Slashgeo

The official Google Lat Long blog informs us the Google Book Search feature has found its way to Google Earth (previously on Slashgeo), in the mean time, they also announced real-time traffic directly in Google Earth. From the first announcement: "Did you ever wonder what Lewis and Clark said about your hometown as they passed through? What about if any other historical figures wrote about your part of the world? Earlier this year, we announced a first step toward geomapping the world's literary information by starting to integrate information from Google Book Search into Google Maps. Today, the Google Book Search and Google Earth teams are excited to announce the next step: a new layer in Earth that allows you to explore locations through the lens of the world's books." Ogle Earth shares what he thinks of the new features, including screenshots. I take this opportunity to share a few older Google-related stories not yet featured on Slashgeo; a tutorial to create QuickTime VR panoramas out of Google Earth. The previous announcement on rush hour taken into account when evaluating directions within Google Maps. And finally, the inclusion of sponsored links capabilities in the Google Maps API, allowing you to display Google Ads on your Google Maps. See also related stories below.

OgleEarth reports "Michael Kosowsky, of HeyWhatsThat.com — a site that generates horizons for specific locations from DEM data — has emailed friends of the site to announce compatibility with Google Sky.".

Here is the executive summary as reported on their site :

• At http://www.heywhatsthat.com generate a new panorama or view an existing one.
• Hit the new "at night" button just below the "View in Google Earth by day" button.
• Google Earth opens, switches to sky mode, and overlays the celestial sphere with the horizon, visible summits and an azimuth-altitude grid for that location at the current time.

Google made the geoheadlines again today. First they announced a new layer featuring the beautiful work of Yann Arthus-Bertrand named "Earth From Above". Second, they announced 8 new cities with Street View: "Check out full spherical views of Boston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Detroit, and Providence.", but in the same announcement, they also announced the possibility to embed panoramas in any website: "You can take any Street View panorama visible in Google Maps and embed it in your website or blog with a few simple steps. The panorama works just like it does in Google Maps, allowing visitors to your site to pan, zoom, and move between panoramas as they travel down a street." This is a nice new feature. Ed Parsons discuss a new set of resources for educators: "Google in the UK this week announced a set of resources for use by teachers and many of them make use of Maps and Google Earth. These resources include lesson plans and links to additional resources which are really useful for Teachers, and potentially something you as a geospatial professional could offer to help out with at your children’s school." And APB links to a BBC article on the latter. Finally, the Free Geography Tools website links to a text editor with KML validation. A few related previous stories copied below.

From the Ogle Earth blog : "This past week, georeferenced panorama photo site 360Cities rolled out a site-wide upgrade and redesign. The experience — both for viewers and panorama publishers — is now much improved. The single biggest change, in my mind, is that panoramas are now served in a multiresolution format using the much-lauded KRPano engine. Just as with Google Earth satellite imagery, as you zoom in on a panorama, the resolution of the image automatically increases. This is a big deal — it makes the experience much faster without sacrificing detail."