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::: via ::: One of the things I look forward to every summer is the Tour de France. I'm always fascinated when I hear about the hairpin turns and steep climbs. To bring the Tour de France to life and help you experience it stage by stage, we're very excited to provide Street View for the 2008 Tour de France route. With this launch, you can now follow the race through each of the 21 stages with just a click of a mouse and enjoy a perspective similar to what your favorite cyclists see as they wind through France's majestic mountains, vivacious cities, and tranquil countryside. To jump right in and see panoramic imagery at street level for the Tour de France, navigate over to google.com/tourdefrance2008. Or keep reading and I'll take you on a little tour of the Tour route! The Tour de France route marks our first launch of Street View imagery in Europe, and we're bringing with us some of our newly released features such as ground-filling and face blurring, but we're also introducing some more new features. First off, we're now featuring even higher quality imagery -- take a look for yourself: We've also been keeping busy since first announcing our the state-of-the-art face detection technology -- you'll see our new license plate blurring technology as you travel through the Tour de France route.

::: via ::: The Commission for Environmental Cooperation has developed a nice set of KML files which illustrate the range for a variety of both land and marine animals who are of "conservation concern". Check out the file in GE here . I really like the way they have used the folders in the KML file to select different species and the colored polygons to represent the ranges of each species. And, the same file is also available in Spanish and French. Here's a brief description from their file:

The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) developed this map layer to provide range maps and basic information about the North American Species of Common Conservation Concern. These terrestrial and marine species depend on regional action in Canada, Mexico, and the United States for their continued survival and success. Maps for terrestrial species are based on range maps compiled by NatureServe. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) is an international organization created by Canada, Mexico and the United States under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation to address regional environmental concerns, help prevent potential trade and environmental conflicts, and to promote the effective enforcement of environmental law. The Agreement complements the environmental provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Thanks to a tip from GEB reader Tommy.

::: via ::: If you’ve been wondering why half of the Internet had gone quiet, then (like us) you might not have realised that today is the 4th of July, and that mean’s it’s America’s Independence Day. The holiday marks the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 - which is today held at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.. Buy what does the National archive store in those white boxes on the roof? All over America people are celebrating Independence Day with fireworks, parades, barbecues and public displays of patriotism: such as this guy dressed like Uncle Sam in Austin, Texas. Not wanting to be left out of the party, the Street View Icon Guy has dressed up for the occasion too! Read the full history of the holiday on Wikipedia. Locations: District of Columbia, Texas / Categories: Buildings, Street Views View in Google Earth

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You're reading an entry from Google Sightseeing, which is copyright © 2008 Alex Turnbull & James Turnbull and must not be reproduced without permission.

::: via ::: The BBC have a good article online looking at opposition to introducing Street View to Google Maps in the UK. Apparently Google started capturing London this week. The main issue is with the UK's privacy laws where people cannot be photographed without consent if the output is to be used for commercial gain - as is the case with Google Maps. There is also the issue of privacy in terms of houses

::: via ::: Google Maps Street View in France (and a tiny bit of Italy) has certainly brightened up my week. However the rest of Europe may have to wait some time for Street View to appear. Well they will if all the Street View car drivers are as keen to win a Darwin Award as the driver who took this image: Now what possible reason could anyone have to close a mountain road at 2000 metres? I know - let's drive on and see: Ah avalanches! That looks fun let's drive on. What happened to the road? _____________

::: via ::: Twitter Weather Map Everyone loves twittering on about the weather. Wouldn't it be great to have a map of all those conversations? It may be small talk but this is one big idea from Walter Rafelsberger. Walter's map fetches messages from Twitter which contain words about the weather. A KML file is then rendered and displayed on a Google Map. The map is then updated every hour with the latest weather discussions on Twitter. Currently Austria, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States each get their own dedicated weather map. You can even add the map to iGoogle or Netvibes. Walter says this is "just a simple example to illustrate the hidden power and possible emergence that lies within social media, presence services and live streams." He even says he produced the map in just three hours. Simply genius. _____________

::: via ::: We're pretty excited about all of these birthdays that have been happening lately. The Google Outreach program just celebrated its first birthday, and Google Maps Street View is happy to also be going one year strong. We're also pleased as punch to wish our pride and joy for geoweb developers everywhere, the Google Maps API, a happy third birthday. It was June 29th, 2005, but it seems like only yesterday that we were marvelling at what context the Gmaps Pedometer was giving us for our running routes or walk to work. Who can forget how many great real estate auctions we were finding with 2RealEstateAuctions? Since then the API has been helping businesses like Ace Hardware map its store locations, and Trulia plot houses for sale. Thanks, Google Maps API, for making all of these great mashups and tools possible!

::: via ::: This is an Oil Well on fire in Algeria. Quite visible fire ball and smoke plume trailing off to the west.

::: via ::: This .kmz file contains placemarks for every Scottish Munro, Munro Top, Corbett, Corbett Top, Graham and Donald. This means that every summit above 2000 feet and every top above 2500 feet is included, categorised by area and colour coded.

::: via ::: Have a look at all cities and towns in the Netherlands that started as fortifications. Now, as they grew, you can still see the fortifications!

::: via ::: This file contains all hospitals in the Netherlands and their names.

::: via ::: An overview of all the airports found in the Netherlands

::: via ::: The locations of all amusement parts found in the Netherlands

::: via ::: I hope it never rains on these houses...