My Google Map Blog

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Over the years we've seen some creative ways that people have used Google Earth. From the crazy "skydiving" a few years ago, to Paul van Dinther's impressive A-tour, we've seen a lot of great ways to stretch Google Earth.

Today's is a mixture of crazy and awesome -- a simulator that uses the Xbox Kinect to allow you to pretend to be a pigeon and fly around London. It looks great!

Check out the video below to see a bit more about how it works.

For more, check out the full write-up on DigitalUrban.org.

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It appears we have some fresh imagery this morning! Thanks to GEB readers 'Popescu', 'Gorazd' and 'Bob' for letting us know about it!

As is almost always the case, you can use Google Maps to determine for sure whether or not a specific area is fresh. This new imagery isn't in Google Maps yet, so you can compare Earth vs. Maps to see what's new; the fresh imagery is already in Google Earth, but the old imagery is still in Google Maps. If you compare the two side-by-side and they're not identical, that means that you've found a freshly updated area in Google Earth!

Some of the updated areas include:

• Romania: Simeria (northern part) -- thanks 'Popescu'
• Slovenia: Western part of the country -- thanks 'Gorazd'
• United States: Pennsylvania (Gettysburg, Harrisburg, Hershey, State College) -- thanks 'Bob'

If you find any other updated areas, please leave a comment and let us know!

X-Ray

One of the neat things that Google Earth does that many people don't realize is the ability for it to give you "x-ray vision" of the earth. Not in the black-and-white-film sense, but meaning you have the ability to see more than just the surface of the earth.

Some companies use Google Earth to help visualize below-surface items such as a water tables and utilities, and we've seen it used many times to help discover (or at least georeference) various archeological finds over the years. Some great examples are this Peruvian Pyramid and some Egyptian tombs discovered by Dr. Sarah Parcak.

XY Coordinates

The Latitude and Longitude lines on our planet, sometimes referred to as XY coordinates, are how systems such as Google Earth and the GPS receiver in your car are able to determine where on Earth you (or any given place) is located. You can read much more about Latitude and Longitude in this post from a few months ago.

eXplore

Google Earth gives you the power to explore your planet like we've never seen before. Most of us started out by finding our home, and many of us have since spent hundreds of hours exploring this vast planet.

The best way to explore is to just go. Fly around and see what you find. Follow streets from your childhood. Just take in all in. If you want to learn more about a particular area, these ten easy steps are some good tips to get you started.

(Yes, coming up with words for "x" was a challenge, so I cheated a bit. Still some good info in there!)

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TweetNot sure what that means, but it looks super secret to me. Travis emails us this: “Inside google data center, forecast as super secret project for PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness). Geek fact: PUE less than 1 is impossible, screen indicates PUE .8 by 2013″ LargerContinue reading

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Steven Ho has built some amazing things with Google Earth over the years, including things such as the Trip View Bowl, the World Marathon Majors, a panorama from the top of Mount Everest and a neat tribute to Steve Jobs where he turns Google Earth into a giant apple.

Steven is back again, this time with a tour that shows off a recent trip he went on. However, as we've come to expect from Steven, it has a lot of extra goodies built into it. You'll see a 3D torocat bus driving them to the mountain, hiker icons as they walk, an animated path and photos that appear throughout the tour. It's quite a neat way to see what the adventure was like for him.

To see it for yourself you can browse it here using the Google Earth plug-in, by downloading this KMZ file, or by watching the video below.

Great job Steven!

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