Google Earth

A History of Google Earth > Google Earth Outreach

Google Earth, Introduced in 2005

10 Years and Multiple Version Releases Later, We have a Celebration !

● http://googleblog.blogspot.sg/2015/06/google-earth-10th-birthday.html

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GreenPolicy360 looks back at 15 years of Google mapping the world

and 50+ Years of Landsat mapping our world after proposing/engineering/launching into orbit a revolutionary first mission with 'multispectral' digital scanning

First, let's zoom in on a Google executive reminiscing about Google Earth's start up...

February 06, 2020

https://blog.google/products/maps/look-back-15-years-mapping-world/

In memory of Elizabeth Reid

Vice President of Engineering, Google Maps

On Feb 8, 2005, Google Maps was first launched for desktop as a new solution to help people “get from point A to point B.” Today, Google Maps is used by more than 1 billion people all over the world every month.

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Google Earth 2015

Via Google's Blog / Google Earth Turns 10 Today

Posted: June 29, 2015

When Google Earth was first introduced 10 years ago, it immediately stole my heart. Beyond the freedom to fly anywhere in the world, I was captivated by the ability to paint and visualize geographic data on this incredible global canvas.

Drawn to datasets backed by real human stories, I started making my own maps with KML a few weeks after Earth’s release in 2005. For my master’s degree, I used Google Earth to build a virtual representation of a high-tech biological research reserve. Vint Cerf saw my work, which eventually led to a job on the Google Earth Outreach team, turning my passion for telling stories with maps into a career.

Google Earth, Evolving Earth Science Tools

2005 was the beginning of Google Earth’s evolution, as well. In August of that year, Hurricane Katrina showed us how useful mapping tools like Earth could be for crisis response efforts. Rescue workers compared before and after Satellite imagery in Google Earth to better locate where people were stranded. And in the years after, with more than 2 billion downloads by people in nearly every country in the world, Earth has enabled people to discover new coral reefs, journey to the Moon and into deep space, find long-lost parents, clear landmines and much more.

Google Earth images of Gulfport, Mississippi's shoreline before and after Hurricane Katrina

The ability to empower groups as diverse as school children and NASA scientists to learn more about the world is what I love about Google Earth. It has the potential to make the planet a far more connected place, if you take the time to explore, discover and share what you learn. So to celebrate how far Google Earth has come and our leap into the next 10 years, we’ve created a few new ways to help you better see places from around (and above) the world.

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Now, in 2017, a Google Earth Extension

Voyager

The world is a big place, and it can be hard to know where to begin your virtual journey.

Now you can jump straight to the newest and most interesting imagery around the globe with a new layer, Voyager, available in desktop versions of Google Earth.

Different imagery types in Voyager are shown by color...

In the first edition of Voyager, you’ll find five sections to explore:

Street View: highlights from Street View, including the Taj Mahal and the Grand Canyon

Earth View: striking landscapes around the globe as seen from space (more below)

'3D cities: a showcase of cities and towns available in photorealistic 3D (don’t forget to tilt!)

Satellite imagery updates: a map of our most recently published satellite imagery

Highlight tour: with thousands of Voyager locations to choose from, take a quick tour of a few to whet your appetite

and ...

Earth View

Welcome to Earth View from Google

https://earthview.withgoogle.com/

Looking at our planet from above is not only a reminder of how interdependent our human and natural ecosystems are — it also lays bare the Earth’s staggering and often surreal beauty.

Earth View is library of some of the most striking and enigmatic landscapes available in Google Earth. It started as a 20 percent project last year by a few Googlers who enjoyed scouring satellite imagery for these gems. These images soon made their way onto Android phones, Chromecast and Chromebooks as a distinctive kind of wallpaper.

For Earth's 10th birthday, we're expanding the Earth View collection to 1,500 landscapes from every continent and ocean and making it accessible to even more people. The new imagery is available with an updated version of our Chrome extension and a new web gallery.

Download high-resolution wallpapers for your mobile and desktop devices, or better yet, print them up for your walls!

Thank you for the last 10 years exploring your world with Google Earth. We hope Voyager and Earth View will unlock a new perspective on our planet. We look forward to seeing what the next decade brings!

~ Posted by Sean Askay, Engineering Manager, Google Earth

https://eductechalogy.org/2017/07/04/the-new-google-earth-voyager-for-exploratory-learning/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/technology/google-earth-voyager.html

Now we shift perspective from Google executive's point of view to a GreenPolicy360 pov:

Here is Steve Schmidt, our founder/siterunner recalling digital scanning of earth over the decades beginning with work he watched alongside Congressman George E. Brown with a first generation of digital imaging missions launched to study 'earth system science', climate change dynamics, digital technology, networking and education. The resulting first-of-their-kind digital databases were changing earth science fields at every level (Steve in the early 2000s was also a leader in digital technology, after many years of leading education technology responsible for a state K-12 public ed system and with Aspen Interactive, one of the top digital services companies in the US and world at that time.)

Earth Views of Our Home Planet

GreenPolicy360 / SJS-Siterunner: Google Earth brings back strong memories of Landsat, a first-ever earth imaging program that scoped and developed a platform that rolled out the beginnings of a visionary digital library. Landsat's imaging and earth observations were envisioned and designed to be used for open-access earth imaging over time and applied in myriad manners for earth science policy, environmental laws and protection, 'measuring, monitoring and managing' our living, dynamic earth systems every day and into the future by planet citizens throughout the world.

Planet Citizen Vision of Living Earth]

Measure to Manage

Take us back, GreenPolicy360, to the 1970s and the beginnings of scanning technology from space...

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Multispectral_Scanning_Systen_-_MSS.jpg

GreenPolicy360's founder was fortunate, beginning in the 1960s, to listen to Congressman Brown Congressman George E. Brown point to the NASA plan and explain how he saw Congress put into action the reality of a multi-year, coordinated, multi-agency program to achieve mission goals.

Earth science, measuring and monitoring Earth's life-enabling systems was given highest priority. Landsat's program was set in motion as a decades long, first-ever digital scanning remote satellites data collecting study. An array of satellites began to launch, creating and combining the expanding resources of NASA, USGS, NOAA, and an array of educational and scientific institutions and aeronautics business.