New layers in Google Earth

Posted by Wei Luo, Senior GIS Specialist

People will find some pleasant surprises in the most recent Google Earth data update. You've already heard about the new "Weather" and "MDG Monitor" layers, but that's not all ...

We have re-organized the data layers in the left-side Layers panel in this new release. The long layer list has been shrunk into a smaller set. Basic information such as roads, 3D buildings, and Weather are at the top. If you are looking for interesting things to do or places to visit, expand the "Gallery" or "Places of Interest" folders and you will find a wide selection of interesting data layers for you to explore.



If you've ever wanted to plan a trip to Egypt, you can now turn on the "Egypt Tourism" layer to see a collection of destinations to visit. You'll even find intricately designed 3D models of some of the famous landmarks.





But if you just want to stick around and hang out with friends and family this holiday season, you might be happy to know you can find good restaurants easier than ever with Google Earth. The data team has recently updated the business listing layers with user reviews. Simply zoom into the neighborhood you want to go to, and you'll see restaurants show up at street level. You can read reviews of the restaurants before you head out. Or if you have some good restaurants to recommend, you can write reviews. To see more things to do, expand the "Places of Interest" folder and check out other local business and recreation information.



We've also added Wikipedia articles in 6 languages: French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Dutch. Other updates include adding all country names in local languages as well as business listings for Australia.

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Tracking human development in Google Earth

Posted by Megan Goddard, Senior GIS Specialist

We're happy to let you know that the MDG Monitor, which launched last week at the United Nations, is now live in Google Earth. You can find it in the 'Global Awareness' folder on the left-side panel.

The Millennium Development Goals aim to:

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Achieve universal primary education
  

• Promote gender equality and empower women
  

• Reduce child mortality
  

• Improve maternal health

• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

• Ensure environmental sustainability
  

• Develop a global partnership for development

Back in 2000, all of the countries of the world agreed to reach these goals by 2015. We are now halfway there, and while many countries have made excellent strides, there is still a long way to go. The MDG Monitor makes it easy to track the progress, so we encourage you to take a look at the layer and find out more about what governments around the world are doing (and sadly, in some cases, not doing) to improve the health and well-being of their citizens.

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How's the weather?

Posted by Cris Castello, GIS Data Engineer

A wise man once said, "I ain't often right, but I've never been wrong." When it comes to weather forecasts, this certainly rings true. You always remember that day when you planned a picnic because it was supposed to be sunny and it ended up raining. In the latest release of Google Earth layers, we're letting you play weatherman by publishing a slew of great, dynamic weather data.

If you're running the latest version of Google Earth, you'll notice a new "Weather" folder in the layers panel:



The "Weather" folder contains three sub-layers ("Clouds," "Radar," and "Conditions and Forecasts") and one "Information" link that gives you some background information on the data being displayed. The "Clouds" layer depicts a global satellite mosaic of clouds created on an hourly basis by our friends down the road at the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey. As some of the foremost satellite meteorologists in the world, they have implemented various algorithms to make the data as accurate and comprehensive as possible. Click on the "Information" link in the "Weather" folder to see the what time the current clouds image portrays. Please note that there are a couple of hours of latency built into the data. In other words, the image you're looking at is probably from two to three hours ago. For a special visual treat, try zooming in towards the clouds. You'll eventually find yourself below the clouds, at which point you can look up and see the cloud deck above you.

The "Radar" layer contains a near real-time Doppler radar image of the United States, updated every 15 minutes. This data is being fed to us by the folks at Weather.com. We will shortly be rolling out radar for Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii, and Europe as well. The "Information" bubble contains the time stamp associated with the current radar image.

Weather.com is also providing us with observation and forecast data for nearly 50,000 cities worldwide; that's what you see in the "Conditions and Forecasts" layer. You can zoom around to see the current conditions and forecasts for just about every major city in the world, among other cities. Can you find the world's most extreme weather? What about Base Orcadas in the South Orkney Islands, where, as I'm writing this, it's 23 degrees F with a 26 mph wind, making it feel like 6 degrees? And it's just about summertime there! The current conditions are updated at least hourly (more often in some places), and the forecasts get updated once every few hours.

My favorite feature of this release is something that you won't see in the layers panel of Google Earth itself. We're offering a separate KML network link download of a time animation of the last 24 hours of clouds data or the last 6 hours of radar data. Once you download the file, you'll see a new item in your "Temporary Places" folder in the "Places" panel (either "Clouds Animation" or "Radar Animation," depending on which file you downloaded). Make the animation visible by checking its associated checkbox, then click the "Play" button in the animation control at the top right of your screen and wait for the data to load (even though the resolution isn't as high as the static image, it might take a little while). If you load the clouds animation (be sure to turn off the current clouds image), you'll be rewarded with a beautiful animation of clouds dancing and swirling across the Earth's surface. More than any other data I've seen, the cloud animation turns Google Earth from an artificial virtual globe into a living and pulsing representation of the planet.

We're really excited to share all this great new data with you and have plans to add more down the road. I mentioned adding radar for places outside of the U.S., and we'll also be fully internationalizing the point conditions layer. Enjoy the weather!

Update: Due to high traffic, it may be difficult to access the layer right now. Rest assured that we are working on it, and please check back soon!

Update: All Weather layers should be fully visible now. We're sorry for any difficulties you may have had accessing them earlier. It's nothing but blue skies from here!

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Google on the go

Posted by Karen Roter Davis, Principal, Business Development

In my formative years, I spent countless hours in the backseat of my parents' car listening to them argue about whether or not they should pull over to ask for directions. I love my parents dearly, but I still can't comprehend how we wound up going north on I-95 driving from New York to Florida!

So I was especially excited to work with Gilbarco Veeder-Root to make driving directions and local business information available to people at the gas pump. Access to local information is so vital to our users, and it's especially relevant when they're not at home or at their desks. In the same way that we worked with Jet Blue and Virgin America to provide Google Maps on their flights, we want to make sure people can access the power of Google search whenever and wherever they need it.

And if we can improve a family vacation or two along the way, so much the better!

For more information, check out Gilbarco's press release.

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Sunlight Foundation sheds political light on Google Earth

Posted by Chikai Ohazama, Product Manager, Google Earth

It's always inspiring to see the diverse, innovative ways people are using our products. Today on election day, it was especially exciting to come across a group called the Sunlight Foundation that's using Google Earth to 'shed some light' on the activities of Congress. The organization has created a unique KML file that pinpoints nearly 1,500 areas where congressional provisions (or earmarks) are directing funds. Read the USA Today story.

Check out this thought-provoking layer and find out where your tax dollars are being spent. And if you haven't already, don't forget to run out and vote!

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Your town in 3D

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Business Product Manager



















We've all heard that big things come in small packages. Well, in the small town of McMinnville, Tennessee, a group of visionary folks are planning something pretty big: a community-wide effort to develop a 3D model of their town in Google Earth -- the first of its kind in the state. The project, dubbed 3D Downtown, is being led by a non-profit organization called Main Street McMinnville and includes volunteers from the State Department of Economic and Community Development, the City Planning office, the Chamber of Commerce, the local College and Technology Center, and a host of local businesses.

This coming Friday at 9 a.m. sharp, Main Street McMinnville will host a modeling training session to officially kick off the project. Local volunteer modelers have signed on to participate; participants from Google will also be on-site to lead the training of the Google SketchUp Pro and Google Earth Pro software that we've donated to help the effort. We hope this local endeavor will inspire members of other communities to coordinate 3D modeling projects of their own. Like McMinnville, many towns are faced with the challenge of balancing the need for growth with historic preservation, while seeking more effective ways to engage the community in a dialogue. The introduction of realistic yet virtual representations of towns could help facilitate solving these issues. From design professionals and urban planners to city agencies and people responsible for economic development, anyone and everyone can access and use our tools.

If you'd like to develop a 3D model of your own, you can use our free, downloadable modeling tools via the Google SketchUp website. For larger modeling projects, we offer SketchUp Pro and Google Earth Pro software. We encourage communities that are limited by funds or resources to apply for SketchUp Pro licenses. We look forward to seeing your town in a whole new dimension!

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Introducing the MDG Monitor

Posted by Ad Melkert, Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator, United Nations Development Programme

As this space doesn't have guest bloggers very frequently, you are probably wondering why they have given it to someone at the UN, an organization not normally associated with cutting-edge tech savvy. The reason is that we have partnered with Google and Cisco on an innovative resource called MDG Monitor. MDG stands for Millennium Development Goals, which are targets that the international community set to decrease extreme global poverty by 2015. Because we work with UN colleagues and partner governments in more than 130 countries across the globe, we needed to have this valuable information accessible from one easy place.

And that's where the MDG Monitor layer in Google Earth comes in. It enables people to virtually fly around the globe to chart our progress in the fight against poverty. And this information can be easily shared with anyone who needs it. At a glance, we can assess how the world is doing, redouble our efforts in areas that need work, and make more informed decisions about how to help those who need it most.

In the minute it will take to download this information, more than two children will have died from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. We can do better with your help! We have a huge task in front of us, but with partnerships like this, our goals get closer to becoming reality.



Launching the MDG Monitor, from left to right: Michael T. Jones, Chief
Technologist, Google Earth and Maps; Kemal Dervis, Administrator,
UNDP; United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon; Carlos Dominguez,
Senior Vice President of Worldwide Service Provider Opportunities,
Cisco. Photo by Katrin Park, UNDP

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