45º imagery update for various U.S. cities – Part II

We’re now well into the new year, and to kick off 2011, the Geo Imagery team has just rolled out some refreshed 45° imagery for a number of places in the United States. So whether you already miss the places you may have visited over the holiday season, or you’re looking for new vacation spots to travel to this year, you can now escape the winter weather and check them out virtually from the comfort of your warm and dry home.
Did you ever want to spend an afternoon sailing on a tall ship? Well if you happen to be in Norfolk, VA you can give the American Rover Tall Ship a try.
American Rover Tall Ship, Norfolk, Virginia
If you’re not into ships, then you might be interested in the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, AZ where you can check out the beautiful nighttime sky.
Kitt Peak Observatory, Tucson Arizona
If you just want to relax and have a good time, consider having a loot at New Orleans. Mardi Gras is only a few months away!
Bourbon Street, New Orleans, Louisiana
And fans of art can visit the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Salvador Dali’s Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida
We wish you well as you embark on your virtual trips around the U.S. viewing these and other interesting sites. And stay tuned because there’s plenty more to come in 2011!
Full list of cities that’ve been updated:
Albuquerque, NM
Contra Costa County, CA
Escondido, CA
Long Beach, CA
Norfolk, VA
New Orleans, LA
San Antonio, TX
St Petersburg, FL
Tucson, AZ
Van Nuys, CA

App Engine team appearances Winter 2011

The Google App Engine team has launched some significant features recently, including: High Replication Datastore, Channel API, Always On, Warm Up requests, longer 10-minute (vs. 30-second) limit for tasks, and increased API call sizes. We are excited about these features and think you will be too, so team members will be appearing at a variety of events around the world this Winter to talk about some of these features and the platform as a whole!

One of the marquee events this quarter include
PyCon, the largest gathering of Python developers from around the world, where several App Engine team members will be speaking:

Winter 2011 event appearances:

  • Jan 18 – ICT Meet Ethiopia 2011 – Addis Ababa – Richard Ngamita
  • Jan 22 – Google Hackathon (Year One Labs) – Montréal – Sean Lynch
  • Feb 1-3 – Strata – Santa Clara – Patrick Chanezon
  • Feb 14-16 – Jfokus – Stockholm – Patrick Chanezon
  • Feb 17-18 – Developer Summit – Tokyo – Takashi Matsuo
  • Feb 28-Mar 4 – Game Developers Conference – San Francisco – Fred Sauer
  • Mar 9-17 – PyCon – Atlanta – Guido van Rossum; Wesley Chun; Ikai Lan; Brett Slatkin
  • Mar 11-15 – SXSW – Austin – Sean Lynch; Greg D’alesandre
  • Mar 28-31 – Int’l WWW Conference – Hyderabad – Patrick Chanezon; Rajdeep Dua

If these aren’t close enough to you, keep an eye out on this list as we’ll add new events as they materialize. There is also a separate calendar for events featuring other Google products/APIs. For App Engine, look for posts like this throughout the year. We look forward to meeting you in 2011!

Explore London in 3D during the Barclays ATP World Tour

During the 2010 Winter Olympics, EarthvisionZ released a very slick site to support the games — olympicsin3d.com. It was very well done, and an excellent use of the Google Earth Plug-in.

Now, in cooperation with the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals), they’ve brought us “Explore London in 3D“, a similar tool that helps you explore the city of London during the World Tour Finals that are happening right now.

atp.jpg

To explore the city, simply head over the site and browse around. There are links to various points of interest (hotels, restaurants, etc), as well as direct links to view the stadium in 3D or view a current weather overlay of the city.

For more, check out the EarthvisionZ site at www.earthvisionz.com, or read their full press release below:

BOULDER November 23, 2010 – EarthvisionZ, a world leader in 3D virtual-earth website development, announced today the launch of their new dynamic virtual earth on the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals event website. This cutting edge application gives tennis fans an innovative way to experience the host city, featuring interactive content on “Players”, “Getting There”, “Being There”, and “Best Of” London. Users can easily access live traffic updates, tube maps, train station locations, bicycle rental shops, area pubs and hotels, live weather, athlete data, ticket sales, and even fish & chip shops. Anything or everything relevant to the event is easily accessed through a simple virtual earth portal providing the user a simple and fun way to follow the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London.