Google Maps Now Cover Whole World

GregBryant writes "They haven't blogged it yet, but maps.google.com has added some additional scaling-out, and maps of the entire world are available. Only country names so far (except in the US, Canada & UK) but it's still nice to finally click back & forth between the Satellite imagery and some real maps, even if their proportions don't quite match."

Comments

I wish

[interiot]

Japan isn't there yet, apparently... Here's tokyo... zooming in one more level on sattellite-view or two more levels on map-view results in blank data. ("we're sorry, but we don't have imagery at this zoom level for this region"). I think this has always been true of japan on google maps. So... has anything really changed?

weeeelll, not everywhere...

[geeklawyer]

"We could not understand the location amsterdam, netherlands"

For Europe, there is a better map site

[lokedhs]

I find http://www.map24.com/ to be superior to google maps. Even for the areas which google maps do have map data.

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[rduke15]

I don't agree that map24 is good. It's cluttered, complicated, requires Java, and you cannot copy the link in the address bar.

For Switzerland, there is map.search.ch which is great (and with a simplicity which reminds very much of Google). I don't know for other European countries.

Re:Making progress, but it's not Earth yet

[Anonymous Coward]

IT's called Keyhole and it's made by google.

satellite censorship

[sjs132]

Ok, am I the only one that thought to try this?

First, I understand why this would happen, because of terrorists, etc... I would like to state right now, that I am NOT a Terrorist...

But anyways, I was zooming in on cities and thought it was cool, I could pick out what house I wanted based on how it looked from the sky, etc..

So I thought... Hmmm.. Washington DC would be cool to see... White house in reference to SIZE of other buildings ect... so I punch it up... and when I'm in full zoom, it looks as if the White House and the two buildings on either side have been "Censored"... Look at other building tops, they show peaks, vents, etc... all that building roof stuff... On top of the White House and the two other buildings surrounding it... NOTHING...

Well, not NOTHING, but an obvious photoshop type hack to blank out details... interesting...

Thats all... Just interesting... Once again, you can't believe what you see, and all media has some type of controll... Personally, there are very REAL reasons for this, and I don't have a problem with that particular example, but what about other places... You might not even know that what you see is not what is really there...

Blurs on Lincoln Memorial, and other buildings also... this is now a game to me, find the censored images... new fun at google! :)

I bet it isn't 2:45pm at the Washington Monument either...

Just the type of conspiracy that the folks here on /. seem to like. :)

Now... to Find Area 51... Maybe I should post anonymously... Naw... I'm sure they won't fin$%()*#^#(*%#.... {Carrier lost}

Re:Professionally?

[stampystamp]

Well, it's not a web application, but NASA World Wind was out before Google Maps. http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

I don't remember all the features, but when I last looked at it, it had a good zoom, which I like better than Google Maps. It also provides data from LandSat and USGS.

Unfortunately, it's Windows only, and now that I switched to Linux, I have to use Google Maps.

Re:Professionally?

[Derling Whirvish]

Fine. Give me the URL for free USGS data.

http://nmviewogc.cr.usgs.gov/viewer.htm

actually, there were a lot of changes

[adpowers]

If you interested, I've tried to make a full list of changes on my website. That website has side by side picture comparisons of the old and new. Some things they did as well: darkened minor streets, changed the projection, added one-way arrows, added some major building landmarks, and changed the size of the images being sent.

Re:Professionally?

[trixillion]

You are egregiously wrong and should be modded down accordingly.

Here is free USGS topographic data from the USGS:
http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/gtopo30/gtopo30.asp

That's the raw data files, buddy. Can't really ask for much more than that can ya. BTW, if you check out the NASA worldwind project you will find that there is an incredible amount of freely availble GIS data being served up on wms servers all over the world.

RE: No, that's what Israel lobbied for

[Gordo_1]

That's not what your link says... "Congress in 1996 passed an amendment which prohibited the sale by U.S. firms of images of Israeli territory with less than a two-meter resolution. This followed an effort by Saudi Arabia to buy a U.S.-made satellite for imaging the Middle East."

The US government has access to what they want of Israel satellite photos, but the *sale* of high resolution images is restricted so Israel's enemies will find it harder to spy on them.

oooooh, a government acting in the interests of its citizens... scandalous!

Re:Nice going, jerkwad

[Animats]

For an overview of the lobbying effort, see "MILITARY IMPLICATIONS OF COMMERCIAL HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGING SATELLITES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE", by Lt. Col. Peter L. Hays, USAF. He writes "Then, in June 1996 the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel was lobbying the White House to restrict all U.S. commercial remote sensing of their territory to resolutions of no better than three meters." The cite is "Israel Asks White House to Place Curbs on 3 U.S. Satellite-Surveillance Firms," Wall Street Journal, 17 Jun 1996.

This is a well-known issue in the imaging world.