SketchUp 8: Now in a dozen languages

In November, we promised SketchUp 8 in three more languages. Well, today’s the day. All of us here at SketchUp HQ are pleased to let you know that Russian, Dutch and Simplified Chinese are ready and waiting to be downloaded from our website. They join French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Traditional Chinese and English (UK and US) for a total of twelve languages.

To see the SketchUp website in another language, use the Change Language drop-down menu in the upper-right corner of any page.

Googler Eric Clayberg joins Eclipse Foundation Board

Google Software Engineering Manager Eric Clayberg has been elected by the Eclipse community as a Sustaining Member Representative on the Eclipse Foundation Board of Directors for the 2011-12 term. The announcement was made yesterday at the Annual General Meeting during the kick-off of EclipseCon 2011 in Santa Clara, CA. As a member of the Board of Directors, Eric will help oversee the policies and strategic direction of the Eclipse Foundation.

Eric works on the Google Plugin for Eclipse (GPE) team at Google and he was formerly with Instantiations, a company known for its focus on Eclipse Java developer tools, that was acquired by Google in 2010. Eric is also a Project Lead for the new open source WindowBuilder project at Eclipse.org. “I have been involved with Eclipse since 1999 and have always been a strong supporter of Eclipse community interests. I look forward to bringing Google scale thinking and inventiveness to my new role as board member.”

Google has been a longtime supporter of the the Eclipse Community. In addition to open sourcing Eclipse tools, Eclipse Labs is powered by Google Project Hosting and we have hosted Eclipse Days at the Googleplex in 2010, 2009, and 2008. Several Googlers will speak at EclipseCon sessions this year, including:

The last imagery update was more than just Japan

A couple of days ago, we told you about some fresh imagery from Japan that Google had added to the base layer of Google Earth. At the time we assumed that the Japanese updates were the extent of it, but thanks to sharp-eyed GEB reader ‘Munden’ (and confirmation from the updated KML file), it turns out there was a bit more.

It wasn’t a major update, but there is also new imagery in parts of Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Ireland, New Zealand, Paraguay, Spain and Tanzania. It was the New Zealand imagery that caught Munden’s eye, as the update captured construction on the set of the upcoming movie “The Hobbit“. Details on that can be found over at Google Earth Hacks.

hobbiton.jpg

To see all of the areas that were updated, just grab the updated areas KML file and look for the red outlines.