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Explore the haunted corners of the world... if you dare
October 29, 2014
Something wicked this way comes
… Whether you’re a trio of
witches back from the dead
or just a trick-or-treater, chances are you’re hitting the streets (or riding a broom!) on Halloween night. For those looking for an extra fright, take a tour of spooky places from around the world on Google Maps.
Start in 19th century Paris. While cheery guests listen to the beautiful arias at the Opéra Garnier, a dreary lake lies beneath the streets. Floating above the silent water, a
phantom
lurks. Are your eyes playing tricks on you... or is that a cloaked figure looming in the shadows?
Opéra Garnier (Paris Opera), Paris, France
Standing at the steps of
Craigdarroch Castle
in Victoria, BC, you might believe you’ve found the perfect home away from home. Think again… listen closely for the sounds of a piano playing softly throughout the house. The spirit of a ghastly pianist is said to linger in the corridors and windows.
Craigdarroch Castle, Victoria, BC
If you’re feeling ill, the abandoned
Xinglin hospital
in Taiwan is
not
the place to go. For years, passersby have sighted now-deceased patients, both young and old, in the treacherous fourth- and fifth-floor windows. To this day, people claim to hear wailing in the night from inside the hospital’s haunted walls.
Xinglin hospital, Tainan, Taiwan
Not all spooky stories are made up. For three decades, the
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary
was home to some 1,500 of the world’s most infamous prisoners. Surrounded by bone-chilling waters, “the Rock” was notorious as the toughest prison in America.
Alcatraz Island, California, USA
If these spooky spots whet your appetite for fear, get up close with some of the most frightful locations in Google Maps Gallery and find ghouls and goblins in
haunted houses
around the world. If you’re looking for a laugh instead of a scream, take a
hayride
through your local corn maze, find the perfect jack-o-lantern at your neighboring
pumpkin patch
, and scout the best
trick-or-treat
routes near you.
Now get your cauldrons bubbling and monsters mashing because after all,
this is Halloween
!
Posted by Susan Cadrecha, Google Maps Zombie Bride
Make your own way with the new My Maps
September 16, 2014
As temperatures cool down, you might be searching for your next warm vacation spot. Starting today, you can get a little inspiration by going to
Google Maps Gallery
and browsing publicly shared custom maps of all types. Just look up sunny “
Los Angeles
” to find the best
hiking trails
,
street art
,
breweries
and more to do in La-La Land. And, for those of you who are actually looking forward to the winter, see what
ski
options others have recommended, with the maps they created of their favorite
slopes
and
resorts
.
An insider’s
take
on the best views and paths of Cahuenga Peak, Los Angeles—including a walk to the Hollywood sign!
Once you’re done daydreaming, plan out your own trip with the new
My Maps
(previously Google Maps Engine Lite), adding images, descriptions, custom icons, and place details along the way. Make sure to download the
My Maps Android app
so you can also view your map or make a change on the go, or check out others’ maps while you’re on your way. Did you plot out the perfect vacation? Share it publicly so others can get inspired, too—or if you prefer, keep your secret spots safe by setting your map to private or by sharing with a lucky few.
With these tools for exploration in hand, you can find and create maps for anything you’re interested in—like a collection of Sherlock Holmes’
famous haunts
, or
global tributes
to Nelson Mandela. The possibilities are pretty much endless—students have photographed and mapped a city’s public art installments, authors have laid out their stories’ locations on the map, and activists have plotted out shelters and distribution centers during emergency situations.
Find
Nelson Mandela
tributes, speeches and more in Maps Gallery
If you’ve already been creating custom maps with
classic My Maps
, today you can upgrade all your content to the new
My Maps
, and enjoy these new options. You can import spreadsheets, easily include images and YouTube videos, and organize your locations and routes however you want.
By the end of this year, all maps created in classic Google Maps will automatically upgrade to the new My Maps, but to get started right away, open up the new
My Maps
and “Upgrade now,” then check out the tour—found in the settings menu—for tips on creating your own custom content.
Where will your map take you?
Posted by Heather Folsom, Product Manager, My Maps
Helping our communities adapt to climate change
March 19, 2014
Today the White House
announced
the
Climate Data Initiative
, aimed at helping organizations and communities use public data to better understand and prepare for the effects of climate change. Up until now, it’s been difficult for the public to locate detailed, timely data relevant to climate-related risks such as
extreme weather events
. To help address this challenge, Google is donating cloud computing storage and access to other tools to support institutions that are driving
climate change resilience
.
First, we’re providing 50 million hours of high-performance computing on the
Google Earth Engine
geospatial analysis platform. Earth Engine brings together the world’s satellite imagery with tools to help detect changes and map trends on the Earth’s surface. Earth Engine has already been applied to unlock valuable information from the 40+ year treasure trove of Landsat satellite data (USGS/NASA), including an
interactive timelapse of the planet
from 1984-2012, the
first high-resolution global maps of deforestation
, and a near real-time
deforestation alert system
that allows anyone interested in forest monitoring to take part. We hope that with this new donation, researchers will
focus on applying Earth Engine
to address climate-related risks such as managing agricultural water supplies and modeling the impacts of sea-level rise and storm surge.
We’re also
partnering with leading researchers
, allowing them to scale their work with Earth Engine and quickly move from the laboratory into people’s hands. Together with academic partners in the western U.S., we’ll produce the first high-resolution, near real-time drought monitoring and mapping products for the entire continental United States—and make them freely available to the public.
Traditional static graphic showing record-breaking drought in California in Feb 2014. Red = Dry; Blue = Wet. Source: the Desert Research Institute, University of Idaho and University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Finally, we’re donating one petabyte (one billion megabytes) of cloud storage to house satellite observations, digital elevation data, and climate/weather model datasets. We encourage the global community to work with us on this project by contributing and curating data, and developing public-benefit applications. We’re already collaborating with researchers at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, University of Bristol U.K. and the government of Australia.
See how Google Maps Engine was used to highlight the vulnerabilities associated with rising sea levels, storm surges, and coastal inundations in the Republic of Vanuatu. The darker blue shows present-day inundation of the Efate lagoon during a high astronomical tide, and the lighter blue shows predicted inundation in 2090 due to sea level rise. Source: Australian Government and the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information.
To find out more
, visit the
Earth Engine website
, view a
sample map
on the Google Maps Gallery, follow us on
Google+
and
Twitter
, and tune in to
White House live stream
today at 5:15pm EDT.
Posted by Tyler Erickson, Developer Advocate, Google Earth Engine
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