Digital Media

(Credit: Paul Ford)

The release of Google Earth 5 has further whetted the Googlebot's voracious appetite for new data.

Specifically, Google wants more views of the planet for the new historical imagery feature in Google Earth 5, which lets people see earlier views of a particular area, not just the present. The company established an Imagery Partner Program through which organizations can supply their data.

Don't expect to be paid for helping Google out, though. "We are happy to add your map content to Google's services at no cost to you, but we generally do not pay for content," the company said on its image partnership frequently-asked-questions page.

In fairness, Google offers some situations where sharing the data would be in the interest of a municipality, for example, that wants to be on the map but is tired of waiting for GeoEye-1's satellite camera to whiz overhead. There probably also are organizations with public-domain imagery that would like to see it made broadly accessible but that aren't trying to build some business out of it.

Plus, Google has a point that processing lots of geographic data is laborious. Who wants to orthorectify and georeference a bunch of data sets? Quoting some of Google's reasons for why people might want to share:

• Make a positive impact on your community and the world

• Simplify navigation and geographic analysis
• Raise awareness of land use and environmental issues
• Facilitate emergency management

• Boost tourism and foster economic development

• Enable visitors and tourism agencies to plan and present travel itineraries
• Support business site location planning

Google showed off new ocean views at its Google Earth 5.0 launch event.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

Google announced the new partnership program on its Lat Long blog Thursday.

Mapping is getting more important in the digital world as new possibilities open up for navigation and finding nearby friends. Google has aggressively pursued this area with online maps and satellite views, and the company has begun testing advertisements in Google Maps and Google Earth.

Yahoo doesn't share quite the degree of obsession as Google, but it's working hard on geography too. On Wednesday, Yahoo announced that it has 100 million geotagged photos on Flickr, its image-sharing site. Geotagged photos have map coordinates built in, letting people find photos of a particular region or explore their own archive geographically.

Accepting others' data could help Google accelerate its geographic agenda, though. And who knows, maybe they can get somebody in Clarkesville, Md., to help fix weird purple arcs that show up in Street View.

These weird purple arcs appear on when checking out Clarkesville, Maryland using Google Maps Street View.

(Credit: Google)

Google Earth is adding an ocean feature, allowing people to dive into the deep blue right from their desktop, CBS News Correspondent Daniel Sieberg reports.

John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Maps, said, "Vast parts of it are largely unexplored and we don't really know what's down there."

While the visibility in the water has been cleaned up, everything you see is based on actual data. It's not quite swimming with the fishes, but it will let you see where they live.

Hanke showed Sieberg some impressive images that can be found with the new feature. "This is really an undersea canyon that is quite dramatic," Hanke said. "It's imilar in scale to the Grand Canyon."

You can also click on icons to see photos and sometimes video of endangered species, like the Goliath Grouper, or even an odd-looking type of shrimp off the coast of Spain.

There's even a fish GPS -- you can follow creatures that have been tagged, from above the water or below it.

A worldwide network of scientists will be constantly adding video, photos, and underwater topography.

"Just as Google Earth has connected people to far off places and made them real, this is going to connect people to the ocean, and make it a much more real and accessible place," said Marine Biologist Stephanie Wear, from the Nature Conservancy.

The good news is you don't need to be a computer whiz or a marine biologist.

Once you download Google Earth, it's just a matter of double-clicking on the ocean to get more detail. Then scroll your mouse over different icons to see what lies beneath, or on the surface.

Hanke said the possibilities are vast, with the ability to see things like "the best surf spots in the world, with photographs of the waves, the best kite surfing spots, the best wind surfing spots."

For tourists, students, and landlubbers alike, it's a unique underwater adventure.

And, it's one that doesn't mean getting all wet.

• Click here for more stories, and images, on Google Earth 5.0.

SAN FRANCISCO--The fact that you now can explore the ocean through Google Earth isn't going to make Google much money directly. But the move is nonetheless smart.

Google generated early-stage goodwill from being the best answer to the online search problem. But the company is large and getting larger, especially as it shows a better ability to withstand the recession than rivals, and that goodwill won't last forever.

Google showed off new ocean views at its Google Earth 5.0 launch event.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

Google Earth, though, gives the company a new way to bring its brand to the world, notably with students for whom the software will help supplant atlases and encyclopedias. And in the long run, as Google Earth and Maps--either as standalone software or used through a browser--will likely become a widely used virtual window on the real world. Google will control the technology and commercialization of that portal.

Will the visibility of the ocean depths on Google Earth make money directly? Not likely. But it adds incrementally to the overall utility of the software, which in the long run keeps it relevant.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt introduces Google Earth 5.0. Click photo for a slideshow of Monday's event.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

"The near-term opportunity is in local search," for example people looking for restaurants or hotels, said John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Maps, in an interview.

Google has begun experimenting with advertisements on Google Maps and Google Earth, added Peter Birch, product manager of Google Earth, at the launch event. Since people often need to discover information about a place before going there, Google Earth and Maps could prove a lucrative endeavor. It may take years to get there, and it'll cost Google dearly in server hardware and network bandwidth, but Google has shown patience in subsidizing long-term projects.

Though Hanke wouldn't reveal the expense of Google's geographic services, some of the economics are in the company's favor. Just as Google's search engine takes advantage of innumerable information that others put on the Internet, Google Earth is a platform that houses information supplied by outsiders that Google doesn't have to pay. It's the Internet's user-generated content story, but this time it's data that can be overlaid on a map of the Earth.

And in the case of the ocean work, there are prestigious users generating high-quality content. Many ocean researchers gathered at the Google Earth 5.0 launch, and several showed there's pent-up demand for a way to conveniently display their data somewhere. And it's not just to share sea surface temperature data with fellow Ph.D.s, but also to try to educate the public.

Ken Peterson, communications director for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, was excited about his layer in Google Earth that shows the location of various types of fish--along with ratings for people about whether they should eat those varieties or substitute others. Barbara Block of Stanford University and Patrick Halpin of Duke University were eager to show the tracks of shark travels recorded by radio transmission to satellites. Ross Swick of the University of Colorado-Boulder showed a Google Earth animation of the gradually shrinking Arctic ice cap over the last 29 years. And Philip Renaud of the Living Oceans Foundation has supplied underwater video of the Red Sea as part of the foundation's mission to chronicle the state of coral reefs.

Hanke envisions much broader information, though, including consumer-oriented material such as the best dive spots and kite-surfing areas. Ultimately, he wants "every single location" on Earth, land or sea, to have information.

Projects like Google Earth give Google cachet with influential people such as Al Gore.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

"We're trying to encourage our users to annotate all the places in the world. Part of what we're doing is seeding that ecosystem of spatial information," Hanke said. "That creates an opportunity for Google to provide location services on phones, mobile devices, in cars in the future, to guide people to the best places. Being a valued guide, the go-to source of information about the best places to go--that will be a powerful and valuable thing for Google."

Think of it as a second Internet in a way, only instead of using abstract names to locate information, you can use actual locations to locate information. Some refer to the idea as the "geographic Web."

The clearest illustration of the indirect benefits Google Earth can bring is the fact that the company could persuade former Vice President Al Gore, whose climate change documentary won him an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize, to bear the Google Earth standard. In effect, he provided an eco-halo that can offset the more down-to-earth capitalistic realities of Google's operation.

Google seems to share the altruistic, educational motivations of many researchers. But it's also got business in mind with Google Earth.

"We try to create products people love to use," Birch said. "We create value, then think of appropriate ways of monetization."

• Click here for more stories, and images, on Google Earth 5.0.

Images: Google Earth 5.0 travels oceans, time, and space

With Google Earth 5.0, users can now journey to the planet Mars, where they can see 3D views of the Red Planet and dive deep into its canyons.

(Credit: Google/NASA/USGS)

While you might never become an astronaut and have the chance to ride a Mars Rover on the Red Planet, Google has now rolled out an Earth-bound alternative for the masses.

With Google Earth 5.0, which was unveiled Monday, users can now explore Mars in the same way they've been able to instantly view 3D images of much of our own home planet for several years in previous versions of the software.

The Mars project, which was implemented in conjunction with NASA, is intended both for casual investigation of our planetary next-door neighbor, as well as serious research. NASA and Google hope scientists and other researchers will use the new Google Earth Mars feature to share data about the fourth rock from the sun.

"The mode enables users to fly virtually through enormous canyons and scale huge mountains on Mars that are much larger than any found on Earth," NASA said in a statement. "Users also can explore the Red Planet through the eyes of the Mars rovers and other Mars missions, providing a unique perspective of the entire planet."

The Mars feature of Google Earth 5.0 lets users see the Red Planet from the perspective of rovers like the NASA Mars Pathfinder Rover.

(Credit: NASA/Google/JPL/University of Arizona)

Additionally, the new Mars features allows Google Earth users to view much of the most recent satellite imagery from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as other craft circling the planet. And users are able to add their own generally sharable 3D content to the larger map of Mars.

Track Santa Claus' Christmas Eve sleigh via Google Earth.

(Credit: Google)

As it has for the past four years, Google will be mapping Santa Claus' trek from the icy North Pole to rooftops around the globe on Christmas Eve. But this year, good girls and boys can track their gifts via mobile phones and Twitter, too.

Starting at 3 a.m. PST on Wednesday, a Google Map with Santa's current location will be displayed on the NORAD Santa Web site, operated by Google and the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Santa fans can also track his movements in 3D in Google Earth (download) by downloading a special NORAD Tracks Santa KML. iGoogle users can add a NORAD Tracks Santa gadget to their iGoogle page.

Google will be displaying high-resolution "Santa Cam" video of the gift-laden airborne sleigh. For locations without video, photos from Panoramio will be displayed in Google Maps.

And for the first time, people can track Santa's journey on mobile phones with Google Maps for Mobile and follow him on Twitter by adding "@noradsanta."

You can read the history of Google's Santa tracking efforts on the Official Google Blog.

Google became NORAD's official Santa Tracking technology partner last year. NORAD has been tracking Santa for about 50 years.

Google Earth's new layer of ancient Rome offers virtual tourists the chance to explore an ancient city at its peak.

(Credit: Google)

Google Earth is extending its satellite perspective to paint a picture of what the ancient city of Rome looked like nearly two millennia ago.

While satellites weren't around to give us a bird's eye view of the city in 320 A.D., Google's "Ancient Rome 3-D" offers a 3D simulation of the ancient city at the height of its power. The new layer for the tool allows virtual time-traveling tourists to fly around the city and zoom in to explore ancient structures as they likely looked at the time, including the Colosseum, the Forum, and the Circus Maximus. Pop-up windows offer historical information.

The project, which was unveiled Wednesday, is the first ancient city to be incorporated into Google Earth and was developed in collaboration with researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Virginia.

The computer graphics are based on the Plastico di Roma Antica, a plaster model that was created by Italian architect Italo Gismondi and finished three years before his death in 1974. (The model can be viewed at the city's Museo della Civilta Romana.)

The digitization project began in 1997 and took 10 years to complete. It then took 15 people the better part of a year to transfer the project to the Web.

And apparently, they got it right.

"What fascinates me most about this project is the accuracy of the details of the three-dimensional models," Gianni Alemanno, Rome's mayor, wrote in a blog posting on Google's site. "It's such a great experience to be able to admire the monuments, streets and buildings of Ancient Rome with a virtual camera that lets you go inside and see all the architectural details."

While the public's interest in ancient Rome has exploded due in large part to movies like Gladiator and TV shows like HBO's Rome, Google is promoting the new layer as an educational tool and has invited teachers to submit innovative lesson plans that incorporate the new feature.

In other Google globetrotting, the company recently announced that after recent launches in France, Spain, and Italy, Google's Street View is now available in six countries. Also, Street View cameras have been spotted in New Zealand.

Google got a sponsor logo on the side of this rocket, set to launch the GeoEye-1 imaging satellite on September 4.

(Credit: GeoEye)

Google has signed a deal under which GeoEye will supply the search giant with imagery from a satellite due to launch in coming days, the companies said.

Under the deal, Google is the exclusive online mapping site that may use the imagery, said Mark Brender, vice president of corporate communications and marketing. Google uses satellite imagery in its Google Maps and Google Earth product.

And as a little icing on the cake, Google's logo is on the side of the rocket set to launch the 4,300-pound satellite in six days from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

GeoEye-1 will orbit 423 miles above Earth, but it will be able to gather imagery with details the size of 41 centimeters, Brender said. Google, though, is permitted to use data only with a resolution of 50cm because of the terms of GeoEye's license with the U.S. government.

Each day, the satellite will be able to gather a high-resolution "pan-sharpened" format surface area equal to that of about New Mexico, the company said.

"The GeoEye-1 satellite has the highest ground resolution color imagery available in the commercial marketplace and will produce high-quality imagery with a very accurate geolocation," said Google spokeswoman Kate Hurowitz, adding that most commercial satellite imagery has a resolution of 60cm. "It is our goal to display high-resolution imagery for as much of the world as possible, and GeoEye-1 will help further that goal."

The Google-emblazoned rocket.

(Credit: GeoEye/ULA)

ITT built the imaging subsystem, and General Dynamics built the overall satellite, Brender said. GeoEye also contracted with ITT for the imaging in the GeoEye-2 satellite, due to launch in 2011 or 2012, Brender said. According to ITT, that satellite will have a resolution of 25cm, or about 9.75 inches.

Google's current imagery in Google Earth spans a range of resolution, the coarsest being 15 square meters per pixel, which is only good enough to see larger geographic features.

Update 10:12 a.m. PDT: I changed the headline; Thierry was a long-time, senior programmer but said he wasn't high-ranking.

The programmer who for years helped develop the Google Earth software package has left the search and advertising company.

"I've cut the Google ship loose. Yesterday was my last day at Google," said Wes Thierry on his blog on Thursday. Thierry was a senior engineer for the client software portion of Google Earth, which also taps into data stored on Google servers.

Thierry worked on the project for six years, first at Keyhole then at Google after it acquired the satellite mapping firm in 2004, and he said by e-mail that he's looking for something new.

"I have been working on the same product for quite a while now. I liked working for a smaller company in the early days, and even at Google in the Early days. The team has become very large, and I left because I just need a change. I will always have fond memories of Google, but it just isn't the same company it was a few years ago," he said. Up next: some vacation in Europe then work for a virtual reality company.

In his blog post, Thierry said there were rough times just before he joined Keyhole, with employees not getting paid. But the Iraq war gave the company some attention through CNN's use of Keyhole products. But the CIA was the real financial lifeline in the early days, he said, though only referring to the Central Intelligence Agency by its nickname.

"Keyhole was always scrambling to please our biggest customer, the Agency, which used our cool interface to view their own top-secret data," he said. "Even today, the Agency is a large customer of Google's, but their importance and influence on day-to-day development has waned since their money is no longer a significant part of Google's income."