Google Earth: New Imagery – May 31

Google has just dropped some more fresh imagery on us! Thanks to GEB reader ‘Munden’ for being the first to spot it!

huntington.jpg


As is usually the case, you can use Google Maps to determine for sure whether or not a specific area is fresh. This new imagery isn’t in Google Maps yet, so you can compare Earth vs. Maps to see what’s new; the fresh imagery is already in Google Earth, but the old imagery is still in Google Maps. If you compare the two side-by-side and they’re not identical, that means that you’ve found a freshly updated area in Google Earth!

[UPDATED – 1-June, 7:39am EST]

  • Chile: Temuco — thanks ‘Rodrigo Pastor’
  • France: Vannes — thanks ‘yves’
  • Japan: Hachioji — thanks ‘Munden’
  • Norway: Preikestolen — thanks ‘Andreas’
  • Romania: Timisoara — thanks ‘cristi’
  • United States: California (various areas), Indiana (South Bend), New Hampshire (Manchester), West Virginia (Huntington) — thanks ‘cristi’, ‘Jonahrf’ and ‘Munden’

Bueller on Reflection and Life

 

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

–Ferris Bueller

American student

from the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

 

Monday is Memorial Day in the U.S. – a day to pay tribute to the individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the United States.

It was first established on a national level in 1868 (3 years after the Civil War) and became a federal holiday in 1971.

In 1950, the Congress, by a joint resolution, approved a request to the president to issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe each Memorial Day as a day of prayer for permanent peace and designating a period on that day when the people might unite in prayer – 11 am local time.

Also, Congress designated 3 pm local time as a time for all Americans to observe the National Moment of Remembrance (1 minute of silence… lights on if you’re driving) to remember and honor those who died in service to the United States.

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A Google Map Maker Roundup

Google announced today that Map Maker is now available for the United States; the tool that allows users to add contributions to Google Maps had, I thought, been targeted at countries where Google lacked map data, but it appears that user contributions are welcome in countries with existing data — once they’ve been reviewed.

So it looks like a Map Maker vs. OpenStreetMap conflict is shaping up. Last week, Mikel Maron accused Map Maker of copying OpenStreetMap’s model and exploiting freely made contributions in a way that benefits Google, in that the resulting data is not freely available; moreover, he says,

Corporations should not be the stewards of a public resource, and a potentially controversial public resource. Compare Gaza in OpenStreetMap and Gaza in Google for just one example of why this is a bad idea. We’re approaching a situation where a corporation is becoming the decision maker on international borders. Wait, did you think the UN or other international forum was supposed to have some role in these kind of things? Nope, Google is getting UN data too.