A few years ago, Frank Taylor made a cool pumpkin overlay for Google Earth. It’s still a fun toy to play with, so we’re showing it off again. To make it work, simply download the KML here and that’s it!

For maximum benefit, turn off the atmosphere (“View -> Atmosphere”) and the “Borders & Labels” (found in the “Layers” on the left side of your Google Earth window).

The pumpkin was created using a simple image overlay that he wrapped around the globe, then added a 3D model for the stem. You can read details on how that’s done in his post from last year.

If you want more, you can check out a bunch of Halloween goodness in the Google 3D Warehouse or maybe check out the “Pumpkin Man” in Google StreetView, found in the Disney Resort in Paris.

Happy Halloween!

As Americans gear up for the midterm elections on November 2, we wanted to share a few tools that make it easier to gather voting information.

When you search on Google for [polling place] or [where to vote], you’ll see a search box to help you find your polling place, candidates, and local election office. Just type in the home address where you’re registered to vote. The search looks like this:

This feature is powered by the Google Election Center, an experimental service that lets election officials provide data directly to Google in order to create a set of search tools. Anyone with a website can also provide this same functionality by embedding the open source Election Center gadget on your site, or use the gadget code or API to build your own.

And you don’t need to be at your computer to easily find this information. If you’d rather get it on your mobile device, we’ve also created a mobile landing page: m.google.com/elections.

As for election news, you’ll find a special Google News section with stories for each state so you can easily catch up on the latest headlines.

We hope all of these tools help you get and stay informed throughout the election season.

Atlas of the Rhode Island Book TradeThe Rhode Island Historical Society are using Google Maps and the MIT Simile Timeline to map as many members of the Rhode Island book trade in the 18th Century as possible. The data on the Atlas was derived from dozens of sources, ranging from maps and histories of Rhode Island towns to land records and court documents. If you scroll the timeline above the map