RSSGoogle Upgrades Earth, Maps Products
By Ed Oswald | Published June 13, 2006, 1:35 PM
Google pushed an update to its popular Google Earth service Monday, including a major update to the satellite imagery that is a central feature of the product. The amount of available aerial imagery has been expanded by four times, the company said.
A version for Linux systems has been introduced with the most current beta. While the software has already been downloaded 100 million times, the service's move to Linux is likely to help accelerate adoption. Additionally, the software has been localized for French, Italian, German, and Spanish users.
About 20 percent of the globe is now covered by high-resolution imagery, or approximately one-third of the world's population. "When we say 'high resolution,' we mean the good stuff: you can see cars, houses, buildings in more than 200 countries and territories," Google Earth and Maps director John Hanke said.
Google engineers have also brought Google's KML technology to its Maps product. Users will be able to view KML within maps by entering the URL to the location of the KML file. Additionally, Maps would support "geocoding," a technology used to produce mashups of map data.
Hanke said that the company is also introducing a version of the product intended for enterprise users, which will be a fee-based service. "It leverages the Google Maps API to enable businesses to map customer locations, track shipments, manage facilities or view any other data source in a geographic context," he explained.
Finally, Google is offering a new version of SketchUp that allows users to model buildings in 3D for placement into Google Earth.
The offerings are intended to both increase market share as well as bring in revenue from a product that has essentially made none. Google Maps is third in market share with 26 million U.S. visitors in May. In comparison, market-leading Mapquest had 43.5 million visitors and Yahoo 26.1 million.
Google has seen its number of visitors triple in the past year, while Yahoo and Mapquest have only increased 20 percent, says research firm Nielsen/NetRatings.
The new enterprise program is likely to bring in a good deal of revenue for the company. Enterprise licenses to use the Google Maps API would begin at about $10,000 annually, the company said.
The native Linux Version Rocks!!!
Thank you Google.
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|It's good that they're updating more imagery and all, but I want an update for MY area!!!
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|Get a Digital Camera, get in a cesna, take some pictures.
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|i just wonder if they updated the actual image's. last time i checked, my house looked the same as it did 5 years ago, when they took the sattelite picture. a new arial photo would be nice every few years. thats not asking to much.
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|pasha2b? I have to say that your post has me worried about what you know.. have you ever read this: "Google Earth, Google Earth Plus, and Google Earth Pro share access to the same database." It means that they update the imagery when they update the database. No one but the GE team knows when updates happen because, as it says on the GE site, they have to compile the data, and splice and paste and do all of that stuff, and that takes time. One suggestion? Patience. That's all you have to do..
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|They can't update the photo's every couple of years. You are talking 3,537,441 square miles, that would be a HUGE undertaking, and who is going to pay for it?
The other problem is, some installations, like Area 51 (which really doesn't exist - wink wink) have to be carefully edited out. I think some places like the CDC and other government facilites have to likewise be blotted out.
I am sure someone will have a problem with this post also, but I wouldn't expect the photos to be updated any more often than the census is done, every 10 years. Also, Google doesn't own their own sattelite, they get the same images other systems have access to, so its not like they are taking a digital camera and taking pictures themselves.
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|Yes, they did update with new images, too, at least in my city. The image was originally from 2002 or 2003 and now appears to be late 2005.
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|hey "wink wink," area 51 is actually in prety high detail: http://www.wikimapia.org...mp;z=11&l=0&m=a
Here's the CDC:
http://www.wikimapia.org...mp;z=16&l=0&m=a
Here's the Whitehouse:
http://www.wikimapia.org...mp;z=17&l=0&m=a
What would be gained by "blotting out" these locations?
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|5 years in a certain spot is the different between a bunch of fields and a whole new city. Boy, you worry me.
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|OK, everyone knows that I think google is the devil. We aren't getting into that.
I must say, I am impressed with the recent updates to Google. I am actually enjoying many of the new features, like spreadsheets, that Google has to offer. I like google.. now.
Anyway, just wanted to publicly announce that google no longer sucks or is on my hit list.
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|lol. They certainly don't suck. But somehow I'm still cautious about them. They are getting into many people's turf too quickly.
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|Im not saying I don't like google's products. What I dont like, are the lawyers and top employees and CEO working for the company doing rediculous crap. Thats what makes Google the devil.
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|Yes they are. Way to quickly.
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|Finally, my city doesn't look like a green blog anymore!
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|What city would that be? Cleveland? Its a Brown blob!
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|what was changed in google maps?
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|Exactly what it says in the article....read that part?
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|The SketchUp part is phenominal! Google rocks! Making SketchUp with a free version is a beautiful thing!
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