My Google Map Blog

FlightRadar24.com is a site that does a nice job showing live air traffic on top of a Google Map. They have a great interface, but it's similar to other sites that we've seen in the past.

However, they've just launched a new feature that almost seems obvious, yet I've never seen it before -- "Aircraft View" using the Google Earth Plug-in! By clicking on a plane and choosing "Aircraft view (BETA)" from the sidebar, a window pops up on your screen and shows you the view from that plane via Google Earth.

The view runs pretty smoothly in most cases, and includes 3D buildings in the view. All in all, it's a great addition for a site like this and a very creative use of the Google Earth Plug-in.

You may notice that coverage is most comprehensive in Europe where most aircraft have the right type of transponder and there is a denser network of volunteers picking up the signals. You can read more about that on their about page. That said, coverage in the US and elsewhere is continuing to expand.

Go explore this fun new feature for yourself at FlightRadar24.com.

A handful of cities in Louisiana were updated with fresh Street View imagery today. New Orleans was the big one, with a remarkable amount of fresh imagery, and Google updated Baton Rouge and Lafayette as well.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu wrote a blog entry for Google's Lat Long Blog, in which he details some of the great places you can see in this fresh imagery. The imagery is indeed quite sharp, and it's a great way to show off the progress that New Orleans has made in the seven years since Hurricane Katrina.

Don't forget that not only can view this imagery in Google Maps, but you can view it inside of Google Earth as well. Here's a quick video that shows more about how that works: