood relief efforts, UNITAR Geospatial Analyst Josh Lyons explained how Google Map Maker helps his organization quickly and accurately produce geospatial products and emergency response maps. By leveraging the high quality, up-to-date information provided by users in Google Map Maker, UNITAR is able to produce and distribute helpful composite map products using tools such as UNITAR’S Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT). These products played a key role in facilitating modern humanitarian relief for the recent disaster in Pakistan.

UNITAR/UNOSAT map for Pakistan flood analysis, with transport data from Google Map Maker

Dr. Carlos Lopes, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Executive Director of UNITAR, expressed his excitement both to work with Google and that UNITAR/UNOSAT resources that had previously been spent on mapping data collection could now be invested directly into analysis. He remarked that users and beneficiaries aided by this collaborative effort include operational UN agencies, international NGOs and national entities from government and civil societies, and of course, the people directly affected by disasters and other crises.

We hope that the interest and increased awareness that the Shanghai World Expo event generated about Google Map Maker helps to build an even stronger user community. It’s the online mapping contributions of volunteers across the globe that enable Map Maker to be a valuable tool for humanitarian activities like this as well as a source of quality maps in the developing world. Let’s continue mapping the world together!

MapCrunch – Random Street View

Do you feel lucky?

This fun Google Maps application displays a random Street View image from anywhere in the world. To view a random image from Street View all you have to do is press the ‘Go’ button.

If you want to narrow down the randomness of the image you can select to view only Street View imagery from particular countries. Each country with Street View imagery has its own button and each can be set to on or off. MapCrunch also offers the option to avoid country roads.

My favourite button however is the ‘auto’ button which allows the user to just sit back and watch as a succesion of random Street Views appear on your screen.

Google Street View Roulette

Street View Funny, the Street View Gallery website, created this Street View randomiser a while back now. Street View roulette is restricted to imagery from the UK. To play Street View Roulette just press the ‘Random Google Street View’ button.

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