Google Earth September Updates
From the September 2006 issue of ‘The Sightseer’
At the end of August we updated the Google Earth Community (GEC) layers. Posts that were made to the supported GEC forums are now a part of the built-in Google Earth Layers, which you can turn on in the layer panes on the left side of GE (open the folders to see the different categories). When the layers are turned on, you’ll see many “i” placemarks almost anywhere you look on Earth, each one representing information posted by someone at the forums. Select a placemark to see more information or a link to the original post.
On September 9th we updated our aerial and satellite imagery with new high resolution areas and updates to existing ones. The entire states of California, Montana, Connecticut and Georgia have higher resolution, and the countries of Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Japan have had cities, or larger areas, updated to high resolution. Many other countries and U.S. states and cities have had minor updates as well.
On September 13th we made significant further updates to the GE layers. Here are a few of them. 3D Buildings - many cities in Japan now have 3D buildings. Roads - new countries with road data; more countries have data for Travel and Tourism, Dining, Parks and Recreation, and Lodging. Transportation - there’s a new improved rails sub-layer, along with the new Featured Content layer for GE (here’s a press release about some of these exciting new layers). We encourage you to turn on these layers as you’re exploring new places; you’ll find pictures and links to other information, address information and telephone numbers, and sometimes links to video content as well. Keep an eye on the layers as we continue to provide as much access as possible to useful geo-referenced information.
