Google Earth dug up some sweet historical imagery, dating back to 1945 in some areas! Web surfers can see how their watering holes and stomping grounds have changed over time. Not only that, young an old alike will take a new appreciation for things like seeing industrial revolution, birth of ballparks, stadiums and other now famous venues.
As authored by the *trustworthy* Wikipedia, Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographic information program that was originally called Earth Viewer. Created by Keyhole, Inc, a company acquired by Google in 2004, now has really changed the way we get directions, but houses, and go deep sea diving. It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS 3D globe. This is something that will come in handy in any war, talk about knowing your opponents location or lay of the land!
To access historical imagery, do one of the following within the Google Earth application. 1) Click View > Historical Imagery or 2) Click the Clock icon in the toolbar above the 3D viewer. The small vertical lines on the timeline indicate the dates of different imagery available for your location. Now all you need to do is find that special place where you grew up, went to college, or had that great summer.
Looking at my neighborhood in Central California, I realized the seriously massive amount of development that occurred in the early 1990s, as agricultural fields of family friends suddenly became covered with houses, schools, and strip malls. In fact one neighborhood, now stands with names like Danny Drive and Dawn Drive off of Famasi Avenue. These are real people I grew up with and attended 4-H meetings with so a little strange to say the least.
Check it out: http://earth.google.com/userguide/v4/ug_gps.html#historicalimagery
US environmental gurus have released an interactive Google Earth map showing bunches of contaminated land sites that could be developed to provide renewable energy. Talk about using technology for the green revolution.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hopes the Renewable Energy Interactive map will encourage the use of contaminated lands for renewable energy production by identifying thousands of acres of former or currently contaminated lands and mining sites.
The agency gave a number of advantages to using contaminated lands, including:
– Many sites are in areas where building wind or solar structures is less likely to face opposition on aesthetic grounds.
– Critical infrastructure is already in place, such as electricity lines and roads along with appropriate zoning for development thereby saving massive start up costs.
– Using brownfield sites for green energy production eases pressure on greenfield sites
– Provide new jobs for communities where old industrial, manufacturing and mining sites closed down
– Some 480,000 sites and almost 15 million acres of potentially contaminated properties across the USA are tracked by the EPA.
– Working with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory it has identified around 10,000 contaminated lands and mining sites with renewable energy potential.
The US government estimates the demand for renewable energy will grow by around 33% over the next 25 years, building renewable energy facilities on these sites using partnerships between government agencies, the private sectors and communities could help meet this demand and avoid farmland and greenfield use.
EPA spokeswoman Latisha Petteway said, “The EPA looks for opportunities to encourage the cleanup of contaminated sites, recognizing that some contaminated properties have attributes that could make them attractive candidates for the siting of renewable energy production facilities.”
The EPA map has a layer of color coded dots to the Google Earth software, showing properties that could host solar, wind or biomass energy production. When you zoom in and click on a dot, it brings up site information, site acreage, existing environmental status, and renewable energy potential.
See the map, free software at:
www.epa.gov/renewableenergyland
Google is officially denying widespread Internet rumors that its Google Earth software located the mythical sunken city of Atlantis off the coast of Africa. Google may be totally trying to hide something and as I always appreciate a nice juicy conspiracy theory, I’m going to go with this theory.
From what it sounds like, a British aeronautical engineer was playing around with the new Google Earth 5.0, which includes undersea data, and noticed something funny off the coast of Africa, about 600 miles west of the Canary Islands, that resembled a pattern of a street grid. According to the United Kingdom’s Press Association, the pattern of streets equated to an area the size of Wales. A man is trawling the ocean floor with Google Earth and like the UK newspaper The Telegraph reported the story first, adding that the exact coordinates are 31 15’15.53N, 24 15’30.53W.
Atlantis was a legendary island city first mentioned by Plato, allegedly a hard-core naval power located somewhere near North Africa that disappeared when it sank into the ocean. We’re guessing global warming was a problem back then, too. Thank you Al Gore. Most people think that Plato made it up, kind of like how those guys in Scotlad made up the story about seing the Loch Ness monster, but others just won’t stop believing.
When it comes to Atlantis, Google had to rain on everyone’s parade. “It’s true that many amazing discoveries have been made in Google Earth, including a pristine forest in Mozambique that is home to previously unknown species and the remains of an ancient Roman villa,” a statement from Google read. “In this case, however, what users are seeing is an artifact of the data collection process. Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data.” Hmmm, smells like a cover up!
Everybody check out the newest thing to Google Earth! It’s Google Earth 5.0 and they have mapped the ocean floor, mapped the ground in past history and well let me just say this video can describe everything better than I can!
I’m a huge fan of the time clock feature. You can see different places on the Virtual Earth Map over the past 100 years or so; a really cool to watch how your city developed. This free software can be downloaded from the Google site and is much better than normal old satellite imagery.
Our troops are deployed in the most rugged of locations, from the mountains of Afghanistan to submarines a hundred feet below the surface of the ocean. Yet all will be able to tune in Sunday to the Super Bowl thanks to new technology.
They’ll watch the game on the American Forces Radio and Television Service, which is to link up to NBC’s broadcast using the Raytheon system that carries classified operational and intelligence information to the troops. Raytheon has partnered with the U.S. Air Force to carry the Super Bowl on its fast-growing third satellite channel that provides morale services, such as 24-hour access to CNN.
Most troops will see the game through conventional hookups with the American Forces service. But to get to more remote areas, ultra-high frequency signals will be broadcast from three locations in Norfolk, Virginia; Sigonella, Italy; and Wahiawa, Hawaii all using government and commercial satellites. This technology would even make Google and Google maps jealous. In the past couple of years, the system has been upgraded and now it provides more bandwidth and more satellites to redirect the broadcasts to even the most far-away places.
“It’s tremendously rewarding,” One official said. “It really inspires our engineers and our operators, particularly when you talk to people who’ve come back from a long tour on a Navy ship, or somebody who’s just come back from Afghanistan, and they tell you about how they used the system.” Especially to watch the Super Bowl. Support the troops!
