geo2web.com

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This brief mail came to me this AM from Vincent Tao who leads many of Microsoft’s mapping and GIS initiatives in China -

CCTV (China Central Television) is the largest Chinese Broadcasting Company who owns the exclusive Olympics broadcasting rights for China. We just released the first version of VE integrated with CCTV Olympics site for ‘Euro Soccer Game 2008’. For the next phase, VE will be integrated with CCTV for the Olympics events.

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Henrik Stewenius, Software Engineer, Google Zurich

Have you ever looked at a photo and wondered what was beyond its edges - just what was left of that castle or what the facade of Notre Dame looks like from close up? We certainly have, which is why I’m happy to tell you about a new feature we’ve just introduced for Panoramio, Google’s site for sharing geo-tagged photos.

Panoramio enables photographers to geo-locate, store and organize their photographs and to view those images in their geographic context. You may already have seen photos from the Panoramio layer while zooming around in Google Earth or Google Maps (just click the “more” button), but have you visited the Panoramio website? Now, when browsing photos on the site you can explore multiple images of a particular location in a more seamless way.

For select photos on www.panoramio.com, you’ll find a new link below the photo:

When you click it, a pop-up will appear that looks like this:

When you mouse over an image, you’ll see polygonal frames appear. Each of these frames represents a photo of the same location taken from a different angle or perspective. Just click on the frame to view that photo, and continue exploring. You can also click the thumbnails on the right-hand panel.

Follow the “Look around” link from this photo of Notre Dame in Paris or St Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow to see them from all different angles. Take a look at these beautiful photos of the Astrological Clock in Prague.

We’re experimenting with this new feature, so you won’t find the “look around” link for all of the over 5 million photos shared in Panoramio. For now you’ll find it primarily on photos of popular tourist attractions, but, as with our other tools and services, we plan to keep tinkering with it, so keep an eye out for new developments.

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For a recent project I was working on, I needed to overlay lines of latitude and longitude on the map. I had a hard time finding some so I created 10 degree and 30 degree grids. Below you can view each of them as a Collection which you can export to KML, GeoRSS or GPX and you can also grab the exported KML for each. I figured someone else must have use for this as well. If you grab the KML files you can easily edit the styles (1 for latitude, 1 for longitude) or make whatever tweaks you need.

10 Degree Lines: Collection or KML

30 Degree Lines: Collection or KML

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Google has launched a Geo Education site for educators who are hoping to include Google Earth, Maps, Sky or SketchUp as part of lesson plans. There are some great classroom ideas on how to use these products to help your students understand geography, geology, history and more.

If you are new to these products, check out the getting started guides. You can also connect with other educators in the Google for Educators discussion group.

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