Pacific Crossing in Google Earth

Join a journey of discovery virtually in Google Earth, as Liquid Robotics launches four wave-powered robotic gliders to cross the Pacific ocean in their Pacific Crossing (PacX) Challenge Expedition. The wave gliders are attempting to set a new world record for the longest distance ever attempted by an unmanned vehicle and will be collecting data about the Pacific ocean for use by scientists and students back on dry land. These R2D2s of the sea will cross 25,000 miles over 300 days and collect over 2 million data points, helping build the record of oceanic knowledge.

Wave glider robots await launch from San Francisco in this first expedition blog post in Google Earth.
To follow the wave gliders in Google Earth, download the expedition KML file or open the PacX Gallery page and click on the ship icon. You will be able to read updates from scientists sharing the latest robotic observations, from wave height in storms to weather measurements like barometric pressure, wind speed and air temperature. The ship icon will represent the location of the wave gliders, starting in the San Francisco bay.

Google Map data updates for Europe

 

With over 600,000 sites actively using the Google Maps API, more people around the world view maps provided by the Maps API than any other source. For this reason it’s vitally important that Google Maps provides the most accurate and up to date map data possible. For this reason we’re happy to introduce updated maps and the “Report a Problem” tool to France, Luxembourg, and Monaco.

As with previous updates in countries such as the U.S.A., Australia, and parts of Europe, this update utilizes a wide range of authoritative sources such as the Institut Geographique National. In addition, the “Report a Problem” tool on Google Maps allows you to let us know if some aspect of the map that needs correcting, and we’ll do our best to address it quickly.

These map updates will roll out over the next 24 hours across all our Maps APIs and related services. As with previous updates we do ask that you refresh any data that you have previously obtained for these countries using Maps API Web Services, and cached for use in your Maps API application. If you have any questions or concerns relating to this, please post them to the Google Maps API forums.

 

Google Earth 6.1: New features to explore your world

 

The Google Earth 6.1 update includes enhancements to make Google Earth easier than ever for both everyday users and business professionals.

Easier to use My Places
If you’re like me, your growing collection of maps in the My Places panel is getting a bit unwieldy. Every time I find a great new map or upload a new GPS track, it gets a little harder to find things. With this release, we’ve added a couple of new features to help you clean house a bit and find things more easily. First, we’ve added the ability to sort a folder – just right click on any folder and choose “Sort A-Z.” We’ve also made our My Places search feature easier to find; now all you have to do is type in the name of a map or a feature and it will highlight in the My Places panel.

You can now sort your My Places folders to improve organization.

Improved Street View
Building on the improvements we made to the Street View experience in Google Earth 6, we’ve now added even more Street View features, including better zoom control through the slider tool and a wider field of view similar to Google Maps. You can now also navigate from one place to another with just a single-click of the mouse. These features make Street View in Google Earth more immersive, while performance improvements create a faster, smoother overall experience.

Street View in Google Earth now has a wider field of view.

Google Earth Pro
While these features are available to all of our users, much of the work we’ve done in Google Earth 6.1 benefits power users and professionals who use Google Earth Pro, including:

  • Enhanced print layout: Pro users can now include scale bars and directional arrows when printing, making it easy to include all relevant information in client presentations.
  • Simplified movie maker: It’s now easier to convert saved tours to video and record live actions from the 3D viewer to really bring your presentation to life.
  • Expanded data styling: Control up to 64 unique style attributes for imported datasets.
  • Improved networking infrastructure: Earth Pro 6.1 received a robust network update, which offers better support for network proxies and SSL certificates commonly found in corporate networking environments.
  • Combined elevation profiles and ruler tool: We know that sometimes distance is only one part of the equation. We’ve tied elevation profiles into the ruler tool, making it possible to take into account the entire 3D environment when measuring distance.

Combined ruler and elevation profile tool used to measure Yosemite’s Half Dome Peak.

We hope these enhancements make it even more fun and exciting to explore the planet, wherever you are in the world. Download Google Earth 6.1 to get started.