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Google Earth To Show Ocean Floor
f1vlad writes "Google is expected to announce the addition of ocean floor imagery to its Google Earth project, which will complete digital representation of our planet. 'The existing site, to which an estimated 400 million people have had access, already includes three-dimensional representations of large cities around the world and includes images from street-level and aerial photography covering thousands of miles across Britain and elsewhere. The new additions to the website are expected to include views of the ocean, and portions of the seabed. They will also provide detailed environmental data that will enhance information about the effect of climate change on the world's seas and oceans.'"
Anyone want to buy a slightly used underwater marijuana farm?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Marianas Trench.
Can't wait to see how that looks.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I wonder if a few of my "special jobs" as a concrete mixer will show up on these maps. If so, anyone got a list of countries without an extradition treaty with the U.S.?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Will we all became virtual Jacques-Yves Cousteaus and explore unknown shipwrecks from the comfort of our home ?
Or the level of zoom is not that great ?
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Perhaps now we'll be able to see those massive floating garbage islands in the Pacific Ocean that we're always hearing about.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Does Google have aerial (not satellite) photos like Microsoft? I've never encountered them on Google maps.
And now they'll have to adapt the vans that do the street level photography. Some fish are going to be quite surprised.
Who wouldn't want to spend a month in a van and take several hundred million identical pictures? (Any resemblance with your holidays is pure coincidence).
There are some other sites that not everyone will be pleased will be in the public domain.
How about the locations of sunken nuclear subs like the Thresher and the Russian sub the Glomar Challenger went after? There are some nuclear warheads still down there!
Aren't there also a couple of nukes still "lost at sea" but with the approximate locations known?
Also, how about the plutonium in the Apollo 13 Lunar Module that was impacted in "the deep Pacific"?
My point is with rent-a-submersible services available (I guess from primarily, you guessed it, Russian vendors) it might be possible to pick up some dangerous things. In addition there are a few ecological sites (some "black smokers") that Oceanographers have been trying to keep secret to preserve them. Other than that, it seems like a great idea!
"FTA: Although, so far, there has been only limited data collected about the sea floor, with just 10% of the habitat mapped at any useful scale for science..."
I wonder how is going to work, since I'm guessing they cannot really 'map' the bottom of the ocean in the same way they do surface objects. Satellites with radar, ships with sonar?
Stil, considering how vast the oceans are, even 10% coverage is pretty impressive.
Gee, I thought you could already see the entire friggin' planet, not just one tiny island.
Anyway, I'm hoping for much-improved resolutions throughout the globe. Many places certainly don't reach the 50cm resolution that their own spacecraft gives them...
check out the northwest coast of the US for a good example.
I don't know if this is an example of whats to come or if whats to come is going to be even better but I welcome higher resolution imagery of our planet.
In the land version we can see even people and cars. What we will see there? Submarines? Fishes? Coral formations? Our sunken economy?
Frank mentioned it on 2009-01-17 on Google Earth Blog.
Kurt Vonnegut: "If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind."
Too late
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
The ocean is so large and so vast, that, if Google codes the images honestly, that, people will readily see that for the most part, the bottom of the ocean is generally unexplored, that measurements of deep waters are infrequent and not in very many areas. They will see a few tiny areas where things have been photographed extensively, but, those will be but small points on a very, very large map. All of this unknown will open up ocean climate claims to ridicule, as if, measuring a drop of water in the shallow end of the swimming pool can somehow categorize the whole thing.
This is my sig.
Finally, the russians will be able to find Red October!
already done.... http://www.google.com/mars/
DOH!
ha! the street view car that hit the deer, the accident occurred about 3 miles from my house. In their defense, there are thousands of deer roaming the area, so many that car deer collisions are a daily thing, and it's not at all uncommon to see a carcass on the side of the road.
The undersea stuff is interesting because it might give a top-down view of wrecks if the wreck is in shallow water.
Ah yes, now I can proceed with my plans to build the underwater empire that will span the entire planet which should really be called Ocean!
Now if I could locate where my fleet, er school, of laser equipped sharks and dolfins have gone...
Will Google be compelled to blot out the alien bases like they did for Area 51?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Officially do you count a contraction as one word or two?
The terrestrial maps are outdated, I would love to see updated terrestrial maps instead of gazing at the ocean floor.
Ahh now it will be easy to find the hidden tunnels to the mermaids.
It was on one of the discovery channel series, but I forgot what it's called. Anyone know?
Dirty Jobs ?
Oh no, that was the show where Steve did a British version of Jackass.
Squirrel!
http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2009/01/marijuana_field_found.html
Animoog.org
For oceanic ice caps, do we get to see (a) the ice, (2) the floor, or (iv) either one, selectable as with the satellite imagery on the regular Google Maps?
The inclusion of environmental information forms the latest part of the company's plan to offer the public more data about climate change. In 2007 Google convened a high-level meeting of experts to help it develop sources of submarine information and environmental data.
It seems likely that the company will later unveil partnerships with institutions in Europe and the US as part of the project.
Funny yes, insightful, not sure. What's at stake is bathymetry (well.. that's what the rumors say), the 'topography' of the ocean floors, not satellite imagery of huge areas of surface water.
Can someone tell me why we're discussing this as a state of rumor when a few hours later (after the actual announcement), we would have solid elements to discuss?!
Animoog.org
I hope we still get to see this. If we don't, it makes Google Earth a whole lot less useful.
.... get the car to drive around the ocean floor and not stop running? Did they use night vision? And how many sea creature have file complaints with Google over privacy issues?
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Sorry, it just seemed too easy.
Personnally I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I wish they would cover the entire ocean surface. There is a lot of interesting stuff out there, and last time I checked they only show the coastlines. Would be fun to see tankers in the middle of the ocean, killer waves on the loose, plastic garbage collected in the middle of the south pacific, tiny sailboats in the middle of nowwhere, reefs, whales, giant squid, narwhal - maybe even Cthulhu is out there somewhere.
As seen on Ogle Earth, Google Earth 5 is available for download. Includes the new Ocean layer.
"I believe that the cult of the particular brings only death - for it bases order on likeness." St.-Exupery
I would be more impressed if they updated all of the above water land maps. I live in Belize and our imagery hasn't been updated in about five years. Dave
Ubi est voluntas, ibi est via
You don't test every cow in the us.
Bzzt, wrong. Actually, all USDA graded beef, is in fact, inspected by the USDA. Every carcass gets a stamp, from someone inspecting it. If you buy a piece of USDA anything, that means, someone at least eyeballed the dead cow and put a stamp on it.
The controversy comes from, how much inspection there is. Some would say not enough.
This is my sig.
I think that "cost" is probably a factor as well, and probably a big one at that.
Living in Iowa, I'm still waiting for my house not to look like a white blob. Random jungles and deserts already have better resolution than most of our state, and now it sounds like the sea floor will as well. I know Iowa isn't the biggest state out there, but can't we get a little love?
Ah HAH! I knew the three boobed woman was real!
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
This might be useful and more interesting if it shows the *actual* locations of the submerged fiber optic Internet cables that 'mysteriously' keep getting "anchor dragged" in the middle eastern part of our planet...
Of course, it is just a matter of time before someone puts geographically identified snapshots of a corpses wearing 'concrete shoes' on particular spots the ocean floor...
They are just beta testing, as usual. In a few decades lots and lots of what today is dry land will be underwater. They could wait a bit and claim they are showing underwater imagery but no, it's Google, they need a beta.
^[:wq!
Am i the only one who hates the fact that the water surface goes all opaque when you get close and tilt off vertical?? I want to see the hawaiian islands as mountains on the ocean floor, but the stupid surface of the ocean gets all reflecty and opaque with no way to shut it off! mmmmmmmm
I thought History was the more interesting feature mentioned in the article. You could watch growing suburbs, melting glaciers, grwoing tropical farmlands, etc.
Can't wait to see how that looks.
Me too. Too bad the new GE doesn't actually work. I get this:
Maybe it will run on my Mac.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
For the first time, web surfers can surf amongst some of the estimated 100 million tonnes of plastic and assorted human refuse that has been accumulating in the middle of the North Pacific Gyre since the 1950s - all without getting their hands dirty.
Demonstrating the far superior beauty available from Web 2.0 applications, in comparison to the grubby ocean, the Ocean feature of Google Earth allows users to zoom in and out of specific locations on a tapestry of panoramic images that have been woven together. Beat that, stupid Nature!
John Wanke, head of Google Earth said, "The great thing about this site is that it will be inclusive," the irony that we were all already included and represented by at least one piece of crap in the great pile no doubt lost on him.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
just some Russian subs feeling their way along the bottom (oooh, that sounds rude)
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
no really, what's interesting is they really don't feed them. Some provide salt-licks, most just ignore them.
It's an artifact of loads of food, ample opportunity, almost no hunting in the area and horny deer. Pretty simple math actually.