Santa’s sleigh is ready for lift-off

The countdown is over. Santa and his elves have been preparing around the clock for the big day, opening up new pieces of Santa’s Village throughout the month. Santa’s been skydiving, the elves catapulted presents, and Santa even sent custom voice messages to friends and family.

The elves are now reporting that the sleigh is ready for takeoff!

Join Santa as he delivers presents around the globe. Whether you’re in Sydney or South Dakota, hop in the driver’s seat by checking out Santa’s Dash(er) Board. See where Santa’s been, where he’s going, and his real-time jolly status ("mmm, those cookies were delicious!”). Don’t forget to check out the photos and local info for places he visits on the route.

For the next 24 hours, tune in on your desktop, tablet, or phone to the Santa Tracker website. Still worried you’ll miss a minute of Santa’s big day? The developer elves have been hard at work so you can:

• Stay updated on Santa’s real-time location with the Santa Tracker app for Android
• Light up your TV by casting from the Android app
• Keep tabs on Santa across the web with the Santa Tracker Chrome extension
• View the journey in 3D in the Tour Guide feature of Google Earth and Google Earth mobile

And, follow Google Maps on Google+, Facebook and Twitter to get up-to-the-minute details on Santa’s journey around the world.

With more than 300,000 kilometers to go, Santa’s got a lot of the map to cover. So set out those cookies and a glass of milk and get ready to #tracksanta!

Brian McClendon, Vice President, Google Maps

Building Better Maps in Brazil, Israel, and Russia

Whether you’re exploring new places or your own hometown, you want an up-to-date, accurate map that gets you where you want to go quickly and easily. That’s why we’re launching our Ground Truth initiative in Brazil, Israel, and additional parts of Russia (including Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, and Volgograd). With Ground Truth data, we can improve a country’s map faster so that it accurately reflects the ever-changing world.

The newest Ground Truth update also gives all three countries the option to add local knowledge to the map with the Report a Problem tool. We’ve also relaunched Map Maker in Brazil, so you can add and update geographic information for millions of users to see in Google Maps and Google Earth. Now, from the bustling markets of Manaus to the dazzling coastline of Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian map enthusiasts can directly contribute their local expertise for all the world to see with Google Map Maker.

In the updated maps for Brazil, Israel, and Russia, you can easily distinguish areas of interest with crisper, colored depictions of water bodies and greenery. For example, you can quickly identify Copacabana beach on the map by its yellow coloring, making it easier to find nearby restaurants or streets to explore.

Discover restaurants along Brazil's Copacabana Beach

Updates to the maps’ road priorities, turn restrictions, street names, and interchange signs make navigating the roads more accurate and efficient. For example, in Israel we’ve updated the recently extended Highway 22, helping residents and visitors quickly arrive at their destinations.

Navigate Israel's updated Highway 22

Easily identify points of interest, like national parks, hospitals, and universities, with improved highlighting and visual enhancements. In Israel, Tel Aviv University now shows detailed walking paths, named roads, building department labels, and even designated grounds for the sculpture garden and swimming pools.

Explore the grounds of Israel's Tel Aviv University

More than 20 additional Russian regions will also see a more detailed map with this update. By highlighting major roads, greenery, and extensive networks of water bodies, the map now accurately displays the richness of localities like Kaliningrad.

Uncover the richness of Russia's Kliningrad

With visually clearer and increasingly detailed Google Maps, exploring the breathtaking streets of Old Jerusalem or traversing the lush Amazon rainforest is just a click away.

Sophia Lin, Product Manager, Google Maps

Create your own Street View

Have you ever tried to convey the feeling of walking through your favorite park? Or have you wanted to create an interactive tour of a memorable journey? Well, starting today, it's now possible for you to build your own Street View experiences to do just that. Using a new feature in our Views community, you can easily connect your photo spheres to create 360º virtual tours of the places you love, then share them with the world on Google Maps.

Creating Street View from your photo spheres is as easy as connecting the dots into what looks like a “constellation” of stars. You can even connect your photo spheres to our own Street View panoramas.

To get started, just create photo spheres using your Android phone or a DSLR and then share them on Views. Next, select the photo spheres from your profile and use our new tool to connect them together (as seen in the example above). Once your photo spheres are connected and published, people can navigate between them on Google Maps, just like they can in Street View. Please visit our help center to learn more about connecting photo spheres.

I built this Street View experience from photo spheres I created with both my Android phone (Nexus 4) and my DSLR camera. Now everyone can virtually explore this beautiful location I visited on my vacation.

We are excited to see the different types of Street View experiences that everyone will contribute. For example, this feature can now enable environmental non-profits to document and promote the beautiful places they strive to protect. It also opens up a new tool for photographers to showcase diversity in a specific location -- by times of day, weather conditions or cultural events -- in a way that Street View currently doesn’t cover.

And, just like with Street View, you can embed our interactive viewer on your own website or build applications with it using the Google Maps API. You can learn more about solutions for developers.

We hope this new feature will enable people to share and witness the beauty and breadth of our planet through Google Maps. Whether you’re photographing exotic islands or your favorite neighborhood hangout, mountain peaks or city streets, historic castles or your town center, we’re thrilled to see the places you love coming to life on Google Maps.

Businesses, as a reminder, you can showcase the beauty of your interiors through Business Photos.

Evan Rapoport, Product Manager, Google Maps & Photo Sphere
Updated December 16: Modified use cases for clarity & added reference to Business Photos.

National Geographic shares rich map content with the world via Google Maps Engine

(Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog)

Editor's note: Today’s guest blog is about the newly launched Google Maps Engine public data program, which lets organizations distribute their map content to consumers using Google’s cloud infrastructure. Frank Biasi, Director of Digital Development at National Geographic Maps, tells us how his organization is participating in the public data program and sharing over 500 maps to the world.

Why are maps important for National Geographic?
Founded in 1888, National Geographic Society aims to inspire people to care about the planet. As one of the world’s largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations, we’ve funded more than 10,000 research, conservation and exploration projects. Maps and geography are integral to everything we do; it’s even part of our name. Over our long history, we’ve created and published more than 800 reference, historic and travel maps.

Medieval England (1979)

Dominican Republic: Adventure Map

Why did you want to take part in the Google Enterprise Maps public data program?
People have collected our magazine fold-out maps for over a hundred years, and many of those maps are sequestered away in attics and garages. The public data program gives us the opportunity to release our amazing map collection to the wider world.

We will also use Maps Engine to overlay our maps with interactive editorial content, so the maps can “tell stories” and raise awareness about environmental issues and historic events. Anyone will be able to access our free public maps, but we also plan to sell or license high-resolution and print versions to raise funds for our nonprofit mission.

Why did you choose to work with Google and not another maps technology partner?
We needed a high-performance mapping platform to produce and publish hundreds of interactive maps. We also wanted a relatively simple web-based workflow that could be used by non-technical employees and wouldn’t require any programming or desktop software. Google Maps Engine offers a good blend of robust technology and simple usability. Of course, Google will also help our maps get discovered by more people, including National Geographic fans, students and educators and travelers. We expect travel and home decor businesses, publishers and brand marketers will also want to buy or license them.

Which Google Maps Engine advanced tools do you use the most?
We use all the features. We load data, create layers, combine layers into maps, publish individual layers as maps and integrate multiple maps. We use both the raster and vector capabilities to put descriptors, links, pop-ups and thumbnails on top of maps. For example, we could use Maps Engine to add articles, photography and information from National Geographic expeditions to our ocean maps. These interactive maps, which we can display in 2D or 3D using Maps Engine, will allow people to follow along with expeditions as they unfold or retrace past expeditions.

What’s the most exciting thing about participating in the Google Maps Engine public data program?
Google Maps Engine lets us turn our maps into interactive full-screen images that can be panned and zoomed and overlaid with tons of great data. We are proud of our century-long cartographic tradition. The Maps Engine public data program will help get our maps out into the world where more people can enjoy and learn from them.

Posted by Frank Biasi, Director of Digital Development, National Geographic Maps

Join Santa and his elves in the countdown to Christmas Eve

After 11 months soaking up the sun in the tropics, Santa and his elves are back at the North Pole getting ready for Christmas Eve. In addition to making toys, they need to clear the snow off 23 elf homes, candy factories and command centers in Santa’s Village.

Santa's jet-skiing all the way to the North Pole from his tropical vacation

To join in the flurry of preparations for Christmas Eve, visit the Village every day through December 24. You'll have the chance to join the elves as they catapult presents and race with reindeer—and you'll be able to send holiday wishes to friends and family from Santa himself. The elves make a little more progress each day, so be sure to stop by the Village to see the latest.

Come back to Santa's Village every day to see the newest games and scenes

Meanwhile, a team of Google engineers are working hard to track Santa’s sleigh with the most advanced maps and holiday technology available. On December 24, grab some cookies and apple cider and settle down in front of your computer, phone or TV to follow the big guy across the globe with our Santa Tracker. See where Santa’s going, the number of presents he’s delivered, and what he’s thinking throughout the evening.

Keep up the holiday cheer across all of your screens. Once the elves approve, we’ll launch the Google Santa Tracker app for Android in mid-December. Use your phone for on-the-go flight practice with the elves or cozy up near the fireplace with your tablet to follow Santa around the world as he delivers presents Christmas Eve. If you have Chromecast, cast from the Santa Tracker Android app to explore the Village or track his route right from your TV. Worried you’ll forget the big day? Download the Chrome extension to count down to Santa’s takeoff while browsing the web for holiday gifts.

Help the elves get ready across all your devices

Download the Chrome extension for easy Santa tracking from your browser

Be sure to come back to Santa’s Village each day to find new ways to celebrate—and from all of us at Google, happy holidays!

Posted by Sandy Russell, Elf Creative Director

Take off for the holidays with Google Street View

Whether it’s touring the canals of Venice, swimming with the seals in the Galapagos or climbing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, Street View has taken you to some of the most beautiful and exciting places around the world.

Now, in addition to scoping out your destination, Street View can help you cut down the stress of traveling by giving you a preview of your journey, too. Our first efforts to map global transit locations include 16 international airports, over 50 train and subway stations, and even a cable car station in Hong Kong.

Here’s an interactive map so you can see the new Street View transit locations worldwide.

Now you can visit the check-in counter of your airline in Madrid, map out the way from baggage claim to the bus at Tokyo International Airport and check out where to pick up your rental car at Eindhoven Airport; you can even scope out your seat on an Emirates flight from Dubai!

Or, if you’re planning to take the train, navigate through Waterloo station so you can be one step ahead, whether you’re with a group of friends, family or a baby stroller.

Check in at Madrid Barajas, ES

Arrivals, Tokyo International Airport, JP

Eindhoven Airport, NL

Emirates A380 at Dubai Airport

Waterloo Station, London, UK

Don’t let travel logistics get you down this holiday season. With Street View, you can see how to get where you’re going faster and easier. Enjoy and safe travels!

Posted by Ulf Spitzer, Google Street View Program Manager

Take a hike with Street View through U.S. National Parks and Parks Canada

What do tents and hiking boots have in common? You don’t need either to start exploring or planning your next adventure to some of the best national parks and historical sites across North America.

Working with the U.S. National Park Service and Parks Canada, our Street View cars, trikes and Trekker mapped more than 44 locations with beautiful, 360 degree panoramas.

Leave your gear behind and still get a chance to marvel at the Sequoias in California. Or perhaps you’re looking for more adventure? Lookout to Signal Mountain in Wyoming’s Grand Tetons, climb around California’s Joshua Tree National Park, or dip your toe into Moraine Lake in Banff, Canada.

Moraine Lake’s beautiful color comes from the light reflecting off rock flour at the bottom of the lake. (Wikipedia)

Getting tired? Take a break to watch the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park, the first national park in the world.

Old Faithful’s eruptions last 1 1/2 to 5 minutes, expel up to 8,400 gallons of boiling water, and can be as high as 184 feet. (Yellowstone National Park)

Or, let your inner history buff come out to explore monuments and fortresses across North America.

Brush up presidential facts as you check out the Lincoln Memorial or get a closer look at US presidents at Mount Rushmore. Take a moment to “Remember the Alamo” as you visit this battlefield in Texas or step inside the Halifax Citadel to investigate the city’s role as a key naval station in the British Empire. For a selection of our favorites, check out the Views collection.

Fifty-six pillars and a pair of small triumphal arches surrounding a plaza and fountain make up the humbling World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Take a moment to remember those that served at the Korean War Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial and National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Whether you’re planning your next adventure or just looking to be inspired by the beauty of the world from the comfort of your living room, we invite you to head over to Google Maps and let Pegman be your virtual guide to Street View. We hope you enjoy exploring the majestic scenery of North America’s national parks and monuments.

Posted by Evan Rapoport, Product Manager, Google Maps

Street View floats into Venice

Venice was once described as “undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man,” and from these pictures it’s hard to disagree. You can now explore panoramic imagery of one of the most romantic spots in the world, captured with our Street View Trekker technology.

It was impossible for us to collect images of Venice with a Street View car or trike—blame the picturesque canals and narrow cobbled walkways—but our team of backpackers took to the streets to give Google Maps a truly Shakespearean backdrop. And not just the streets—we also loaded the Trekker onto a boat and floated by the famous gondolas to give you the best experience of Venice short of being there.

Our Trekker operator taking a well-earned rest while the gondolier does the hard work

The beautiful Piazza San Marco, where you can discover Doge's Palace, St. Marks' Cathedral, the bell tower, the Marciana National Library and the clocktower

We covered a lot of ground—about 265 miles on foot and 114 miles by boat—capturing not only iconic landmarks but several hidden gems, such as the Synagogue of the first Jewish Ghetto, the Devil’s Bridge in Torcello island, a mask to scare the same Devil off the church of Santa Maria Formosa and the place where the typographer Manutius created the Italics font. Unfortunately, Street View can’t serve you a cicchetto (local appetizer) in a classic bacaro (a typical Venetian bar), though we can show you how to get there.

The Devil’s Bridge in Torcello Island

Once you’ve explored the city streets of today, you can immerse yourself in the beauty of Venice’s past by diving deep in to the artworks of the Museo Correr, which has joined the Google Cultural Institute along with Museo del Vetro and Ca’ Pesaro - International Gallery of Modern Art.

Click on a pin under "Take a Tour" to compare the modern streets with paintings of the same spots by artists such as Carpaccio and Cesare Vecellio

Or delve into historical maps of Venice, like this one showing the Frari Church, built in 1396

Finally, take a look behind the scenes showing how we captured our Street View imagery in Venice.

The Floating City is steeped in culture; it’s easy to see why it’s retained a unique fascination and romance for artists, filmmakers, musicians, playwrights and pilgrims through the centuries—and now, we hope, for Street View tourists too.

Posted by Daniele Rizzetto, Street View Operations Manager (and proud Venetian!)

Mapping the world’s deforestation over time

We’re excited to announce today that, in a collaboration led by Dr. Matthew Hansen at the University of Maryland, we’ve built the first detailed maps of the world’s forests, from 2000-2012, documenting and quantifying forest landscape changes such as fires, tornadoes, disease and logging.

The most significant findings were that the overall rate of tropical deforestation is increasing, and global forests have experienced a net loss of 1.5M sq km during 2000-2012 due to both natural (disturbance) and human causes. That’s a loss of forested land comparable in size to the entire state of Alaska.

Global Forest Change, 2000-2012: individual maps of forest extent, gain, loss, and loss color-coded by year. Click to enlarge.

Sumatra has lost over 50% of its natural forest within the past 30 years. Click to enlarge.

The detailed study was published today in the journal Science, High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change. Key to the study’s success was the collaboration between scientists at the University of Maryland, who developed the models to analyze Landsat satellite data, and computer scientists at Google, who then used Google Earth Engine technology to run these models on more than 650,000 Landsat images. While the analysis would have taken a single computer more than 15 years to perform, it was completed in a matter of days using Google Earth Engine.

Here are some other notable sites:

Paraguay’s Chaco woodlands within the western half of the country are experiencing rapid deforestation in the development of cattle ranches. The result is the highest rate of deforestation in the world. Click to enlarge.

The Siberian larch forests of Yakutia, Russia, are prone to fire during spring to early summer. Most of these fires are deliberately set and spread uncontrolled. Such extensive fires result in significant carbon emissions. Click to enlarge.

If you'd like to dive even deeper and learn more about this project, head on over to the Google Research blog post authored by Dr. Matt Hansen. Also, tune in next Monday, November 18 at 1:00pm ET, 10:00am PT to an online presentation and demonstration by Matt Hansen and colleagues from UMD, Google, USGS, NASA and the Moore Foundation. Please submit your questions for live Q&A.

Updated 3:30pm PDT: Corrected total sq km of net loss during 2000-2012.

Posted by Rebecca Moore and Matt Hancher, Google Earth Engine team

Meet nonprofits using “Geo for Good”

This week, we are excited to welcome this year’s group of nonprofit mapping specialists to the annual Geo for Good User Summit – a workshop hosted by the Google Earth Outreach team. The 4-day intensive workshop gives these do-gooder techies hands-on technical training with Google mapping tools and guidance with their projects. Out of the 75 participating organizations this year, there are some truly amazing stories to tell.

One of the attendees, Devin Dotson, is from the nonprofit American Rivers, focused on protecting and restoring the rivers of the United States. American Rivers uses maps to help tell the story of river conservation across the nation. Most recently, American Rivers made their annual announcement of the 10 rivers that are America’s Most Endangered Rivers in 2013. To illustrate these rivers, they released this map in the Google Earth Gallery, built using a Google Maps Engine software grant. The map allows the public to explore the map of the rivers and learn more about how to get involved by clicking each river.

American River’s map of America’s Most Endangered Rivers in 2013

Another Geo for Good participant is Lilian Pintea from the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI). Lilian will be sharing JGI’s story about how they’ve used mapping technology on mobile devices to monitor chimpanzee populations, habitats and human threats with local communities in Tanzania. Using this data, JGI is able to engage local communities in protecting chimpanzees and share real-time information with the world through dynamic web maps using App Engine, Fusion Tables, Google Maps API, and Open Data Kit (ODK).

Learn how the Jane Goodall Institute uses Google mapping technology to protect chimpanzees

Returning to the Summit from last year is Daniel Orellana, representing the Charles Darwin Foundation. It was during last year’s Summit that Daniel was inspired to suggest that Charles Darwin Foundation work with Google Earth Outreach to bring Street View to the Galapagos. Since the imagery was launched in September, the Charles Darwin Foundation has been working on projects to use the images for science, conservation and education. One of these projects is Darwin for a Day, which allows the public to help identify plants and animals observed when navigating through the imagery.

Daniel Orellana of Charles Darwin Foundation wearing the Street View Trekker to capture Galapagos’s volcanic beauty

To learn about Google Earth Outreach and how you can use maps to make the world a better place, head to the Google Earth Outreach website. To find out about next year’s Geo for Good or other mapping workshops, follow Google Earth Outreach on Twitter.

Raleigh Seamster, Program Manager, Google Earth Outreach

Tour Builder: Tell your stories with Google Earth

As we’ve worked with veterans and their family members on projects like Map The Fallen and VetNet, we’ve heard many amazing stories and seen how helpful storytelling can be. So we thought it might be useful to make a very simple storytelling tool. One hallway conversation led to a joint project between the Google Creative Lab and Google Earth Outreach, and today, in honor of Veterans Day, we’re excited to share Tour Builder—a simple tool for recording and sharing stories on a map.

Though originally inspired by veterans, we quickly realized that Tour Builder has the potential be a simple, useful tool for any aspiring storyteller. You could be a high school history teacher explaining the geography of the Revolutionary War, a musician updating your fans from the road, or a grandmother who wants to share her family’s story of service in WWII.

Creating a tour is easy: give it a name, add an introduction photo and a quick description. Then search the map for where your story begins and drop a placemark. Describe each place and embed photos & videos as you guide people through your story. You can dive into Street View or pick the perfect 3D view to show off your adventure.

For inspiration, just download Google Earth and explore our Gallery, which showcases some incredible journeys that have already been created using Tour Builder:

• Elizabeth O’Herrin’s story of service in the Air National Guard from Wisconsin to Afghanistan and back.
• The veterans of Team Rubicon who deploy emergency response teams following natural disasters like the Haiti earthquake
• Dr. Jane Goodall's multi-generational saga of the chimpanzee “G Family” and how her Institute is protecting endangered chimpanzees with high-tech tools
• BRAC’s efforts spreading anti-poverty solutions in 11 countries through the 100,000+ people they employ worldwide.

We invite you to try Tour Builder, and share your memories and stories with the people you love. Let us know what you think—we’d love to hear your ideas and feedback at tourbuilder-team@google.com for how Tour Builder could be a better storytelling tool and we’d love to see your tours.

Happy Veterans Day and thank you to all of the service members and military families, past and present, whose stories of service, patriotism, survival and achievement inspire us all.

Posted by Sean Askay, Google Earth Outreach, and Carrie Laureno, Google Creative Lab & Google Veterans Network

From where you are to where you want to go

As you gear up for the holidays, you can easily plan your vacation with the new Google Maps for desktop. With the latest updates, Earth Tours will take you on a virtual trip through cities and natural wonders in full 3D, while Street View imagery and real time traffic incidents will help to ensure smooth travels.

Explore the world with Pegman
Street View’s comprehensive imagery has always been a great way to preview your destination before arriving, but it's equally helpful when deciding where you want to go. Thanks to your feedback, we’ve made it easier to find where Street View is available, so you can explore locations in over 50 countries around the globe.

To discover a world of imagery at your fingertips, look no further than Pegman – your guide through Street View – who you can find in the lower right corner of the screen. Click on Pegman, and areas with Street View imagery will light up in blue. For a street-level preview, hover over any highlighted road, then click to dive into that location.

To see a preview before you go, click on the highlighted map

As you zoom in, you’ll also see blue circles indicating where you can find user-uploaded photos, including Photo Spheres – immersive, 360º panoramas taken from land, air, and sea. Click on a yellow circle to see inside restaurants, museums, and more. With these features, you can explore an increasing variety of locations, inside and out.

And for the Pegman fans out there, you know he's a globetrotter. Jump over to Google+ now to submit your idea for his next adventure!

New blue and yellow circles show you where to find user-uploaded images and indoor photos

Get a bird’s-eye view with Earth Tours
Explore beautiful, 3D imagery of buildings and terrain for thousands of locations from above with Earth Tours available right in your browser.* Wherever you see the Earth Tour icon, you can click, sit back, and get a virtual tour from a soaring angle. Dive into Boston or circle the Alps.

*Available on WebGL-enabled browsers, like Chrome.

Get a 3D experience wherever you see the Earth Tour icon

Navigate the roads with confidence
Maneuvering an unfamiliar route can be tricky when turns, exits, or tolls appear without warning. With the new step-by-step preview, you can see a street-level snapshot of each decision point to know exactly where you’re going and what to expect. Just click “Preview steps” from the directions card and advance through for a quick study of your trip, including transfers for transit.

Click on the thumbnail in the directions preview for a closer look

Save time commuting and navigate the roads accurately with traffic incident reports – available on desktop and mobile. When you search for driving directions, you’ll now see congestion along the route and real time incidents on the map, including data reported by Waze.

Know the road conditions before you leave

These tools are designed to help you explore and effectively navigate your world. If you’ve opted into the new Google Maps preview, these features will start rolling out today – and in the coming weeks, more of you will begin to see the new Maps experience, which you can tour below.



Posted by Kelvin Ho, Product Manager, Google Maps

Introducing Google Maps Engine Pro: Helping businesses create, visualize and share their data on a map

(Cross-posted on the Google Enterpise Blog)

Maps are a part of our daily lives—from finding the best local Italian restaurant to planning a trip abroad. Maps are also a valuable tool in the workplace. Businesses use maps to help customers easily find their store locations or help travelers get to their final destination.

Today we’re announcing a new professional mapping tool, Google Maps Engine Pro, which lets businesses visualize their data on a map. By importing data like addresses, names, office locations and sales leads from various file formats onto a map, businesses can edit, analyze and share their information in a simple format. Google Maps Engine Pro can be as easy to use as creating a document and it gives businesses an added productivity tool to help make decisions, organize information, and plan operations using Google Maps.

With the ability to collect business information, visualize it on a map and share it across multiple devices, organizations can make better sense of data in relation to real-world surroundings. For example, Pure Fix Cycles, a distributor of custom, fixed gear bikes, uses Maps Engine Pro to identify sales opportunities across target markets, helping to expand their business throughout the U.S. and around the world.


Google Maps Engine Pro was built as an application on top of the Google Maps Engine platform, which provides businesses with cloud based technology to help them organize large datasets and create more complex maps. Today, in addition to introducing Maps Engine Pro, we’re also announcing several new features to Google Maps Engine:

• Mobile App: The new mobile app allows individuals to access their maps created in Google Maps Engine, Maps Engine Pro and Maps Engine Lite. Once a map has been shared, users can access their data on-the-go and from any Android device.
• Connector Tools: It’s now easy to migrate data from legacy systems, such as SAP, into Maps Engine using a connector tool that can be downloaded for free. There are more than 300+ business and geospatial applications available through the connector. To make data migration even easier, the Maps Engine now features an ESRI Toolbar that lets you transfer your ArcGIS maps to Maps Engine.
• Introductory Account: Want to test out Google Maps Engine for your business? The introductory account is an easy way to introduce Maps Engine to your organization’s geospatial infrastructure. The free account supports the product’s full platform capabilities, including API access, but limits the number of map queries per day.

By providing better ways to easily integrate maps into your organization’s operations, businesses now have the ability to use powerful mapping technologies that were once only available to the mapping experts. With the launch of Google Maps Engine Pro and the new Google Maps Engine platform features, now every enterprise and business professional can visualize their data on a map.
Posted by Brian McClendon

A long way home with help from Google Earth

[Cross posted from the Official Google Blog]

In 1986, a five-year-old boy named Saroo Munshi Khan accidentally fell asleep on a stationary train in India. He woke up hours later, alone and in an unfamiliar place. This fateful train ride ripped Saroo away from his home and family. For more than a quarter century, he searched for them before finding his way back home with the help of Google Earth.

This incredible true story spans decades, miles and continents. If it weren’t for hope, determination and technology, Saroo would have remained forever lost.


On that day 27 years ago, Saroo and his 14-year-old brother, Guddu, were searching a train station for change to help support their family. Guddu wandered beyond the station and Saroo fell asleep on a stationary train waiting for his brother’s return. When he woke up, the train had left the station, separating Saroo from his home and family.

The train Saroo boarded was in Berhanpur, India, and he ended up 1,500 kilometers away, in Calcutta. For weeks, he survived on the streets. Eventually, he was taken into an orphanage, where he was adopted by the Brierleys, an Australian family. He moved across an ocean to the town of Hobart in Tasmania. At six years old, Saroo had a new family, home, country and name. Though Saroo Munshi Khan couldn’t find his home, Saroo Brierley never gave up the search.

In 2011, using vague memories and Google Earth imagery, Saroo identified his home town. Using the ruler feature in Google Earth, he mapped out a search radius by making an educated guess about how far he traveled by train. After countless hours of scouring this area of Google Earth imagery, he came upon a proverbial needle in a haystack. Saroo spotted one vague landmark that led him to the next, helping him unlock a five-year-old child’s memories. He eventually spotted a neighborhood, street and tin roof that looked familiar.

In Saroo's words, "It was just like being Superman. You are able to go over and take a photo mentally and ask, 'Does this match?' And when you say, 'No,' you keep on going and going and going."

In 2012, Saroo embarked on a trip from Australia back to Khandwa, India. Once he arrived, he shared his story with locals, who helped him find his way back home to his mother and surviving brother and sister. Twenty-six years after accidentally leaving home, he finally found his way back.

The Google Earth imagery that brought Saroo home.
Maps can affect our lives in many ways, big and small—but hopefully they always help us find our way. You can now read Saroo’s book, “A Long Way Home,” for a detailed account of his journey of survival and triumph against incredible odds. It celebrates the importance of never letting go of what drives the human spirit—hope.

Posted by Peter Birch, Google Earth Product Manager

Hit the road with the New Google Maps preview

Though summer has come to an end – at least in the Northern Hemisphere – your feedback on the new Google Maps preview these past three months has been a great help in our continuing quest to build a better map, more tailored to you. Based on your input, we’re pleased to announce one of your most requested features – directions for multiple destinations – will begin rolling out today. And with two new tools to help manage your reservations and discover upcoming events, it's never too early to plan your next road trip or adventure.

Directions for multiple destinations
Whether you’re running weekend errands or planning a cross-country tour, you can plot multiple destinations for your trip with ease – now available for driving, walking and biking directions. Once you’ve chosen a starting point, click '+' and add stops to your route by typing in the search box or clicking on the map.

Plan your next road trip with directions for multiple destinations

When you’re exploring a new city, find the best way to museums, historic squares, and other attractions by dragging and dropping your destinations in the order that works for you. And if you’re curious before you go, the Views carousel, located in the bottom right corner, is a great way to preview Street View, Photo Tours, and other imagery.

Re-order your route by dragging and dropping one destination above or below another

See your flight, hotel, and restaurant reservations
Similar to Google Search, find your flight, hotel, and restaurant reservations faster right in Maps. Just search for your departing airport or dining destination, and we’ll instantly show your upcoming plans. Having all your stuff in one place makes it easier to manage your appointment details and plan your commute. This info is available when you're signed into Google, and only you can see it.

Then, when you're ready to go, you can quickly access your recent search history on the Google Maps app for your iPhone or Android device and hit the road

This feature is currently rolling out to Maps users in the U.S. and is available in English only.

When signed into Google, locate your destination on desktop 

and access search history on mobile to quickly navigate there

Upcoming Events
Search for Radio City Music Hall, the O2 Arena, or your favorite local performance venues, and click
on the Upcoming Events card to see a schedule of concerts, sports matches, and other events happening near you. Or if you’re new to an area, start with "music venues."

See a schedule of performances and sports matches with the Upcoming Events card

It's been a busy summer for the Maps team, and we wanted to share a few things we've been working on, but there's a lot more coming soon. Keep sending us your feedback using the "Help & Feedback" menu in the upper right corner of the screen.

Posted by Florian Goerisch, Product Manager, Google Maps

Street View arrives at CERN

At CERN, the European particle physics laboratory based in the suburbs of Geneva, some of the world’s best physicists and engineers are using advanced particle accelerators to help solve age old questions about the universe — What is is made of? How did it start?

We’re delighted that CERN opened its doors to Google Maps Street View allowing anyone, anywhere in the world to take a peek into its laboratories, control centers and its myriad underground tunnels housing cutting-edge experiments. Street View also lets scientists working on the experiments, who may be on the other side of the world, explore the equipment they're using.

This is the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC beauty experiment will shed light on why we live in a universe that appears to be composed almost entirely of matter, but no antimatter. Learn more here.

This is the the 7000-tonne ATLAS detector. From a cavern 100 metres below a small Swiss village, it’s probing for fundamental particles including the Higgs Boson.

ALICE is a heavy-ion detector on the Large Hadron Collider ring. It's designed to study the physics of strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities, where a phase of matter called quark-gluon plasma forms.

The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) is a general-purpose detector at the Large Hadron Collider. It's designed to investigate a wide range of physics, including the search for the Higgs boson, extra dimensions, and particles that could make up dark matter.

For two full weeks back in 2011, members of our Street View team from Google’s Zurich office worked with our CERN partners to capture this incredible imagery. You can check out the above experiments, like ATLAS, ALICE, CMS, LHCb and the Large Hadron Collider tunnel in Google Maps, as well as collections of other Street View imagery from amazing sites around the world, on our Views site.

You can also learn more about CERN by following its Google+ page.

Posted by Pascale Milite, Google Street View operations

The HALO Trust: Helping communities reclaim the land with Google Maps for Business

(Cross posted from Official Google Blog) 

From time to time we invite guests to post about subjects of interest and today we’re pleased to share a post from Guy Willoughby, Executive Director of the HALO Trust, a U.K.-based nonprofit dedicated to landmine clearance in post-conflict areas. Hear how HALO is using Google Maps for Business to fight the war against mines, clearing more than 1.4 million landmines worldwide. -Ed.

When conflicts end, making communities safe and livable often means removing dangerous remnants of war. “Getting mines out of the ground, for good,” as we say at the HALO Trust, has been our mission over the last 25 years. We work in more than a dozen countries and regions across the globe, clearing landmines and other explosives, many of which have been buried underground. While we’ve been in operation for almost three decades, there is still more to be done.

In Kosovo, where people are reclaiming their homeland after the conflict in 1999, we’re working in close cooperation with the government and local population to collect and share information about where mines are located. It’s a true community effort—farmers tell us where they’ve seen signs of mines and where accidents have occurred. It’s our job at the HALO Trust to take this data and make it usable, accessible, and visually compelling, so clearance becomes more efficient and happens faster.

One of our biggest challenges is keeping our field teams safe. We need easy-to-use tools that can help us find, map and clear hazardous areas without putting our operations at risk. Over the years, we’ve continuously improved our mine clearance techniques, including the deployment of Google Earth Pro.

Google Earth Pro makes it easier for the HALO team to do the dangerous and detailed work of finding and mapping at-risk areas. Because it’s based on the same technology as Google Maps and Earth, it’s easy for our teams to use and create maps without IT or GIS expertise. It’s a tool that is familiar to our employees and something they use in their daily lives, so we can start mapping right away.

The information we gather, including GPS references to landmines in the field, is imported into Earth Pro so that we can plot mine locations. We also use the incredibly detailed satellite imagery in Google Earth to identify and map hazardous areas. These high-resolution maps serve many people: from families who live near mines, to crews who clear them, and donors and other organizations that support us. When donors view the vivid interactive maps of our project areas—with mines so close to schools, farms and houses—they understand why the HALO Trust’s work is so critical.

Learn more about HALO’s work in Kosovo.

Accurate maps from Google Earth Pro mean safer working conditions for our local teams, and faster progress toward our goals. In Kosovo alone, we’ve removed thousands of landmines, cluster munitions and other explosives. And with the help of Google’s mapping tools and our donors, we’ll be able to declare the country mine-free.

Posted by Guy Willoughby, Executive Director, the HALO Trust