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"With Google Earth, you can do much of your work with publicly available and non-traceable data sets."

You can already do this. Buy topographic maps. No, that's too traceable? Go to a university library and use topographic maps and air photos (they often have collections if they have a geography department). Don't have what you need? Visit the USGS and look at their vast collections of maps and air photos in their library. It's slower, but there is no real obstacle to people getting whatever aerial photography information they want, either by traditional methods (pre-Internet) or on the Internet.

The guy is an idiot if he thinks restricting Google Earth in any way would stop bad people from getting the information they wanted, because people have been getting the same information by other means for decades prior to Google Earth's existence. Google Earth only makes it easier and free. Blur Google Earth? Well, they better blur Terraserver too. And blur every map and air photo every produced by commercial or government agencies.

What's the point of encumbering everyone else with a stupid and ineffective law? The bad guys will make do with whatever information they can get and the chances of getting caught are very, very slim. Worst case, they drive around until they find a church, government building, or school and hope for the best.

There's no good reason for unblurred imagery? Did this Anderson guy never look at a map or image for the sake of curiosity? I have sympathy for this guy only because he is living in so much fear that he has become irrational. I suppose he wants his house blurred out too, he being a legislator.

And the best part about this scheme is the fact that once it is implemented the terrorists will know exactly where the choice targets are located: in the blurry spots.

And if the Russians can photograph it, they can sell the photos to terrorists. Google will get them sometime after.

Which reminds me of the TerraServer sat images, that IIRC were bought by Microsoft from the Russians (after the wall came down). Makes sense, good pictures of the US you buy from the ruskies and for high quality pictures of Moskou you go to the CIA.

Non-photoshopped Bart Simpson, mowed into a farmer's field near some property that used to be in the family...

http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&Z=15&X=1711&Y=22050&W=2&qs=%7CSt.+Joseph%7CMO%7C/

1025 F Street N.W. , Tenth Floor , Washington, D.C. 20004
Long -77.02604 Lat 38.89790

Back in 93' I mowed with a tractor a RHCP logo into my field that was over 10 Acers... It was not only visible by traffic flying into San Jose but also from space. SO.. I'm suing! Accually, you can almost still see it after the grass grew in.. you'll see it in teh center... http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=11&X=1 551&Y=10252&Z=10&W=1 :-)

I had a hard time finding additional imagery after teraserver sold out.(to MS iirc?)

Point 4. "Although the obvious solution of making the boosters of one long segment (instead of four short ones) was later suggested, long solid fuel boosters have problems with safe propellant loading, with transport, and with stacking for launch -- and multi-segment solids had had a good track record with the Titan-3 military satellite program. The winning contractor was located in Utah, the home state of a powerful Republican senator, but the company also had the strengths the NASA selection board was looking for." Is pure and utter BS. It was not "later suggested". Less than 15 miles from where I am is the remains of the plant that would have made those boosters if it were not for MT having gotten the contract. The one piece boosters were test fired and manufactered at this location. The boosters were built upsidedown and test fired with the exhaust end up. Worked like a charm. Transportation from this site to KSC was to be by barge down C-111 to Card Sound. And then up the coast of Florida to KSC. At KSC they were to be unloaded and transported to the VAB where they would have been uprighted and bolted on. After the flight they would have followed a reverse path back to the plant for inspection and reuse. Company's name, Aerojet-General. http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=14&Z=1 7&X=170&Y=875&W=1&qs=%7Chomestead%7Cfl%7C Manufacturing was the cluster of buildings on the north end of the photo.

And it was politics that got MT the contract, not a better design. Some of the current rockets are assembled laying down and then stood up at CCAFS right next door to KSC.

It's not just Oslo. Google has low resolution images for much of the United States as well. For example, I went clicking around for some well-known race tracks (and my local track, not so well-known). Here's what I came up with:

• Pacific Raceways. Very good data, nice resolution, can easily make out the track. Scroll the map right to see the rest of the track (turns 7, 8, and 9).
• Portland International Raceway. Also very good detail. You can easily make out the optional Festival Curves (the lighter-colored kink on the front straight, the southwestern portion of the track).
• Mazda Laguna Seca. Horrible resolution. Close the little pin bubble if it's open when you click the link, and then look at the white and blue blob near the top of the window. That's Laguna Seca. Horrible.
• Road America. No better than Laguna Seca. Possibly worse, since you can't easily make out where the track is. If you look at the map, there's a highway (67) to the right of the two lakes. It heads south-southeast, makes a sharp kink to south-east, and has a smooth curve to south. If you look closely under the kink, that's Road America.

• Mazda Laguna Seca. You can easily make out all of the track features, including the infamous corkscrew.
• Road America. Zoom out to get a better idea of where it's at in relation to Highway 67 if you want to try to locate it on the Google map.

It's not just Oslo. Google has low resolution images for much of the United States as well. For example, I went clicking around for some well-known race tracks (and my local track, not so well-known). Here's what I came up with:

• Pacific Raceways. Very good data, nice resolution, can easily make out the track. Scroll the map right to see the rest of the track (turns 7, 8, and 9).
• Portland International Raceway. Also very good detail. You can easily make out the optional Festival Curves (the lighter-colored kink on the front straight, the southwestern portion of the track).
• Mazda Laguna Seca. Horrible resolution. Close the little pin bubble if it's open when you click the link, and then look at the white and blue blob near the top of the window. That's Laguna Seca. Horrible.
• Road America. No better than Laguna Seca. Possibly worse, since you can't easily make out where the track is. If you look at the map, there's a highway (67) to the right of the two lakes. It heads south-southeast, makes a sharp kink to south-east, and has a smooth curve to south. If you look closely under the kink, that's Road America.

• Mazda Laguna Seca. You can easily make out all of the track features, including the infamous corkscrew.
• Road America. Zoom out to get a better idea of where it's at in relation to Highway 67 if you want to try to locate it on the Google map.

It's not just Oslo. Google has low resolution images for much of the United States as well. For example, I went clicking around for some well-known race tracks (and my local track, not so well-known). Here's what I came up with:

• Pacific Raceways. Very good data, nice resolution, can easily make out the track. Scroll the map right to see the rest of the track (turns 7, 8, and 9).
• Portland International Raceway. Also very good detail. You can easily make out the optional Festival Curves (the lighter-colored kink on the front straight, the southwestern portion of the track).
• Mazda Laguna Seca. Horrible resolution. Close the little pin bubble if it's open when you click the link, and then look at the white and blue blob near the top of the window. That's Laguna Seca. Horrible.
• Road America. No better than Laguna Seca. Possibly worse, since you can't easily make out where the track is. If you look at the map, there's a highway (67) to the right of the two lakes. It heads south-southeast, makes a sharp kink to south-east, and has a smooth curve to south. If you look closely under the kink, that's Road America.

• Mazda Laguna Seca. You can easily make out all of the track features, including the infamous corkscrew.
• Road America. Zoom out to get a better idea of where it's at in relation to Highway 67 if you want to try to locate it on the Google map.

Dear lord!!!! I'm not in love with MS, but this topic is just TOOO much!

MS and the USGS completely pioneered this technology. MS has had live versions of this basic tech up and running for 10 years (TerraServer)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got nothing against bashing MS, but for christs sake people in this case its Google which copied MS and just put a nicer implementation out there (plus the Google media buzz made everyone aware of it).

Here ya go.

The above is a link to TerraServer's web-service interface. Its only been available for about 10 years so I forgive you for missing it.

This seems to be true in how they are currently offering this, however MS has been working on this and had live versions available of this basic technology for about 10 years (TerraServer)

Now maybe MS didn't know how to bring this to market in a form people would want to use, but I really wouldn't call this case "following" too much. Yes, they may be following the implementation (pretty simple stuff), but they basically pioneered the technology along with the USGS.

Google's version may look nicer and be better, but I certainly wouldn't acuse MS of really following (at least the technology) in this case. And besides the technology, its just a matter of a simple GUI really so I'm not going to beat up on MS for this one.

I've been poking around google maps for a week, thrilled to see the detail in places, but I havent' found an "easter egg" yet!

Not on Google Maps, and not much of an easter egg, but while looking at my place of work on TerraServer, I could clearly make out my own car parked outside of the building. Pretty neat, but not cool on the scale of a firefight captured on satellite.

Some of the Google photos are the Urban Area photos, at least in the Denver area. Compare the shadows and vehicle locations on Google and Terraserver for the Colorado state capitol building.

Google just doesn't let you zoom in as close.

Sure, Google Maps is great if you want your route overlayed on the images, but for finding easter eggs it's nothing special.

Although Google doesn't provide metadata for its photographs, compare this USGS aerial on terraserver
with this "satellite" photo on google, paying particular attention to the location of vehicles and shadows.

Looks the same to me.

This is way cool. You can get better (higher resolution) maps of some regions with TerraServer (http://terraserver-usa.com) but the navigation is nowhere near as much fun as with Google maps.

consider that most of the california electricity is generated by burning natural gas

Not quite true. Intermountain Power Agency (picture)is one of three 1600MW coal generators for California that is out of state. This one is in central Utah, the other two are in Laughlin, Nevada (Mohave Generation Station) and someplace in Arizona. (I've heard SoCal Edison sold its interest in the NV and AZ ones though, haven't confirmed yet.) Unfortunately IPA power plant is close enough to Arches, Bryce and Zion's national park to be causing significant pollution. After growing up in Los Angeles and now living in Salt Lake I've begun to realize how much LA residents take for granted. It's not in their backyard anymore so it's no big deal.

The simple solution is to build a large solar setup (not photovolatics, solar concentrators like the Power Tower near Barstow, CA) out past Palmdale. Given the desert conditions, the proximity to the energy destination (SoCal) and the promimenty to Lockheed and Boeing Skunk and Phantom -works (who would be constructing many of the pieces) how does anyone lose?

As far as the car fuel issue goes, I recomend hydrogen. Initially, it sounded like a bad idea to me but I've looked more into it and specifically how it's created. Stan Ovshinsky (inventor of the NiMH battery) has been continuing his work on storing hydrogen in solid metals (no compressed gas tanks) as well as developing good solar cells. Cells that are as flexible as a vinyl mat and very durable. He's demoed using a mat of this stuff with 12 holes punched in it powering a radio. The cells were actually pretty damaged and worked great. They're looking in to making roof shingles out of it. This would be good as the mat already looked pretty much like roof shingles. You could use the sunlight on your roof to create hydrogen from water (at home) and fill up your car.

It would take a lot to switch over but it took a lot to get the gas station / oil distribution system we have now. Much of the so called "hyrdogen economy" could reuse the existing system. There is no techincal reason why a gas station couldn't create hyrdogen on location rather then having it driven in daily.

Terraserver says yes.

Aha, even better -- an aerial photo! [MSFT Terraserver]

Out of curiousity I also decided to check out MSN's Sandbox. This is pretty much their upcoming software and features. I was surprised to find pretty much everything they are listing has already been inplemented by Google. Time to play catch up!

NewsBot = news.google.com
MSN Toolbar = Google Toolbar
3 = I'm thinking this is just like Orkut, 3 is software that connects a small group of family and close friends, people who know and trust one another, so they can do fun things together in a whole new way. 3 is a beta test of an innovative application that lets users connect online, extending real-world social interactions.
NetScan = This is Google Groups.. searches USENET newsgroups

The only "original" item on there was TerraServer and that has been up and running for some time now.

I would be interested to see if MS decides to add much of the same features that Google has. Such as phone number searches, unit conversions, etc...Some things that make Google really unique. Perhaps MS could tie the search term, such as an address, to TerraServer will allow a person to get a direct overhead view of that place. However... They need to get some more updated maps to make this useful.

It's just a little something I've been playing around with in my spare time.

It does use cookies to store the current settings, so when you go back to the page, it should be the same as when you left it.

The tiles for the photo and topo views are USGS images, sourced from Microsoft's terraserver-usa site. For the blended mode, they are generated as needed from the map and the photo, then cached locally on the server.

The address lookup is based on geo-locator using a database based on Tiger 2003.

Place lookup (and the landmark overlay) are based on both the USGS GNIS database, as well as the NGS Benchmark database. It has 2,504,693 entries in the database right now.

The Geourl overlay is based on geourl.org's XML feed - it's cached locally, and only polls geourl.org when data expires from the cache.

Dnsloc is based on DNS LOCation records - I ran a crawler a couple of weeks ago on every site listed in DMOZ, and found just over 1,000 sites that listed location info in their DNS records.

There are a few other overlays that are about ready, but I haven't put them on the main page yet - letting users add annotations, readings from weather stations, readings from streamflow stations, etc.

Basically, I want to take every web accessible database I can find containing information that makes sense when displayed geographically, and make it into an overlay.

Richter, Scott
10633 W Ontario Av LITTLETON CO 80127
303) 979-8035
Aerial photo

Based on a phone book search for Scott Richter in the area on Westminster, Colorado (the city listed in OptInRealBig's whois).

My wife and I travelled about 90 minutes to Lancaster, PA. (Specifically, we were here.) We walked in the little park in front of the building, looked up at Jupiter, and suddenly the ISS was about two degrees away from Jupiter and moving fast. Didn't have time to get the binoculars up, but I distinctly saw the two bright dots merge and separate. I think I was definitely in the path of totality, or at most no more than a quarter mile outside of it. ISS was the brightest damn thing in the sky. My binoculars couldn't make any details clear, still looked like a bright dot.

Since my birthday is tomorrow, I feel like the universe just gave me a birthday present.

Maybe they don't think the data is a threat because they've already had their way with it before it's made publicly available. Take this TerraServer shot of of the US Capital using the new .25 meters / pixel USGS natural color data set. The Capital and Senate / Congressional office buildings are mosaic'd out!

Why is this article a News ??
For example, this is what I did:
(1) Find on Google. Look at first phonebook result. Took 30 seconds.
(2) Find address on terraserver Took a minute.
Now before you flame, all this is public information. It takes less than 2 minutes to obtain...so what's the big deal about the magazine's offer other than that they are printing it and mailing to you...

Prior to this, mapquest was providing free aerial views as well...

There are three possible locations:
47d,11m,18s;118d,49m,23s
46d,55m,4s;119d,3m,19s
46d,54m,30s;119d,45m,23s

There are three possible locations:
47d,11m,18s;118d,49m,23s
46d,55m,4s;119d,3m,19s
46d,54m,30s;119d,45m,23s

There are three possible locations:
47d,11m,18s;118d,49m,23s
46d,55m,4s;119d,3m,19s
46d,54m,30s;119d,45m,23s

There are three possible locations:
47d,11m,18s;118d,49m,23s,
46d,55m,4s;119d,3m,19s,
46d,54m,30s;119d,45m,23s

The joys of google, etc.

There are three possible locations:
47d,11m,18s;118d,49m,23s,
46d,55m,4s;119d,3m,19s,
46d,54m,30s;119d,45m,23s

The joys of google, etc.

There are three possible locations:
47d,11m,18s;118d,49m,23s,
46d,55m,4s;119d,3m,19s,
46d,54m,30s;119d,45m,23s

The joys of google, etc.

An aerial photo can be found using that address. It's from 1988, but it could still be the main building in that area.

Been done before.

• Disneyland
• Cape Canaveral and
• even places that don't officially exist

• Disneyland
• Cape Canaveral and
• even places that don't officially exist

• Disneyland
• Cape Canaveral and
• even places that don't officially exist

• Disneyland
• Cape Canaveral and
• even places that don't officially exist

Plugins have made browsers worse, rather than better. Some sites are unusable WITHOUT having Flash.

The browsers have been going downhill since the <img> tag. You might be able to read slashdot from lynx, but just try terraserver or mapquest from a text mode browser!

Don't even get me started on the graphic requirements for registering a user at yahoo or Network Soltions.

Microsoft runs a very impressive database already.

If you don't want to spend all the time, you can download some pretty cool aerial maps from Terra Server USA. The pics are B&W and circa 1994 (at least, in Southern California), which makes them less current, but kinda cool to "look back in history".

Additionally, MapQuest has added aerial maps as an option (enter address, retreive regular map, then click the "Aerial Photo" tab ... these are in color, and might be a year old.

There's a ton of MS source code geocached, you just need to visit the right websites to find it.
Longitude: -122.13099913, Latitude: 47.63839512

Another useful map site is Terraserver.

It has USGS aerial photos as well as topo maps of most of the contiguous United States. There are commercial applications, such as ExpertGPS, that use Terraserver to support some pretty cool features.

Yeah it's "sponsored" by M$, but if you're a map geek like me this site is great.

Umm.. so looking at the photo of her house... Is she affraid someone will count how many chimmneys she has? Really, its a georgous shot, but of all things she should be happy that someone is taking nice pictures of the coast line, its not as if you can make out any real details besides that her pool doesnt looks as clean as the ocean below it? Oy.. maybe she should sue the USGS for taking high resolution satalite photos and Micro$oft for allowing meer mortals to view them.