New satellite to sharpen Google Earth

[edesignuk]

Together with the company's existing Quickbird satellite, it will offer half-meter resolution and will be able to collect over 600,000 square kilometers of imagery each day, up from the current collection of that amount each week, Chief Executive Jill Smith told Reuters in a telephone interview.
...
Once its third satellite is launched, DigitalGlobe said it will be collecting more than 1 million square kilometers per day of high-resolution imagery.Reuters (http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2007-09-14T185832Z_01_N14459336_RTRUKOC_0_US-DIGITALGLOBE-SATELLITE.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2).

[brad.c]

Just imagine the fun when they post the fly-over schedule. I'll mow the lawn, tidy up the yard, get out the baby powder, polish the cheeks, and let the full moon rise.

Who's with me?

[Don't panic]

i am surprised this 'avenue' hasn't been exploited yet for commercial or political purposes, or just for fun.

you could spell something really large on a big city roofs (one letter per roof), and it would only become visible from above.

[dmw007]

Yay, a welcomed improvement for Google Earth! :)

[Steve1496]

Sounds good. Live Local (http://local.live.com) has better "birds eye" pictures. Check them out if you haven't yet--but they're not available in all too many places. If Google can over pictures like these I'll be more than happy to use them over Microsoft's.

Steve

[iQuit]

What a great way to make the images on the iPhone load EVEN slower. :p

[dobbin]

i am surprised this 'avenue' hasn't been exploited yet for commercial or political purposes, or just for fun.



It has :D (http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006570530,00.html)

[lamadude]

Sounds good. Live Local (http://local.live.com) has better "birds eye" pictures. Check them out if you haven't yet--but they're not available in all too many places. If Google can over pictures like these I'll be more than happy to use them over Microsoft's.

Steve

Yup I agree, on google earth my house is just a red dot, on live I can make my house take up almost the whole screen and it STILL looks sharp. But maybe this is an atypical case...

[Abstract]

My house looks better on Google Earth. ;)

[Henri Gaudier]

will they really post the schedule of when they'll be over your house? If so does anyone know where to look for times? When I read it I thought "It's a pity that you don't know when it will come over or you could write something on the lawn or some such jape" What would people here write? My first thought was "Fu*k The CIA!" Whenever it is it will be too early for me. I'm hoping to buy a neighbouring field to plant trees in and when it occured to me do it I thought I could plant trees to spell something out but I think it'll take 20/30 year to become legible.

[psychofreak]

Google Earth is already awesome, but two things they asap are better images in lesser known places of the world, and a more Mac-like interface...

[mfacey]

Since when are Google Earth's pictures taken by satellites? Aren't they just aerial pictures?:confused:

[Dagless]

Maybe the new satellite is to replace the aerial shots?
I hope so. It's so out of date here, we've still got the caravan, I'm riding a bike onto the driveway and the gardens missing more than a few trees. Circa 2002/3 I reckon!

[David G.]

You can't event tell my house is there now, so this is a welcome improvement. If you want to see how bad it is look up Wasilla, Alaska and that gives you an idea of just how bad it can get.

[Abstract]

(I know I'm setting myself up here, but.....)
From now on, I'm going to walk around the front lawn with my pants down. Lets see whether the resolving power of the new Google Earth is really that good.

[eRondeau]

You can't event tell my house is there now, so this is a welcome improvement. If you want to see how bad it is look up Wasilla, Alaska and that gives you an idea of just how bad it can get.

And most of Canada too, even the densely-populated Southwestern Ontario. You can barely make out whole cities. My city has exceptional hi-res aerial imagery on its own website, updated regularly -- it's a real shame they can't share it with Google Earth.

[yg17]

Just imagine the fun when they post the fly-over schedule. I'll mow the lawn, tidy up the yard, get out the baby powder, polish the cheeks, and let the full moon rise.

Who's with me?

Don't go around tonight,
Well, its bound to take your life,
Theres a bad moon on the rise.

:D

[EricNau]

(I know I'm setting myself up here, but.....)
From now on, I'm going to walk around the front lawn with my pants down. Lets see whether the resolving power of the new Google Earth is really that good.
You bet...
I don't even think my binoculars have good enough resolving power to see that. ;)


Back on topic... I just checked and the photos of my house have been updated very recently. Until now, they were about 5 years old.

[jbernie]

i am surprised this 'avenue' hasn't been exploited yet for commercial or political purposes, or just for fun.

you could spell something really large on a big city roofs (one letter per roof), and it would only become visible from above.
Google & MSN announced plans to do fly overs of Sydney on New Years Day or Australia Day this year, there were no fly zones in place so the schedule was off by hours and as a result most people had gone home by the time the fly overs occured.

The best made plans....

[MacNut]

I would like to see nighttime images as well. It is cool to see populated areas lit up.

[ChrisA]

Since when are Google Earth's pictures taken by satellites? Aren't they just aerial pictures?:confused:

aerial pictures of the entire Earth? I think not. Some areas yes.
No one not even Google could affod to photograph the entire air from the air so they backfill with shots from space.