Posts Tagged 'Google Earh View'

An alternative way to view the world (and a map)

Take a minute to marvel at Google Earth View. Unveiled this Monday, this new feature to Google maps fuses the popular map application with Google Earth.
For users, this means the ability to view the earth from a three dimensional perspective complete with stunning imagery which lets you explore mountains, terrains and cityscapes in full detail. This doesn’t stop at a ground-floor level; you can even dive below the ocean surface to roam around the Titanic. Then, in a single fluid motion switch right back to the traditional Google Maps view.
Dramatising the 3D capabilities even further, the inclusion of world-famous landmarks including the Taj Majal, Sydney Opera house and Coliseum of Rome, available at the single click of a button in the left hand navigation, ups the wow-factor of the overall experience.
As mentioned by Google Product Manage Peter Birch “The new Earth view is on the Google Earth API and browser plugin, which make it easy for web developers to include Google Earth in their own websites. If you’ve already installed Google Earth, you can start using Earth view right away. Otherwise, with one click you can download and install the browser plugin and you’ll be ready to start exploring in 3D.”
Its not often a map can get us excited, but this one’s a game-changer. Have a play for yourself or watch the video demo by clicking the large image above.

A nod to the past to appreciate the present

Such is the fast paced nature of the web, eyes are always firmly fixed on the next trend or innovation. However, over the past week it caught our attention that it’s been the anniversary of a couple of internet firsts. So we thought we pay tribute to these important milestones that shaped the web as we know it today.

On April 23rd  2005, the very first video was uploaded to Youtube. Shot by Yakov Lapitsk and titled ‘me at the zoo’ this nineteen second clip sparked a new phenomenon with a massive 24 hours of video content now uploaded every minute, daily. From humble beginnings to the second largest search engine in the world – happy 5th birthday Youtube.

On April 22nd 1993, Mosaic – the first web browser capable of displaying both text and images on the same page, in the same window – was launched, bringing life, colour and creativity to the web, which until that point was predominantly text based. As Wired put it “Mosaic made the web come to life with color and images, something that, for many people, finally provided the online experience they were missing. It made the web a pleasure to use.”

Spotify vs Mflow

Spotify has gone social, with more than just some minor tweaks on it’s new version 0.4.3, a ‘total music management platform’, launched yesterday. Spotify has stepped up it’s game since Mflow was released publicly last week and aims to engage with users and increase the amount of time they spend on the software, increasing appeal to advertisers. Users now have an editable public profile with an inbox where they can send and receive music from friends, and view and subscribe to other users playlists and favorite artists. It’s got the Twitter popularity aspect too, you can monitor how popular your music tastes are by how many users subscribe to your playlists. You can import music from your Windows Media Player or iTunes library, integrating it straight into your Spotify library and the Gracenote digital file identification service has also been added, a function which searches for and updates the track names of your music files. Users can link their profile to their Facebook account, instantly add friends profiles and see any music they’ve posted on Facebook in Spotify’s feed. Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify told the BBC, “We’ve enabled people to share music through their friends on Facebook really, really simply and we’ve also managed to make it so you can play your own music through the Spotify client. That’s in a nutshell what we’ve done.”