Street View on Google Maps opened up a whole new world by sharing 360 degree street-level imagery of towns and cities across Australia and in many other countries around the world. Today, we've made it even easier to virtually visit and learn about the world's landmarks.
We've matched popular user-contributed photos from Panoramio to famous locations shown in Street View. In panoramas for which we've identified a photo-match, thumbnails of user photos will appear on the top-right; clicking the thumbnails will display the user photos that match that location.
You can also connect directly to the community behind this great photo content - a link to the author's Panoramio page is shown with every user photo.
The many Australians who use Google Maps to virtually visit places like Paris to see the famous Eiffel Tower or the Notre Dame cathedral in Street View can now also browse creative user photos taken in the vicinity.
You'll be able to see these places closer up, and see images taken at different times of day, from different angles - showing more about the place than you can see in Street View alone.
If you're a Panoramio user, you may already have a photo in Street View. If not, it's easy - just publish your best photos and remember to geo-tag them on the map roughly where you took them. Then Google's state-of-the-art image-matching algorithms will analyse them later to see if they're a good match for a Street View location.
Last month, Oliver (Olly) Hicks set sail from Recherche Bay in Tasmania, Australia, attempting to be the first man to row around the world solo. While he was able to row across the Atlantic in 4 months in 2005, this trip around the world will take well over a year. Google is proud to be a technology partner in this endeavor because we think this is an inspiring quest.
Olly will be using the power of the web throughout his journey. Inside his boat, the Flying Carrot, he will have a water-resistant laptop and a satellite uplink, which means he will have access to the entire web and anyone who wants to surf it with him. He's already started sharing his progress on his website as he begins his row around the world. You'll be able to track where he is, read new posts on his blog, see pictures of him at sea, and watch videos about his journey. You can also join the community on his site and post a comment on the wall, ask him a question and vote on others you find interesting, or even donate to his cause.
Because all of this data is safely stored online, Olly will be able to access it from wherever he may be, even if it's the middle of another ocean. He will share his journey with the world in real time, rather than having to wait until he completes his journey. And all his data will be safely preserved, in case something were to happen to his laptop.
The journey has just begun and we wish Olly the best. Join us in wishing him well at www.virginglobalrow.com.
(Ed's note: At time of posting, Olly is about 200km southeast of Tasmania, and has about 28,700 km to go ...)
Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager
Any organisation can upload a bushfires-related event to this map - such as a fundraiser, gathering or memorial service - by clicking on "Add a New Event". Anyone can see upcoming events in map view, or in calendar view.
To create the map, we used Google App Engine and the Google Calendar and Google Maps APIs. For developers interested in using the data to make mashups, there's also a JSON feed that you're free to use.
Again we offer our thanks to everyone helping out in the aftermath of these tragic fires - including the Country Fire Authority, Victorian Government and the thousands of volunteers and donors from Victoria and around Australia.
Posted by Anthony Baxter and David Symonds, Google Engineering
One of the best things about working at Google is hearing stories from individuals around Australia who have used our products. We often hear how someone has used Google to research a car purchase, plan their dream holiday, or find a new home. But Darren Rowse's experience just blew us away - he didn't just search for those things, he partnered with Google to attain them. Darren first discovered blogging in 2002, and thought he'd give it a try. He started writing about his observations on spirituality and pursuits with digital photography, and gradually built up a loyal readership. In 2003, he placed his first ever advertisement on his blog using Google AdSense.
Google AdSense allows website owners to earn money by serving relevant and useful ads to their web pages. From that first month, Darren started receiving earnings from Google's wide range of Australian and international advertisers. At first, Darren expected that the money would be enough to cover only small things; as he told us, "I added that first advertisement to my blog on a whim, with the lofty dream that I might be able to pay for my blog's hosting costs". But as he started to devote more serious time to his hobby, Darren was soon earning more than he ever thought he could. As he told us recently, "Over five years later those little text ads have paid my mortgage, fed my family and enabled me to move my blogging from a hobby, to a part-time job, to a full-time job and beyond".
These days, Darren runs a number of successful blogs, his most successful being Digital Photography School. He has become known as one of Australia's pre-eminent blogging experts, and posts regular tips and advice on ProBlogger.net, a highly respected and immensely successful resource for bloggers around the world. From his evangelist role in the blogging community, he has even co-authored a book, and set up his own blog ad network.
We recently caught up with Darren at his Melbourne home office, and asked him about his experience with Google AdSense.
Google Australia is proud to partner with Darren and other Australian web publishers through the Google AdSense program. You can read more of his story, and that of other successful AdSense publishers on the AdSense Blog.
Posted by Mel Ann Chan, Google Australia AdSense Team
As you may have read, President Barack Obama's digital campaign advisor, and founder of Blue State Digital, Ben Self, visited the Sydney Google office as part of the Speakers @ Google series last Thursday.
Ben spoke to a packed cafe about how the Obama campaign team used a variety of online media platforms for its grassroots fundraising efforts. The Obama campaign used various online platforms to reach, engage and raise donations from millions of Americans. Ben explained how the campaign ran more than 1800 YouTube videos, which were viewed more than 50 million times. It used email highly effectively. It created a social network site, My Barack Obama, an online community with over a million members, where people could find local events and groups, contact undecided voters near them and share their personal stories on their blogs to encourage more Americans to become engaged in the campaign movement. The Obama team also used the internet to fight rumours, setting up a "Fight the Smears" site and running text ads that sent traffic to the website.
Australian Googlers had plenty of questions on all sorts of issues around the most successful online political campaign of all time, ranging from Americans' responses to different online media, to President Obama's position on important technology and internet policy issues, to the campaign's use of search marketing, to how the campaign used online feedback as a testing bed and adapted tactics on the fly.
It was a fantastic session and we're already looking forward to seeing how Australian parties translate the lessons of President Obama's campaign to our next election campaign. On that note, congratulations to Premier of Queensland Anna Bligh who has just launched her new interactive website and YouTube channel.
Posted by Christine Knight and Darren Keppie, Google Government Team
To follow up our post on Sunday and with the tragedy in Victoria continuing, we've updated our map of the Victorian fires to incorporate the latest available satellite imagery from the Modis Rapid Response project at NASA/GSFC. You can toggle the button "Show Imagery" to see their most recent satellite imagery of some affected parts of Victoria. The small red polygons indicate that a fire is still burning (as at the time indicated beneath the map - 20 hours ago at the time of posting this blog).
We're continuing to try source the most hi-res imagery and fire data available and will update the map as soon as we get it (much of the satellite imagery is covered by smoke). We'll provide updates on this blog.
This map takes a constantly updating RSS feed from the Country Fire Authority of current fire incidents. To embed this map on your website, click here and then click "Get the Code".
We've set up a dedicated page (which we are linking to from the front page of google.com.au) that contains the Victorian fires map with imagery and a Google News feed. It also provides a link to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfires Appeal, to which so many Australians are contributing.
Our thoughts are with the victims and their families and, like all Australians, we're in awe of the efforts of everyone involved in the rescue and relief operations.
Posted by Alan Noble, Raul Vera and Pamela Fox, Google Engineering
Today is Safer Internet Day, an international initiative that aims to give children, parents and teachers sound advice on how best to manage online risks, so that their online experiences are safe and positive. Google Australia is a partner for the day, which is supported by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
To mark the day, we're launching a dedicated Australian page containing online safety and security tips, as well as a new Australian Safety Centre on YouTube, containing straightforward online safety tips and resources from experts and prominent Australian safety organisations.
We've worked with Bravehearts, Reach Out, Kids Helpline, NetAlert.gov.au and Cybersmart Kids Online to launch the YouTube Safety Centre and have included information on how to report concerns to the Australian Federal Police.
The YouTube Safety Centre includes information about a range of issues including YouTube community guidelines violations, cyber citizenship, teen safety, hateful content, harassment and cyberbullying. It also makes it easier for you to access YouTube's Help and Safety Tool, which gives you granular control over your channel (like blocking comments from specific users) and the ability to quickly report concerns.
When it comes to online safety, our approach is to:
• Empower parents with tools to help them choose what content their children see online; • Educate children and parents on how to stay safe online; • Protect children by working with law enforcement and industry.
Our SafeSearch feature screens for sites that contain adult sites and eliminates them from search results. While no filter is 100% accurate, our filter uses advanced technology to check keywords, phrases, and URLs. You can modify your computer's SafeSearch settings by clicking on the Preferences link to the right of the Google search box.
We hope these resources are useful for all parents, families and internet users.
Posted by Carolyn Dalton, Head of Government Affairs and Public Policy
Update at 1:55pm AEDST, 10 February 2009 Map updated with imagery and dedicated page created. All future updates to be posted on this blog here.
By now, you're undoubtedly aware of the terrible bushfire tragedy that is unfolding in Victoria.
We've today pulled together a Flash Map, containing the latest up-to-date information about fire locations and their status from the Country Fire Authority (CFA). The Flash Map is updated in real-time from the CFA website via an RSS feed. We hope that it's of some use to people who may be affected, to emergency services personnel, and that it takes some load off other websites which are being inundated. The map certainly makes the scale of this disaster immediately apparent.
Update at 6:10pm Victoria time: To explain the map, the number in each marker shows the number of fires at the location. A green marker means the area is called "safe" by the CFA. Yellow means "controlled". Orange means "contained". Red means "going".
Update at 8:45pm. Address search functionality added.
If you want to embed a gadget containing this map on your website, you can do so by clicking here.
We're working to incorporate additional bushfire information into the map and will let you know of any additional updates on this blog.
There's a lot of additional information on the web about the location and status of fires and road closures, and what to do to keep safe. Due to traffic load, please only visit the first three sites below if your personal safety is potentially impacted by the fires.
The teams at news.com.au and theage.com.au have created useful My Maps on Google Maps, containing news and information about major fires and casualties.
Our thoughts go out to all those affected by this tragedy, and our thanks to the brave members of the Victorian police, Country Fire Authority and emergency services who are working so hard to save lives.
Posted by Alan Noble, Raul Vera and Pamela Fox, Google Engineering
We Australians love getting our hands on new technology, and we especially love it when we're among the first countries in the world to see new products. We were one of the first countries to get open Gmail signups, and to see Street View imagery on Google Maps. Today, I'm delighted that the HTC Dream is being launched in Australia by Optus, making us the first country in Asia to get an Android-powered mobile device.
Mobile phones outsell PCs three to one, yet most mobile operating systems were developed before the web existed. Android is the first Internet-generation, fully open and free mobile platform, which means you can enjoy the familiarity and breadth of your desktop Internet experience on your mobile. You can fully customise your phone and easily find and download applications from the open Android Market or other websites. You'll find everything from games to location-based services, social networking, productivity tools and on-the-go shopping.
The HTC Dream is not only powered by Android, but also comes preinstalled with a suite of Google applications and a fully integrated Google experience: one-touch access to Google search, Google Maps for mobile, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, and YouTube.
It's a milestone for the Open Handset Alliance, a group of more than 40 technology and mobile industry leaders who are behind the Android platform and have committed to fostering innovation on mobile phones to offer a better consumer experience.
And it's also a milestone for Google Australia, and one that we hope will be embraced by both mobile users and mobile developers. By opening up mobile devices to developers we believe we can drive greater innovation, and faster innovation, for the benefit of mobile users everywhere. Our hope is that the next big application - the future YouTube or Facebook - will actually be built for mobiles, maybe even here in Australia.
Keep checking back on this blog over the next few months as we offer tips and tricks for getting the most out of your HTC Dream, and profile some of the innovative applications available in the Android Market.
Posted by Karim Temsamani, General Manager, Google Australia and New Zealand
As the support engineer for the Google Maps API, part of my role is to participate in developer events - either by speaking, organising or just listening. After three months in Sydney, I've had the opportunity to become fully immersed in the developer culture in Australia, and it's been so much fun that I'm tempted to stay in this beautiful city forever.
Here's a roundup of some of the recent events:
BarCamp Sydney: BarCamps are "unconferences", which means there's no set agenda - attendees scribble what they want to present on paper on the wall, and go to whatever looks most interesting (or just have debates in the halls). BarCamp Sydney was the epitome of an unconference, with sessions ranging from learning Drupal to being hypnotised (I failed - too giggly). I gave talks about HTML 5 and Google App Engine.
OSDC: The Open Source Developers Conference is a week-long conference with hundreds of developers from all over Australia (and some from the US, too). Google ran a hackathon the day before the conference, covering OpenSocial/Orkut, Open Mapping APIs, and Google App Engine. My favourite app to come out of it was "Bean There", an Orkut app that mapped all your favorite coffee stops.
iGoogle Hackathon: On a sunny Saturday, 12 developers sacrificed precious beach time and came to the Google Sydney office to hack in the iGoogle OpenSocial developer sandbox. The attendees ranged from freelance contractors to employees of Australian startups like Atlassian, Momentville and Wotif. Most attendees had heard of iGoogle and OpenSocial but hadn't used either platform. We started off with a presentation on using the OpenSocial APIs and socialising existing apps. Then, after five hours of hacking, the developers presented their creations over ice-cream and beer. The applications covered a variety of concepts, like displaying Flickr albums, intersections of friends and upcoming concerts in the area.
StartupCamp Sydney: At this event, developers, marketers and designers came together for a weekend of coding and pitching a startup - from scratch! The weekend produced six websites, and 36 completely exhausted but satisfied individuals (including myself). A number of the startups used Google developer tools: Activity Horizon and MyPetNeedsLove used the Google Maps API to plot events and love-hungry pets, respectively, whereas ThreeFeeds used the Google AJAX Search & Feeds API both on the client and server sides.
And there's more to come in the next few months:
Google Developer Workshops: Over six weeks, we'll have four talks/codelabs at the Google Sydney office, each covering a different Google developer product. The series kicked off this week with a session on the Google Maps API for Flash, and continues next week with a session on Gears (the technology powering GMail offline!). For more information and registration, visit this website.
JAOO Sydney/Brisbane: At this dual-city developer conference, there'll be two talks from Googlers: "API Design" by Joshua Bloch, and "Google App Engine: Building an App the Googley Way" by Pamela Fox. Pending enough interest, there may also be a half-day workshop on using the Google Maps APIs. (So if you're attending, make sure to sign up!)
Thanks to all the Sydney developers for welcoming me and teaching me the Aussie way (tweetups, wedges and, of course, beer). For more information about what's going on in this side of the world, subscribe to the APAC Developer Blog.
Ocean in Google Earth? Wait ... didn't Google Earth always have an ocean? Technically yes, we have always had a big blue expanse and some shading to suggest depth. But starting today, with the launch of Google Earth 5.0, you can drop below the surface and explore the nooks and crannies of the sea floor in 3D. While you're there you can view videos and images of ocean life, read about good surf spots, track ocean expeditions and much more.
The new 'Explore the Ocean' layer contains information on 11 'hotspots' around the world, including Galapagos, the Hawaiian Islands, the Antarctic and our very own Great Barrier Reef. The information on the Great Barrier Reef was developed with the help of our friends at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS).
Professor David Bellwood of CoECRS and James Cook University shared his thoughts with us on the importance of the drawing attention to the world's ocean.
"The oceans are out of sight, and out of mind. Only fishermen, scientists, tourism operators and the like really see what is happening, day to day. Our hope is that, through the medium of the internet, millions of people – young people especially – will now be able to develop a better feel for what is happening to our oceans, and maybe will be inspired to visit them and see for themselves. The Great Barrier Reef attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world every year. Thanks to Google Earth it will now receive millions more virtual visitors – many of whom will hopefully decide it is well worth a real visit."
Back in October we worked with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to provide map data and updated satellite imagery of the islands, reefs, cays and rocks of the park and make them available in Google Maps. Their chairman and chief executive Russell Reichelt sees this new development as hugely valuable in helping them continue to educate the public about this remarkable place, presenting its natural wonders to everyone from school children to scientists.
But Ocean in Google Earth is not all we've launched today.
Until today, we were only able to offer one snapshot of a given place in Google Earth. With the new Historical Imagery feature, you can now move back and forth through years of satellite and aerial imagery, experiencing the development of a place over time. We've also added a Touring feature, making it simple to create a narrated tour just by clicking the record button and flying to your first destination
And last but not least, 3D Mars is the latest stop in our virtual tour of the galaxies. By clicking a button in Google Earth you can see high-resolution imagery, 3D terrain of the red planet's surface and more.
For those of you who keep track of version numbers, this is Google Earth 5.0. Why did we skip from 4.3 to 5.0? Because this update literally brings new depth and dimension to Google Earth, and we thought that was a pretty big deal.
Members of the Google Earth team will be publishing in-depth posts about all of the new features in Google Earth 5.0 on the Lat Long blog all week, so be sure to check back there often.
Posted by Raul Vera, Head of Geo Products, Google Australia
