Google released Google Earth 7 last month. The major new feature is their 3D Imagery feature that allows for scary realistic 3D views of cityscapes…until you zoom in tight. Another new feature is a tour guide of famous landmarks. Read more at Google Earth Blog. [Source: Google Earth Blog. Image: Google Earth Blog]
By way of Geology.com, the Wall Street Journal reports on some interesting news related to GPS and even our beloved Google Maps / Google Earth. Apparently there are only two games in town when it comes to data providers for online and digital mapping products that are used by the aformentioned software as well as your GPS navigation system: Netherlands-based Tele Atlas NV, and Chicago-based Navteq Corp. (Photo by Websteria)
In October, Nokia bought Navteq for …wait for it… $8.1 billion. They plan to use the technology as the basis for a business model involving selling advertising tied to your phone’s location. A month later TomTom, a maker of GPS products, beat out rival Garmin and bought Tele Atlas for $4.2 billion. Were either of these companies really worth that much money? It doesn’t appear like it. Thus concern has been raised that the new owners of the technology might be in a position to hurt competitors by raising prices. We will have to see how things pan out.
Related Images, Calculations, Automated Displays Programmable by Users with New InterfaceWindsor, CA – September 11, 2008 – gINT Software, Inc.
A new upgrade to gINT geotechnical and geoenvironmental software lets users publish boreholes to Google Earth, Google’s satellite imagery–based mapping product. The version 8.2 upgrade enables users to specify an icon, color, label, and description to associate with the borehole via an easy-to-use Google Earth Setup dialog in gINT. When the borehole icon on the Google Earth map is clicked by a viewer, a user-designed description will appear in a popup window. The window can also contain links to any type of file, including images and PDFs displaying the boring log, enabling users to visually provide a substantial amount of information for each borehole.
[Editor] Click through for the rest of the press release and more screen shots. All screen shots courtesy of gINT Software, Inc. [/Editor]
On April 10, GeoStudio 2007 version 7.1 was released, a significant service pack update. There are numerous bug fixes and some major improvements. Geo-Slope claims that the overall speed of the product is faster when switching between analyses and views, a welcome change. There are some nice changes to the way Sketch Text is handled, which makes it easier to handle annotation of multiple analyses. And something interesting that’s new in SLOPE/W that allows you to specify a “Spatial Mohr-Coulomb†model which allows unit weight, cohesion and friction angle to vary across the geometry as a function of x and y. I can’t think of a case where I would have used such a model, but it is very intriguing. More features listed after the break along with links.
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