My Google Map Blog

Introduced in 2009 as part of Google Earth 5, the Mars feature continues to be an amazing feature to show people in Google Earth. As time has progressed, Google has slowly brought new features to Google Mars, such as the 360 panorama they released a few months ago.

Thanks to new imagery from the Context Camera (CTX) on the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, we now have a lot more amazing imagery to view on the red planet.

To get started, click on the planet icon at the top of your Google Earth screen and choose "Mars", or choose [View] --> [Explore] --> [Mars] from the menu bar. Once on Mars, enable the [CTX Mosaic] layer as shown to the right.

At first, it doesn't look great. You get a bunch of gray bands that kind of clutter things up -- sort of the opposite of "pretty earth". However, zoom into one of those areas and you'll see why this feature is great -- the image quality is amazing! As you can see from the side-by-side images below (via Wired), the difference in quality is staggering.

The quantity of imagery available on Mars is amazing, and the various Layers can provide quite a lot of data. Spend some time exploring the planet and you'll be amazed by what you can find.

While I haven't found any great Google Earth-based maps for this year's United States Presidential Election, many sites have created some excellent interactive maps to help predict (and then later show) the results of the election.

CNN

CNN has a variety of maps, including the prediction map seen below. As votes start being talled this evening, they'll be updating this map with the results.

The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post has a similar map as we saw from CNN, trying to predict which candidate will win each state.

Google

As you would expect, Google has a plethora of election-related information through their Politics & Elections section. Included in there are tools to help you find your voting location, trends for the past few months and other tools like the campaign explorer, which shows where the candidates spent their money.

If you've found any other great maps online, please leave a comment and let us know about them. Please keep the comments geo-related and nonpartisan; there are plenty of other sites where you can talk about why your candidate is the best one.

Here's another fun adventure from the folks at Google Sightseeing -- Ferris Bueller's Chicago. Through a combination of Google Earth imagery and Street View, they've tracked down virtually all of the main locations in the movie.

Some examples include the Bueller house:

Or perhaps you can swing by Glenbrook North High School to pick up Sloane:

They've also covered other areas from the movie such as Wrigley Field, Cameron's house (which is actually for sale right now), the Art Institute of Chicago and the location of the big parade scene.

It's a great list and it covers every location you can think of in the move. Check it all out for yourself by reading the full post on Google Sightseeing.

Invented in 1999 by a group of Australians, the Movember Foundation fights to raise awareness and funds for a variety of men's health issues, such as prostate cancer. The word "Movember" is a combination of "Moustache" and "November"; growing a moustache during November is essentially the trademark symbol of the group.

GEB reader 'Damien' is a participant in the event, and decide to help give it a bit of promotion. Similar to our Halloween tradition of turning Google Earth into a pumpkin, Damien turned the earth in a giant smiley face with a moustache!

You can download the model from the 3D Warehouse or download the KML directly.

You can learn more about the Movember Foundation at movember.com.