Slashgeo

The Google Earth Blog tells us Google has updated part of its european data. See Ogle Earth for additional screenshots. From the GEB: "# Entire country of Switzerland at 50cm and many Swiss cities at 25cm (thank you, Endoxon) # Entire country of Switzerland terrain at 10m resolution, Swiss Alps are now high-res! # Entire country of Denmark at 50cm # Australia day flyover (Google maps special) # Cities of France: Lyon; Le Mans; Lourdes; Reims; Nancy; Limoges; Lille; Arles # Potsdam and Magdeburg, Germany # Barcelona, Belem, Cape Town, Galapagos (Isabella Island), Manaus, Mt Saint Helens, Recife, Rio, Venice # Whistler British Columbia # Full state coverage for Wyoming & Utah # Cities and counties in the US: Kirkland, WA; 6 counties in Arksansas; Dallas county, IA; Rutherford County, NC; Lancaster County, NE; Johnson County, NC; Lee County, NC"

This might not be major, but it's a nice little new addition to Google Maps: you can now get your transit schedules directly in Google Maps. From the official blog: "Depending on the data available for a given public transit system, Google Maps now shows the next departure times, what lines serve a specific station, and/or a link to the transit agency to get more detail. Try clicking on one of the little bus or tram icons on this map of Zurich, Switzerland, to see what we mean. [...] Our transit information is acquired through a variety of means, including transit agencies, geo data companies, websites, and maps. We are continuously working to expand our coverage." Related, The GEB discuss the transit layer in Google Earth.

Here's the most interesting Google related geonews I found for January so far. Google significantly updated Google Sky (a little more on the GEB), with many new layers and associated data. Still from the Official Google blog, some news an discussion about Google Transit. Not to miss is the impressive comparison of a real flight and a Google Earth flight in the Swiss Alps. Amongst the other GE news, there's the WarViews animated conflict geodata (via OE) and surface-to-air missile sites and range dataset for GE. The 3D Route Builder which uses GE which reached version 1.0. Here's a 3D-mouse working with GE. And finally, a few navigation shortcuts for Google Earth 4. See also the numerous related stories below.

The Map Room has an article about this cool use of technology. From their summary : "Centred on Zürich, this site provides real-time positions of Swiss trains — the icons freaking move — based on their schedules. “The current view is based on the Swiss train timetable, and does not yet show the actual GPS-positions of the trains. But, as Swiss trains are almost always on time, most of the time the position is accurate.”"

Head on over to the Map Room to get the link to the cool live demonstration site and more information. Seems like a 1 up on the recent NYC transit site which was also announced last week.