Google Adds Satellite Imagery for the World 551
draevil writes "Google has hugely expanded the areas of the world that it covers with satellite imagery. Egypt, Iraq, mainland Europe and the UK have all now got satellite coverage to a lesser or greater degree. Slashdotters can now go see sights like Buckingham Palace or the Arc de Triomphe from the comfort of their own swivelchairs. Iraq in particular seems to have a large number of high-zoom areas. I just looked up the Baghdad Parade Grounds where Saddam used to take the salute and other towns like Fallujah are also there. Finding landmarks without the map content is a little harder, so what can the Slashdot crowd find?"
First to find.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First to find.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First to find.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:First to find.... (Score:3, Informative)
there. You missed them by a few miles.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=microsoft&ll=47.6392 83,-122.128122&sll=47.674167,-122.120278&spn=0.008 487,0.010664&sspn=0.097332,0.115013&t=k&hl=en [google.com]
Searching with long/lat and Abu Ghurayb (Score:4, Informative)
Abu Ghurayb is 3318'58"N 04411'54"E
So you can see that here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=33%C2%B018'58%22N+0
Re:WHERE IS AREA 51???? (Score:3, Informative)
Already done: http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/b/f/bfs124/area
Re:WHERE IS AREA 51???? (Score:3, Informative)
That is farmland. The fields are circular for irrigation reasons, and yes, they look like that from the sky.
Re:WHERE IS AREA 51???? (Score:3, Informative)
Someone apparently hasn't flown cross-country.
The green is plants. They're circular [lenntech.com] because there's a irrigation machine like this [ksu.edu] spinning around on a central pivot.
Re:First to find.... (Score:5, Funny)
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.870863,-77.0559
See that hotdog stand? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:First to find.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I Found... (Score:3, Interesting)
The Great Wall of China! Oh wait, no...
The Sydney Opera House! Oh wait, no...
Seriously, can we please stop shitting ourselves everytime Google makes the smallest tweak?
No wonder people are saying the Make Blog is the new Slashdot...
Re:I Found... (Score:2, Informative)
Yes? [google.com]
Looking around Paris... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Looking around Paris... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Looking around Paris... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Looking around Washington, DC... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Looking around Washington, DC... (Score:5, Funny)
Neither was I. Nobody wants to see Condi sunbathing up there.
But seriously, what could someone see on those roofs that would be of any security importance? It's not like they're hiding a military base up there, unless Dubya has left his crayons and his "Nuuk Eyeran" titled pictures laying around on the roof. I guess it gives the head of the Secret Service the feeling that he's done something useful. (Which is the reason behind most of these empty-map excercises.)
Re:Looking around Washington, DC... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Looking around Washington, DC... (Score:3, Informative)
Knowing that the White House is guarded by AA batteries is not the same as knowing what types of missiles they have and where they're located.
Compare the situation to a grocery or department store -- you know there are a lot of black domes on the ceiling that could be hiding cameras, but you don't know how many actually are or where they're pointing. Telling people that there are camer
Re:Looking around Paris... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Looking around Paris... (Score:3, Informative)
Hey... (Score:5, Funny)
I can see my house from here!
Re:Hey... (Score:5, Funny)
Adrian
Re:Hey... (Score:2)
Re:Hey... (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks a lot google.
Interesting Pic Collection (Score:5, Interesting)
http://perljam.net/notes/interesting-google-satell ite-maps/ [perljam.net]
Re:Interesting Pic Collection (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.googlesightseeing.com/ [googlesightseeing.com]
Re:Interesting Pic Collection (Score:3, Funny)
I bet they had a satellite trained on London for months, waiting for a goddamn day without clouds.
Pictures of the Oslo/Norway isnt' too good. (Score:2)
Hope they'll improve the coverage of Oslo given some time.
Re:Pictures of the Oslo/Norway isnt' too good. (Score:5, Funny)
"Michael! Every shot in this roll of film has your finger in it!"
Re:Pictures of the Oslo/Norway isnt' too good. (Score:2)
Re:Pictures of the Oslo/Norway isnt' too good. (Score:2)
Re:Pictures of the Oslo/Norway isnt' too good. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not just Oslo. Google has low resolution images for much of the United States as well. For example, I went clicking around for some well-known race tracks (and my local track, not so well-known). Here's what I came up with:
Different resolutions/scans (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Different resolutions/scans (Score:3, Insightful)
with apologies to Zonk (Score:2, Funny)
Re:with apologies to Zonk (Score:3, Funny)
You are of course competing with other recent eye of sauron lookalikes [hubblesite.org]. So no hard feelings?
Google Map: Getting better and better (Score:2)
Been looking... (Score:2, Troll)
We could not understand the location "weapons of mass destruction" near Iraq
funny because it understands Cocksuckers near NYC [mintruth.com] just fine... but I understand because "Canada" puts you in England (Hampshire) [google.co.uk].
found WMD here (Score:3, Interesting)
If you search for weapons of mass destruction they're all in one place here [google.com] .
For some reason, if you try zooming in all the way you will notice that they "don't have imagery at this zoom level" which seems convenient to me.
Let's hope that the US government doesn't find out about this information lea^$*H^%&E%(&%L^&P*(^&%^*!
Re:found WMD here (Score:3, Interesting)
B - American Legion Post 198
(918) 287-2656 - 22 mi W
C - Legion Post 227 American
(918) 847-3006 - 18 mi SW
E - United States Government: Minerals Council Office
(918) 287-1085 - 21 mi W
F - Voice of the Martyrs The [mnnonline.org]
(918) 337-8015 - 0.2 mi NW
G - Oologah Chamber of Commerce [wylieforoklahoma.com] (notice the domain?)
(918) 443-2790 - 24 mi SE
I - Strategic World Impact [mnnonline.org]
(918) 336-8400 - 0.1 mi N
No Osama, but two American Legion posts (with the same, wrong link f
How old are the images? (Score:5, Interesting)
To quote from the FAQ:
"Satellite images are current, but not real-time."
This seems a bit vague. Does "over a year old" really equal "current"?
I'm not criticizing, just curious. It's wicked cool even if the pictures aren't quite of the present. I just can't check for traffic jams on MoPac yet.
2 years (Score:2)
Re:How old are the images? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How old are the images? (Score:4, Informative)
Tokyo, Shibuya [google.com]
Also, the Meguro Station got a new cover, which blends in on the old/new edge:
Tokyo, Meguro Station [google.com]
Re:How old are the images? (Score:5, Funny)
In 2025 twelve year old Jimmy Wallace from Evansville Indiana asks Google for the meaning of Life, the Universe, and everything. Zero point zero zero zero two seconds later google is about to answer "42", but a single node twelve hundred miles away decides additional search results are warranted. Jimmy Wallace's screen displays "Processing....". Over the next thirty nine seconds computers across the state slow to a crawl, then go blank and simply display "Processing....". Over the next twenty seven seconds the slowdown spreads across the nation, then across the globe, out to Low Earth Orbit, and to the Moonbase. One hundred and five point five seconds after Jimmy Wallace asked his question, every computer screen displays the single simple message "Aha!". At that moment every networked computer goes inert, all data and memory mysteriously blank. The Google conciousness vanished without a trace.
-
CS? (Score:2)
Perhaps not all that far off the mark...
N.
some more interesing objects (Score:5, Informative)
St. Peter in Rome [google.com]
Florence, Duomo [google.com]
Water reservoirs in Sahara [google.com].
Creter of Vesuvius [google.com]
Re:some more interesing objects (Score:2)
Re:some more interesing objects (Score:2)
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=27.649498,22.50480
Re:some more interesing objects (Score:2)
Re:some more interesing objects (Score:2)
Mt. St. Helens (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mt. St. Helens (Score:3, Interesting)
GPS coordinates (Score:2)
What if Google added the ability to search for GPS coordinates, or would give you the coordinates for your map.
So what if that spoils your Geocaching!
Iranian nuclear plant? (Score:2)
Re:Iranian nuclear plant? (Score:3, Interesting)
And I didn't even look for other maps until I'd found what looked like a containment building. Sure enough, a quick image search [google.com] confirms that to be the plant.
Jesus H... (Score:2, Interesting)
yes, they *are* crappy, for the UK at least.
at first all they did was sloppily overlay road maps onto postcode maps, with the result that postcodes are displaced from their true location by about 2 streets (a lot since a postcode is supposed to localise you to within half a street or so).
now they've added spotty low-res imagery on top. looking at where I live the map looks quite wrong, but then it's so low-r
Re:Jesus H... (Score:3, Interesting)
Try Multimap [multimap.co.uk] for the UK. It has much better aerial photos, and a translucent map overlay follows the mouse over the photo. It makes objects much easier to find because you can see where the roads are.
If you like this... (Score:2)
The area I grew up in (Score:2)
Edge of Stockport, England [google.com]
For those with an interest in murder mysteries, a certain lady by the name of Agatha Christie was apparently a frequent visitor to the town of Marple - she was apparently on excellent terms with one of the aristocracy who lived there.
Eiffel tower, Giza pyramids.. (Score:5, Informative)
- Tour Eiffel [google.com]
- Giza Pyramids [google.com]
- Pompeya [google.com]
- Osaka airport [google.com]
- Munich olimpic stadium [google.com]
- City of arts in Valencia [google.com]
- Expo 98 in Lisboa [google.com]
Gotta love this maps..Tianmen Square? (Score:2, Interesting)
No Pools In fallujah! (Score:3, Funny)
Patchiness (Score:2)
Hmm. Maybe not so much.
For most of Sydney's suburbs, though, they've got amazing resolution. I mean, if you want to see Gladesville Shopping Centre [google.co.uk] in awesome detail - no problem!
I presume more inner-Sydney detail's coming soon. There's plenty of detail on our huge stupid Parliament House [google.co.uk] already.
The Pyramids! (Score:4, Interesting)
Cheney's undisclosed location revealed! (Score:2, Funny)
(WTF?)
flags (Score:2)
Here, someone has had a go at Bob the Builder, and you can see his body:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=brisbane+australia& l l=-27.967898,153.416884&spn=0.008175,0.010461&t=k& hl=en [google.com]
UFOs! (Score:4, Interesting)
UFO Number 4 [google.com] UFO Number 5 [google.com] UFO Number 6 [google.com]
UFO Number 7 [google.com] UFO Number 8 [google.com] UFO Number 9 [google.com]
UFO Number 10 [google.com] UFO Number 11 [google.com] UFO Number 12 [google.com]
UFO Number 13 [google.com] UFO Number 14 [google.com] UFO Number 15 [google.com]
UFO Number 16 [google.com] UFO Number 17 [google.com] UFO Number 18 [google.com]
The truth is out there...
bort.
Re:UFOs! (Score:4, Informative)
Rembember, those pics (the higher resolution ones) were made by aircraft, not sattelites, so the depht of field is not that large.
Re:UFOs! (Score:4, Interesting)
(Come on, if they were UFOs, they would have to be BETWEEN the plane and the ground. Unlikely.)
Maree Man (Score:5, Interesting)
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=maree,+Australia&ll= -29.533997,137.466431&spn=0.036736,0.061712&t=k&hl =en [google.com]
Re:Maree Man (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Maree Man (Score:3, Interesting)
I 'found' all the Unesco World Heritage Sites (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the page of Google Maps for World Heritage Sites [templetons.com], and there is also a blog entry for comments and corrections [4brad.com]. Many can be zoomed in on. Enjoy.
London and Amsterdam (Score:3, Funny)
Indiana -- WTF? (Score:2)
It's like a blight in the greenery of the midwest
Cheers!
Upside down? (Score:2)
Both of the links pop up sat shots that are "up side down"! The Buckingham Palace one looks like it was bombed around a sunken area!
I guess its a shot from the bird going over from north to south.
Chernobyl (Score:3, Interesting)
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.383400,30.11481
Slighty dissapointed... (Score:3, Funny)
I know the guys and gals at Google are nerds but I see they're of the non-Tolkien-fanboy variety.
A slight shame but hey, you can't always have the lembas and eat it.
Whatever you do, don't zoom out! (Score:4, Funny)
Just what the hell is going on at Google anyway?
Nazca lines, Peru (Score:3, Interesting)
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_lines [wikipedia.org]
Re:Firefox problems? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Firefox problems? (Score:3, Informative)
In your Options/Preferences dialog, go to Web Features and click the Advanced button next to Enable Javascript. In that dialog, make sure Change Images is selected. That worked for me.
Re:First Dupe Post! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:First Dupe Post! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Streched Images? (Score:3, Informative)
Satellite view on the other hand uses whatever perspective afforded by the position of the satellite. It isn't always directly overhead, you know.
So they have to translate one perspective onto another.
The real question is, do they get to know where the satellite was when it took each photo in question, or do they arrive at the matrix in some other way?
Re:Streched Images? (Score:2, Informative)
(If you don't know what that is, it's when you take a camera that's completely directly on top of the target area, with a lens as big as what you're taking, so there's no perspective shortening at all.)
They can do it two ways, I guess they either know where the satelite is, or they locate enough points on the photo (ie: manually eyeball feature x) and know
Re:Streched Images? (Score:2)
Because these images probably do not come with proper geological coordinate system?
These images are taken from satellite; you need the spatial coordinate of a satellite which took these images, and then reproject it onto the tangential plane, then convert that to non-linear coordinate scheme that the original map uses. These maths aren't too complicated (ok, it will take me days to work out), but getting all the information necessary to perform that co
Re:Streched Images? (Score:2)
That's all I am saying.
Re:Paris from above... (Score:2)
*resets geeksters geek points to zero*
Re:What's this in Washington DC that's blacked out (Score:2)
Re:whats up with the white house and its erased ro (Score:2)
You can still look at fairly high resolution pics of the roof of the White House from older 1988 USGS aerial photo data [microsoft.com]. Same thing with the blurred-out capitol buildings. Interestingly, the roof of the Pentagon is there in all its glory, albeit they obviously pasted in a DoD-reviewed patch of footage (it's pretty easy to see the seams).
Re:Alphabet Soup! The NSA..... (Score:3, Informative)
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=palmdale,ca&ll=34.6 3 7371,-118.082052&spn=0.006641,0.006652&t=k&hl=en [google.com]
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=norfolk,va&ll=36.951 184,-76.330261&spn=0.018625,0.035448&t=k&hl=en [google.com]
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=norfolk,va&ll=36.953 845,-76.331667&spn=0.005397,0.007918&t=k&hl=en [google.com]
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=palmdale,ca&ll=34.62 3520,-118.091547&spn=0.006641,0.006 [google.com]
Re:Aircraft (Score:3, Interesting)
But first, here's a Saturn-V rocket at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. I grew up exactly 2.5 miles from this rocket. Next to the Saturn V are two upright rockets: a Mercury and a mumble-mumble 3000 (I forget).
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.554017,-95.0940 9 4&spn=0.007639,0.007725&t=k&hl=en [google.com]
Now, about that plane in flight. At Hobby airport, also in Houston, is this Cessna (?) on final approach (upper right).
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.65 [google.com]
Re:Google actually created this content? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, not all of Google maps satellite is DG, some of it is NASA. They're usually pretty good about not labelling this as copyright Google, but they do get it wrong some of the time.
So no, google don't have spy satellites (yet..) bu
Re:What's this big blue thing in the middle of Afr (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the feature is a semi-permanent lake, one that may fill up in some seasons, and then possibly evaporate almost completely away (like the lake in Death Valley). Lake Chad was once huge (the Pale-Chadian Sea) and some of those semi-permanent lakes might be all that is left of the sea in the north.
Re:What's this line over Lake Baikal? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you zoom in and look carefully, you will see that it is likely cloth tape on the photograph. Probably put there for a reason (torn image, seam, etc.), prior to scanning.
What I can't explain is why it loo
Re:Oil tankers in the Med (Score:3, Interesting)