Google Earth layers – NASA’s Earth Observation

NASA’s Earth Observation site dozens of layers of the global scientific data is formatted for viewing with Google Earth.

These are grouped into the ocean, atmosphere, energy, land, and the Life category. The layers are too many to list, but they include:

Sea surface temperature
Chlorophyll concentrations (MODIS)
Snow cover and sea ice extent
Cloud water content (MODIS)
Total precipitation (TRMM)
Water vapor (MODIS)
The temperature of the land surface
radiation
Active Fires (MODIS)
Land cover classification (MODIS)
permafrost
Vegetation index [NDVI] (MODIS)
The population density

The layers are highlighted in red above were combined into a single network link, which you can download the screenshot below. This will give you a preview of some of the available data. Visit NASA’s Earth Observing site other overlays the data.

Download .KML file

The Grey color for Google Places

Since Nyagoslav of Optilocal first spotted the grey pinned local results a week ago, there have been a number of other sitings of the change in the wild. There is still a fair bit of variability in the layout and arrangement indicating that Google has not yet picked a final design and they are still testing. The widespread sitings would tend to argue that ultimately the change to grey is likely.

Here are screen shots from Optilocal, LocalBusinessRockstar and LocalvisibilitySystem that capture some of the variety still presenting. Besides the grey pin, you will note that on some screen shots the pin has moved to the right. Most significant to me was the change of the Branded One Box. In moving the images to the right, Google is reducing the space given to a brand at the top of the page. We still need to see this result with SiteLinks to ascertain the full impact.

Nokia Maps WebGL (Beta)

Nokia Maps WebGL (Beta)
Nokia Maps WebGL – Toronto, Canada
Using Google Chrome Nokia Maps WebGL is extremely smooth and fast rendering 3D Buildings with photo-realistic quality, on par with Google Earth Desktop
WebGL (Web-based Graphics Library) is software hat extends the capability of the Javascript programming language to allow it to generate interactive 3d Graphics within any compatible Web Browser. WebGL code executes on a computer Graphics card’s(GPU), which supports shade rendering.
To try this – use the latest version of Google Chrome.
Nokia Maps WebGL: