What a day I knew it was going to be full of news and cool stuff when Eric Schmidt (CEO), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (co-founders) walked onto the stage at the Googleplex – they note that geospatial is a defining opportunity in search!
Don’t think google is serious about Geospatial? Think again this is the real McCoy and google didn’t waste any time today in providing loads of material to discuss today at the first Google Geodeveloper day here in Mountainview at Google HQ. I’m not really sure which announcement was the most noteworthy as there was so much discussed… really; it depends who you talk to. So, what’s new? How about this for a summary:
-Google Earth V4.. now supporting Linux and Mac OS as well HUGE!!
-KML 2.1
-Google licensing for the enterprise user (word has it we’re talking about $10K a year for licensing and support)
-The new Google Sketchup (this is totally sweet!) and new support for textures and patterns within Google Earth imagine high-quality renderings (3D) easily added to your scenes WOW! Imagine this, you snap a photo of a building, then using sketchup you create a 3D block based on the actual positioning of the structure in Google Earth. then you render the structure in 3D using the image you captured and you create a beautiful 3D image to send back into Google Earth.. it’s that easy!
-Satellite imagery updates (how about 20% of the Earth covered in high-res imagery now available via Google Earth)
-Updated Google maps API with Geocoding (free geocodeing of 50,000 addresses) WOOHOOO this one drew a huge reaction
-KML for google maps… ya, that’s right gmaps now supports the display of KML… try it. Simply key in the url of a KML file!
-Yadayadaya – see full announcement at http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/9158/
Some interesting numbers and comments:
– 30,000 developers are using the Google maps API
– 100 million+ downloads of Google Earth to date
– new… more Earth, less interface
– think of KML as the html for GIS… Google Earth is the geobrowser!
As you can tell, there was loads to discuss today at Google Geodeveloper day. A standing room only crowd of about 200 and change got a first hand look at all the new apps from the Google crew.
Our kind hosts used the event as a good occasion to celebrate the first year of Google Earth and to look back in bewilderment as to how far things have come in the last year. It’s amazing to think that just one year ago there wasn’t a Google maps in existence and the term mashup didn’t exist. Just imagine where we’ll be next year! Stay tuned for more.
Sorry I don’t have more to offer up but my morning started early and I just got back from the first ever Pixie Hunt, mobile, GPS-camera-enabled scavenger hunt, developed by Microsoft. Unfortunately we ran out of light but a good time was had by all next year let’s hope for camera-phones with a built in flash! See the Pixie hunt photoblog at http://www.flickr.com/groups/pixie-where.
A reminder, Pixie Hunt involved some 8 teams of “mobile professionals” who were armed with Cingular 8125 camera phones, a Bluetooth enabled GPS, and a task list of some 27 tasks to be completed in downtown San Jose, California. Yours truly and a small crew took part and did quite well if I say so myself… see our photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gisuser – note… I’ve also moblogged a number of images throughout the day while at the Googleplex enoy! For more about the day see also the reports at GoogleearthBlog
Glenn at Googleplex for the launch of google Earth 4 and more!
Download the new Google Earth 4 at http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html and see also http://sketchup.google.com/
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Anything Geospatial: Tracking developments affecting GIS, geospatial technologies, location-based services, mapping, google earth and google maps. Published by the creator and editor of GISuser.com & LBSzone.com
