The Most Luxurious Car Ever

If you were always looking for the most luxurious car ever, this could just fit your bill. The Maybach 62S Landaulet is a terribly luxurious car that features rollback canvas roof and awesome consumption. It is available on eBay for $2.2 Million. The car comes with twin turbo V12 and all options you can ever imagine in your little head. The colour schemes include Baltic Black and Aspen White.

The car does not exactly look that luxurious but definitely is a great to car to buy if you have that kind of money. I wonder what other luxuries are on the ‘list’; and it is not explicitly mentioned and hence we would all be curious. One just has to make sure that auto-theft alarms are in place for everyone would want to walk away with a car like that.

If you have the money to by this car, you would definitely get yourself a chauffer too, for nothing is impossible when one has the money. Meanwhile, i shall gloss over the beautiful car that is almost choking with all the luxuries one can imagine. If you are ready, just go to eBay and make the order.

New Google Earth Imagery

New Google Earth Imagery

We've just verified that there is new imagery in various places around the world. You can check out the Google LatLong Blog for hints on where some of the new imagery is located.

New and updated imagery (UPDATED 25-SEP 0615 ET)

• Antarctica - Dry Valleys (thanks 'Tom')


• Argentina - Cordoba and Mendoza


• Austria - Strip of new winter imagery near Tirol (thanks 'Jonas')


• Brazil - Florianopolis (thanks 'Tiago')


• Canada - Diavik Diamond Mine


• China - Lhasa (thanks 'jk')


• Finland - Various area (thanks 'cristi')


• Iceland - Some stripes of imagery


• Italy - Strip of winter imagery east of Rome


• Maldive Islands - Male' (thanks 'Alsay')


• Mozambique - Maputo (thanks 'Antonio')


• New Zealand - Te Anau (thanks 'dapascha'), and Central parts of the country, including places like Canterbury and Darfield


• Nigeria - Lagos (thanks 'Snakeye')


• Pakistan - Karachi (thanks 'Adil')


• Portugal - Madeira (thanks 'Samuel')


• Russia - Norilsk (thanks 'cristi')


• Saudi Arabia - Color corrections


• South Korea - Ulsan (thanks 'Munden')


• Ukraine - Sevastopol


• United States
  
  
  • California - Mission Viejo and Ventura
  
  
  • Connecticut - Central part of the state
  
  
  • Delaware - Most (or all) of the State
  
  
  • Florida - Large parts of the state, including: Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Marion County, Miami and part of Taylor County
  
  
  • Maryland - Most of the state
  
  
  • Massachusetts - Eastern 1/3 of the state
  
  
  • Michigan - Metro Detroit area
  
  
  • Washington - Various parts of the state


• Also, there appears to be new hi-res bathymetry off the east coast of the US - east of the continental shelf.

As you find others, please leave a comment and let us know. Because this imagery has not yet been added to Google Maps, you can compare any area in Google Earth against the same location in Google Maps to know for sure whether or not it's been updated.

Posted by mickmel

Google Earth Users Talk, Google Listens

Google Earth Users Talk, Google Listens

One of the things I like best about the Google team developing Google Earth and Maps, is that they really listen to their users. Over the past few months, Google has been making many changes to their imagery processing for Google Earth. The goals seem to be to make imagery more consistent in appearance, improve coloration so the view of the globe looks less "mottled" (with strips of different photos), and to improve the interface between the 3D ocean bathymetry and the coastlines. According to GEB readers, and yours truly, some of the changes haven't been for the best.

For example, when GE 5 first came out, the interface between the coastlines and the new bathymetry actually covered over data for some islands and parts of coastlines. Google recognized the problems, but it took quite some before the changes were fixed. Several months. Then in June, Google introduced new coloration for the US. GEB was pretty vocal about complaining on this one - and a month later Google fixed it for some areas (but, not all). Unfortunately, they also added a new "coastline cutting" algorithm to cut the shape of the aerial imagery to the shape of the coastline. Many GE users complained about this one. Although it does look "cleaner" when viewing from higher altitudes, the change resulted in a loss of valuable data of offshore imagery (showing ships at sea, air traffic, anchorages, and more). Some of us told Google they should at a minimum not introduce the coastline cutting to the "Historical Imagery" archives. Again, Google has been listening: the recent imagery update removed the coastline cutting from most of the historical imagery!

The processes Google uses for making changes to the imagery, processing them for the servers, verifying the quality, and then delivering them to their live servers has taken at least 60 days normally. However, there are signs Google is improving the update speed.

Last week, an imagery update was pushed out (and found by GEB readers). Several places were found to have sub-standard imagery - clouds in the satellite photos, and dark and poor contrasted images. Now, only a few days later, several people have reported some of those images have been fixed. That's a much faster turn around!

On behalf of GEB readers, and other GE users, I would like to thank Google for listening. And, hopefully with their improved processes, we won't have to wait so long for future changes to materialize.

Posted by FrankTaylor

Google Buys CAPTCHA Technology

by Chloe Albanesius

Google announced Wednesday that it has acquired reCaptcha for an undisclosed sum – an endeavor, it said, that will help it improve the quality of its book-scanning project.

CAPTCHA tests are the squiggly letters that are displayed when Internet users are signing up for a service or buying items online. Computers cannot easily recognize these letters, so if the user gets it right, it's a fair bet that a human is behind the computer screen and not a machine trying to scalp concert tickets or hack into e-mails.

As a result, Google will use the reCaptcha technology to improve fraud and spam protection. But it will also assist with Google's complex and controversial book- and newspaper-scanning efforts.

Many of the words included in Captcha challenges come from scanned archival newspaper and old books. "Computers find it hard to recognize these words because the ink and paper have degraded over time, but by typing them in as a CAPTCHA, crowds teach computers to read the scanned text," Luis von Ahn, co-founder of reCaptcha and Will Cathcart, Google product manager, wrote in a blog post.

Technology from reCaptcha "improves the process that converts scanned images into plain text [and] powers large scale text scanning projects like Google Books and Google News Archive Search," they wrote.

Converting these scanned documents to text is important, Google said, so that it can be searched, displayed on mobile devices, and accessed by the visually impaired.

"So we'll be applying the technology within Google not only to increase fraud and spam protection for Google products but also to improve our books and newspaper scanning process," they wrote.

Google's book-scanning program is currently drawing criticism from copyright holders, libraries, and scrutiny from regulators. Critics like Microsoft and Yahoo argue that a 2008 class-action settlement essential allows Google to scan now and answer copyright questions later. Google argues that its program actually provides a financial incentive for authors to come forward, claim their works, and allow them on Google Books.

Using Google Earth to Review Urban Development Project

Using Google Earth to Review Urban Development Project

Gerardo brought to my attention a post at the GEC about a proposed bridge construction project at the Columbia River in the Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington region. The author, Nick Falbo, has produced some excellent Google Earth visualizations in opposition to the project. The visualizations use the new Tour function of Google Earth 5, and he's created embedded versions of the Tours on his blog. You can watch the three tours here - using the GE plugin in your browser, or visit his blog page to download the GE content directly. The tours include narration, 3D models of proposed bridges, and overlays to illustrate possible effects of the road project.

This is not at all the first time Google Earth has been used to visualize urban projects. Check here for some others:

• New York Buildings project
• Fight against logging plan in Santa Cruz
• Cape Wind Project

Posted by FrankTaylor

Google Product Search: Find Items for Sale

Google Product Search: Find Items for Sale

Google Product Search (formerly called Froogle) is a searchable and browsable shopping index tuned to finding products for sale online. Click on the Shopping link at the top left corner of Google’s window:

or visit www.google.com/products. Search results include price, brand, description, and, if available, a photograph. Note that unlike other online shopping services, Product Search doesn’t actually sell things.

Product Search obtains listings for products from vendors and by scouring the web. When Google finds a page that appears to sell something, it feeds the information it collects to Froogle. Vendors don’t pay to have their products included in Froogle’s search results. However, they can purchase sponsored links, which appear along the right side of the Product Search results pages.

You can browse products by clicking on a category or you can search by entering your query in the Product Search search box. Interested in buying a watch for a child? Look in Product Search for [ watches children ].

The results included several different meanings of the word “watch”, pages selling children’s jewelry and an LP record. Study results to get ideas for more effective search terms. Consider searching for specific brands.

Near the top is a drop-down box that lets you sort the results by relevance, by price, by reputation of seller, and more. You can also click “Show grid view” to see the results in a more compact format:

Search for specific types of watches — for instance, [ watches children timex ].

or [ watches children teacher ]:

Product Search also shows a link with the seller’s name (in the previous example, both watches came from Amazon.com) and, if available, the average seller’s rating that other Google Product Search users gave the seller. Click on the rating to read detailed reviews and ratings of this seller.

Want products with prices in a specified range or more control over your search? Fill in the Advanced Product Search form. Access the form by clicking on its link to the right side of the search box on a Product Search page or visiting www.google.com/advanced_product_search.

For more information on Product Search click the “Help” link near the bottom of Product Search pages or visit www.google.com/products/about.html.

Exercises

These problems give you practice with shopping on Google Product Searche. For hints and answers to selected problems, see the Solutions page.

1. Find 100% cotton comforter covers with Product Search.
2. Find unbreakable 8 oz. drinking glasses in the price range $10 - $30.
3. Tired of putting on sun screen? Find sun-protective clothing with Product Search.
4. Find heated toilet seats with Product Search.

Hurricane/Cyclone Tracking with Google Earth

Hurricane/Cyclone Tracking with Google Earth

One of Google Earth's most powerful features is the ability to pull in real-time information from other sites and overlay the information for visualization (thanks to the network link). Weather data is one of my favorite applications in Google Earth of this ability. Imagine pulling in the latest satellite photos, radar animations, hurricane tracking, live web cams on the ground, sea surface temperature analysis, etc. Well, you can do all that with the set of the very best weather tools for Google Earth which GEB has bundled together into this: the weather and storm tracking tools collection . Simply drag this network link into your Places folder to keep it handy. It won't take up space until you turn it on. It first loads several folders of weather tools you can explore. You may want to turn only one layer on at a time - these layers weren't designed to all be turned on at once. Although, some of the layers are complimentary (like current lightning strikes with clouds or storms turned on). Read more about the storm tracking tools.

Google has added a new Hurricane Season 2009 layer in the Weather layer folder. It also will automatically highlight current named storms. But, the tools in the collection above will take you much further if you have an interest in weather. Check out this GEB video of storm tracking (from 2007) in Google Earth:

NOTE: Many of these storm tracking tools have been around for some time. While they are still cool, I'd love to see some weather sites using the Google Earth API to full advantage. Weather data is great stuff when viewed in Google Earth.

Posted by FrankTaylor