Shenandoah National Park

On July 3rd, Shenandoah National Park in Virginia will turn 75 years old, and the official celebration just took place over the weekend. With that in mind, we thought it’d be a good time to take a look at the park. NASA has just released an image taken last fall at the height of leaf-peeping season, as autumn is one of the more popular times of year at the park, and it’s quite an awesome image.

shenandoah-leaf.jpg

To see that image for yourself in Google Earth, simply load up this KML file .
 


 

While you’re there, take some time to explore other areas of the park. The celebration occurred at Big Meadows (KML ), a popular gathering spot for people that travel down skyline drive. The Appalachian Trail passes right near Big Meadows as part of its 2181 mile stretch as well.

Another popular destination in the park is Old Rag Mountain, which reaches a height of 3291 ft (KML). Thanks to Google Earth’s new mountain features, it also showcases a tour that gives you a brief spin around the mountain.

old-rag.jpg

Have any of you had a chance to visit Shenandoah yet? If so, what was your favorite part of the park?

New Google Search for BlackBerry 6.0 devices

Yestarday is updated the Google search experience for BlackBerry 6.0 WebKit enabled devices. We’ve added a number of enhanced search features integrated throughout the homepage and search result pages, making searching faster and easier on www.google.com, especially on touch-enabled Blackberry devices.

Left: Improved homepage with autocomplete and search history as you type.
Right: See more information with search options and enhanced results.

 

  • Enter searches faster: Save time by using autocomplete and search history queries that appear beneath the search box as you type.
  • Web search: Find what you’re searching for fast. Comprehensive results pages let you see relevant websites, images, videos, news, real-time results and more. Simply click on the arrow button ‘>>’ to the left of the top search box for more refinement options.
  • Image search: Swipe through image results quickly and easily on touch enabled devices. Start by selecting ‘Images’ at the top of www.google.com, then enter a search. From there, click on any image to view a larger size.
  • Local search: Find restaurants, shops and other popular business categories with a single tap. Start by selecting ‘Places’ at the top of www.google.com, then click on an icon from the Places homepage.

These features and more are available on most RIM OS 6.0+ devices with WebKit browsers like the BlackBerry Torch and BlackBerry Bold 9780, and can be accessed in 20 languages across 70 countries.

To try out the new features, go to www.google.com in your mobile browser. We recommend that you bookmark Google Search to your phone’s home screen, so that Google search is just one click away.

Google for iPhone Upgrades Safari Interface

With all of the noise around the changes to the Google desktop search interface and the rollout of Google+ their upgrade to their main web search interface in Safari has largely flown under the radar. Combined with their recent upgrade providing a full on Places experience within Safari, the two changes represent a major mobile upgrade.

Google previously also upgraded the Places interface positioning a fixed map at the top of the display, an infinite scroll of Places (very convenient) and an icon for each Place to be highlighted on the Map. One very disturbing aspect of the new interface is the ability to edit already claimed listings (see image below) via the report a problem link on the mobile Places page.

Google is a bit a of sticky wicket as far as Places and the iPhone is concerned. Apple controls the Maps application and it is likely that iOS5 will feature their in house Siri search product for local rather than Google. Google has struggled somewhat to find a successful combination of products on the iPhone given this reality. Their Maps and Places products in the Google app suite are not the easy to access or use. This recent move to upgrade their Safari presence comes off much better, providing a fluid and useful interface to their products.

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