Google Earth To Include Google Deep Sea

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Google Earth To Include Google Deep Sea

Posted by Roblimo on Saturday April 9, 2011 @04:10AM from the voyage-to-see-what's-on-the-bottom dept.

mikejuk writes "You may have heard about the swashbuckling adventures to be undertaken by Virgin Oceanic -- visits to the bottom of the deepest parts of the oceans of the world. As Sir Richard Branson said at the launch of Virgin Oceanic, more men have been to the moon than have ventured further down than 20,000 feet. As long as everything goes according to plan, everyone should be able to experience a virtual trip to the bottom of the ocean, courtesy of Google Earth."

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Great Stuff by Grindalf · 2011-04-09 04:12 · Score: 0

This should really get the fish laptop market moving again!

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1. Re:Great Stuff by jgagnon · 2011-04-11 03:55 · Score: 1
  
  Equipped with the FIN processor, amirite???
  
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Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtag by cstacy · 2011-04-09 04:14 · Score: 2

I've had 47 deg 9'S 126 deg 43'W bookmarked in Google Earth for years; can't wait for the deep sea view to be available!
Google Trenchview by dimethylxanthine · 2011-04-09 04:18 · Score: 0

So basically, what they're saying is that they contracted Branson & Co. to do the Mariana version of Street View...
' Well, Google would certainly have the budget for that...

Now prepare for "invasion of privacy" lawsuits from the Mariana Tretch benthos residents...
The Bloop by Jugalator · 2011-04-09 04:20 · Score: 2

Let's hope we can finally find out what The Bloop really was then.

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Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
1. Re:The Bloop by taiwanjohn · 2011-04-09 04:31 · Score: 2
  
  Cool. Hadn't heard of that before, thanks.
  Given how little we still know about the deep ocean, I wouldn't be surprised if Branson's efforts uncover more new questions than they answer. But it's nice to see techno-rich folks (such as Branson, Musk, etc) doing something useful with their megabucks.
  
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2. Re:The Bloop by laejoh · 2011-04-09 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  And while we're at it, let's check this one as well :)
That's nothing by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-09 04:31 · Score: 0

Tell me when they do Google Center of the Earth.
1. Re:That's nothing by Beelzebud · 2011-04-09 04:54 · Score: 1
  
  I'm still waiting for Google Hollow Earth!
2. Re:That's nothing by Coren22 · 2011-04-11 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  You would...but wouldn't it annoy you to have people visiting your home to map it?
  
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  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
In 2..1..0 by contrapunctux · 2011-04-09 04:32 · Score: 0

Fish will sue Google for invasion of their privacy and demand pictures to be taken down
Spongebob. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-09 04:36 · Score: 1

A wonderful tool. Now we can locate places like Atlantis, Bermuda Triangle, and Davy Jones locker.
1. Re:Spongebob. by Coren22 · 2011-04-11 07:30 · Score: 1
  
  As well as Bikini Bottom.
  
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  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Re:Will that include the alliens? by taiwanjohn · 2011-04-09 04:46 · Score: 1

Obligatory: "I for one welcome our new deep-sea overlords."

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XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Re:Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fht by emurphy42 · 2011-04-09 04:50 · Score: 1

This turns out to be about 200 miles west of Seattle. Hmm...
Re:Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fht by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-09 04:54 · Score: 0

> Hmm... [imdb.com]
Much better: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478988/
Black Box by asvravi · 2011-04-09 04:54 · Score: 1

So atlast we can find the Air France black box!
How large is the viewing port? by wisebabo · 2011-04-09 05:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

The computer renderings I've seen show a large dome over the cockpit (please hold the bloody seamen jokes).
Considering that the other submersibles have (relatively) tiny portholes that are 6"(?) thick, how is this large dome possible? Is it made out of a different material (I think I heard somewhere it was quartz) whereas the other submersibles were plexiglass? Has there been some major advance in creating large convex transparent structures that allow the pressure to be optiminally distributed? Or are the computer renderings just pretty pictures and the real vehicle will have much smaller ports to look out of? :(
By the way this reminds me of the underwater transport in one of the first Star Wars that Ben Kenobi uses to visit Jar Jar Bink's undersea city. They appear to travel to great depths in their small craft but when they surface, the "dome" turns out to be a forcefield that can be turned off with a switch! Some forcefield; if that kind of technology was readily available for other uses (personal armor, shields) it would seem that it should play a much bigger role in the series. But I digress, who ever expects commercial science fiction to be logically consistent?
1. Re:How large is the viewing port? by DNS-and-BIND · 2011-04-09 06:46 · Score: 1
  
  Science fiction!?! Star Wars isn't any sort of science fiction. It's a drama set in space. "It has lasers" doesn't mean it's science fiction.
  
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2. Re:How large is the viewing port? by LongearedBat · 2011-04-09 16:22 · Score: 1
  
  The computer renderings I've seen show a large dome over the cockpit (please hold the bloody seamen jokes).
  My semen's not rendered bloody... unless she's at that time of the month. Sorry, I just couldn't hold it. ;)
  Sorry, I just can't help it, but you've gotta admit you asked for that one. xD
3. Re:How large is the viewing port? by LongearedBat · 2011-04-09 16:38 · Score: 1
  
  Jokes aside. I was wondering the same thing. As an object that's built to exclude water, I would've thought that flat surfaces would also be a weakness without some really strong supports inside. (If you allow the water in, with its pressure, you won't need to keep the pressure out, which is how deep sea life copes with the pressure.)
  If it's composed of thick rounded pieces, then I think the pressure could be used to hold the thing together, but that would look totally different from the artists impression.
  As for energy shields in Star Wars, I seem to remember from one Star Wars book there being a character who had designed storm trooper armour. The chanracter mentions that advanced storm trooper armour did have shielding, but that heat dissipation was a problem, especially when hit with blaster fire, so the shielding was quite weak, but better than nothing.
4. Re:How large is the viewing port? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-10 02:30 · Score: 0
  
  There are actually two viewing domes -- an inner hemispherical pressure dome composed of glass around 6 inches thick, and an outer acrylic canopy purely for streamlining. (I'm a 3D computer graphics artist who's worked with Graham Hawkes for 15 years.)
5. Re:How large is the viewing port? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-10 02:42 · Score: 0
  
  There are actually two viewing domes -- an inner hemispherical pressure dome composed of glass around 6 inches thick, and an outer acrylic canopy purely for streamlining. (I'm a 3D computer graphics artist who's worked with Graham Hawkes for 15 years.)
  Oops, one more thing: the space between the inner dome and outer canopy is free-flooding (that space fills with water), to eliminate additional pressure issues and excessive refraction.
Re:Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fht by Warbane · 2011-04-09 05:13 · Score: 1

I've had 47 deg 9'S 126 deg 43'W bookmarked in Google Earth for years; can't wait for the deep sea view to be available!
The Great One beckons. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/hummingearth/
Re:Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fht by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-09 05:14 · Score: 0

Shame you can't get google-earth to run on fedora 14 x86_64 without a seg fault.
Re:Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fht by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-09 06:04 · Score: 1, Informative

47 degrees South. Not North.
Link is goatse! by WrongSizeGlass · 2011-04-09 06:04 · Score: 1

Link is goatse!
Re:Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fht by wooferhound · 2011-04-09 06:25 · Score: 1

I hope they include "Street View" . . .

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Re:Will that include the alliens? by quickgold192 · 2011-04-09 06:56 · Score: 1

I think that would make them underlords.
Google Planet by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-09 06:58 · Score: 0

Google Everything is starting to concern me. I saw something today that I had never seen before: I brought up www.google.com in my Firefox browser, entered "whois lookup" in the search field, and got a page telling me that I had violated the Google terms of service and that I was locked out of using google for awhile. I then tried searching for "eggplant" and got the same message. Apparently, Google decided it didn't like something about my browser or my firewall (I run AtGuard to block cookies and refer fields) and decided to retaliate by completely locking me out of its web site. If this is a taste of things to come from Google, I recommend people think long and hard about how dependent on Google they let themselves become.
1. Re:Google Planet by damnfuct · 2011-04-09 12:17 · Score: 1
  
  Google put you on its watchlist after you googled "Google." Serves you right.
Re:Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fht by RDW · 2011-04-09 07:27 · Score: 1

Apparently they're having some technical difficulties with that location. Three Summer of Code interns have already been driven hopelessly insane by attempting to map the 3D Buildings layer to abnormal, non-Euclidean geometries loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours.
Re:Will that include the alliens? by damnfuct · 2011-04-09 12:16 · Score: 1

or the Deep Ones
First dive will be to the deepest place by janwedekind · 2011-04-10 00:35 · Score: 1

That doesn't sound wise to me. I would recommend to leave the ambitious trips for later. Use a series of incrementally more challenging trips to test the design and gain experience with the controls of the vehicle. Chances are there is software involved and I don't want to see more bad news on Slashdot.
nike air jordan by Anonymous Coward · 2011-04-10 02:58 · Score: 0

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1. Re:nike air jordan by eedwardsjr · 2011-04-11 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  I can think of one thing I'd love to view at the bottom of the ocean.