[Mother Jones]

[Gawker]

3D Trees
Google has planted virtual trees in Google Earth. This includes the Japanese Maple and the East African Cordia. About 80 million Google Earth trees have been planted so far.

You can download Google Earth 6 from http://earth.google.com.

[Google Blog]

[Google LatLong Blog]

“At the beginning of this project, there were approximately 130 known cave sites in the region and around 20 fossil deposits. With the help of the navigation facility and high-resolution satellite imagery in Google Earth, Professor Berger went on to find almost 500 previously unidentified caves and fossil sites, even though the area is one of the most explored in Africa. One of these fossil sites yielded the remarkable discovery of a new species, Australopithecus sediba. This species was an upright walker that shared many physical traits with the earliest known species of the genus homo — and its introduction into the fossil record might answer some key questions about our earliest ancestry in Africa.”

Facebook 400 Million and Project Titan

Location Based Apple Ads and iTunes Web Browser

Snoop Vader

Sony Profits

Snooki Crasher

World War II on Google Earth

FriendFinder Cancels IPO

TC Intern Fired

Patrick Stewart on Twitter

Bill O’Reilly vs. Jon Stewart

The Audi A8 will have a multimedia interface (MMI) combined with the standard navigation system and touchpad. The car will have a traditional hard disk navigation system with integrated GPRS/EDGE modem integrated into the MMI which will allow users to download content from Google. Audi A8 drivers will be able to map out trips using Google Maps or Google Earth. As a matter of fact, the Audi A8 is the first production vehicle to have Google Earth integrated into the navigation.

By inserting a SIM card into the A8 MMI setup or data-enabled phone supporting Bluetooth, A8 drivers will be able to have a 3D view of their surroundings using Google Earth in the MMI. The LCD display is 8 inches and supports terrain modeling.

Below is the full press release:

The new Audi A8 – with Google at the leading edge of Connectivity
- A8 searches for and retrieves internet content via the mobile phone network
- Online point-of-interest search powered by Google integrated with the Audi navigation system
- Google Earth available for the first time in a production vehicle

Ingolstadt, 16. December 2009 – In early 2010 Audi will be bringing the next generation of the A8 to the starting line. The new flagship and its online services further demonstrate the brand’s proverbial Vorsprung durch Technik, by bringing a variety of Google services and information to the luxury sedan via the internet. The services will be available in selected markets.

The new A8 has set the bar at new heights with regard to multimedia technology. Its multimedia interface (MMI) navigation plus features among other innovations, a highly evolved operating concept incorporating a touchpad – known as MMI touch. Also included are an integrated hard disk for navigation, phone and audio data and a graphics processor capable of generating high-quality, three dimensional images. The MMI analyzes navigation data predictively, relaying information to the control units managing the automatic cruise control with Stop & Go, adaptive lights and the 8-speed tiptronic gearbox so that these systems can precisely adapt their function to conditions well in advance.

Equally state-of-the-art are the Audi online services which allow the new A8 to retrieve up-to-date information from the internet via the optionally integrated GPRS/EDGE modem in the MMI navigation plus. The user can search online with Google for points-of-interest directly from within the MMI, the versatile search engine accepting such free text search queries as “delicatessen” or “shoe boutique”. The results are then displayed on the onboard map or used as destinations for route calculation.

Highly comfortable: Destination planning at home

The data connection enables a further comfortable feature. A8 customers can plan their navigation destinations in Google Maps or the Audi web portal at home or in the office and retrieve these on demand in the car.

In mid 2010 Audi will further enhance its suite of online services with a new UMTS modem. This enables faster data transfer as well as simultaneous voice and data connections, and allows Audi to set a world first with the integration of Google Earth in the MMI navigation plus. High resolution three-dimensional satellite and aerial imagery for the entire globe and a worldwide database of photos and information articles are only some of the fascinating new features. With Google Earth on the MMI’s
8 inch LCD display the new Audi A8 allows its occupants to discover the world from above. The Google Earth imagery and 3D terrain model are combined with the detailed street network from the onboard navigation database as well as calculated routes in a seamless integration of online and offline content.

To use the new online services the customer simply needs to insert their SIM card in the MMI Navigation plus or pair their mobile phone with the MMI over the Bluetooth SIM-Access-Profile. Aside from the Customer’s existing mobile phone data plan, no additional contracts are required.

First shown as a prototype with Google in January 2006 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas/USA, the new online services can be experienced in the new A8 as a result of a close collaboration between Audi and Google development teams worldwide.

“He could tell the lead roofs apart on Google Earth as they were slightly darker than normal,” stated a friend of Berge.  Berge was arrested in February and received his sentence last week.

While Google Earth has its fair share of crime uses, it also has a number of uses that are made to solve crimes.  In late January, police in Switzerland were able to discover a marijuana plantation using the software.

[via Telegraph]

[More recent picture of Shamsi]

The U.S. supposedly flew unmanned drone planes from the Shamsi airbase in Pakistan, around the southwestern province of Baluchistan since early 2006.  The image above shows the three Predator drones outside of a hangar on a runway in that vicinity.  The Times UK was able to snag the image before the planes were removed from view on Google Earth.

The CIA secretly uses these plans to observe and attack al-Qaeda and Taliban militants around the Afghanistan and Pakistan border.  The U.S. began to use this runway in 2001, when the U.S. began to invade Afghanistan.  The Pakistani government said that the U.S. left this location in 2006.  Pakistan and the U.S. have kept denying that the CIA is using runways to launch drones.  Pakistan has also demanded that the U.S. government cease using drones on their own tribal area.  This has especially picked up in the last year and has resulted in the killing of many citizens.

The image above also suggests that the U.S. government is launching drones from Shamsi, Kyrgyzstan for falconry purposes.

In the more recent picture of the airbase the drones are not showing, but you will notice that several new buildings have been constructed since the older picture.

Military experts that saw the images believe that the drones are MQ1 Predators that are often used to observe and strike militants at the Afghani border. The MQ1 Predator can carrier two laser-guided Hellfire missiles and can fly for up to about 454 miles at a speed of 135MPH with an altitude of 25,000 ft.

Google Earth, A Security Risk?
Google Earth uses extraordinary technology, but some believe that it can be a security risk.  If any layman can use Google Earth to find military planes, imagine if Taliban used the same software to launch an attack.  To prevent this from happening, the U.S. government asked Google Earth to remove sensitive locations including military bases, nuclear reactors, and other government buildings.

Last year, the government in India reported that terrorists possibly used Google Earth to become familiar with their targets.