Legal Research

Google Discovers that the World is Mostly Covered by Water

Today Google released Google Earth 5.0, which features a new ocean layer that lets you zoom down to the bottom of the ocean, view data from ocean monitoring buoys, track tagged marine wildlife, play videos and other content from partners such as the BBC and National Geographic, and a whole lot more.

On the Google LatLong blog, Sylvia Earle, Explorer-in-residence at National Geographic, tells how she tweaked Google for ignoring the watery bits of the planet:

“Three years ago, I met Google Earth and Maps Director John Hanke at a conference in Spain, and had a chance publicly to say how much I love Google Earth. ‘My children, my grandchildren think it is great to see their backyard, fly through the Grand Canyon, visit other countries,’ I said. ‘But, John, when are you going to finish it? You should call Google Earth “Google Dirt”. What about the 3/4 of the planet that is blue?’”

I’ve downloaded GE5. It’s quite interesting, but I’m disappointed. I was hoping they’d have info on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the island of plastic slowly rotating in the North Pacific. But I’m not seeing anything.

One more thing: the new version also features historical imagery. Meh. It’s not available for my house.  (And while they were at it, Google screwed up the date for my house’s imagery.  It’s now off by 3 years.)

Full post as published by Jenkins Webblits on February 02, 2009 (boomark / email).