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WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has banned Google Earth teams from making detailed street-level video maps of U.S. military bases.

A message sent to all Defense Department bases and installations around the country late last week told officials to not allow the popular mapping Web site from taking panoramic views inside the facilities.

Michael Kucharek, spokesman for U.S. Northern Command, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the decision was made after crews were allowed access to at least one base.

He said military officials were concerned that allowing the 360-degree, street-level video could provide sensitive information to potential adversaries and endanger base personnel.

His comments came just a few days after published reports suggested that protesters used Google Earth to help plot their access to the roof of the Parliament building in London.

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Pan, zoom, browse and explore the night sky in a Google Earth-like interface at Wikisky. It can show you the stars above a given location at a certain time. Turn on constellation overlays to check out Orion’s belt, or hover over individual stars for name, distance, magnitude and constellation information. This is an incredible resource for astronomy enthusiasts – plan to spend quite a bit of time exploring here.

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Terrorists attacking British bases in Basra are using aerial footage displayed by the Google Earth internet tool to pinpoint their attacks, say Army intelligence sources.

Documents seized during raids on the homes of insurgents last week uncovered print-outs from photographs taken from Google.

The satellite photographs show in detail the buildings inside the bases and vulnerable areas such as tented accommodation, lavatory blocks and where lightly armoured Land Rovers are parked.

Written on the back of one set of photographs taken of the Shatt al Arab Hotel, headquarters for the 1,000 men of the Staffordshire Regiment battle group, officers found the camp’s precise longitude and latitude. continue reading…

If air drumming or imaginary light sabers aren’t your thing, then perhaps the familiar territory of Google Earth will be enough to get you to pull your Wiimote away from Zelda long enough to run a few scripts on your PC. There’s nothing too complicated going on here, with just the requisite GlovePIE software (the Wiimote’s new best friend) and the Google Earth script written by the star of today’s video, J. Coulston, needed to take the world in your hands. Once you’ve got that up and running, you’ll be able to impress your friends and navigate the globe with the flip of your wrist. Just don’t get too excited when you spot your neighborhood. You know what can happen.

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif., Dec. 18 /PRNewswire/ — NASA Ames Research Center and Google have signed a Space Act Agreement that formally establishes a relationship to work together on a variety of challenging technical problems ranging from large-scale data management and massively distributed computing, to human-computer interfaces.

As the first in a series of joint collaborations, Google and Ames will focus on making the most useful of NASA’s information available on the Internet. Real-time weather visualization and forecasting, high-resolution 3- D maps of the moon and Mars, real-time tracking of the International Space Station and the space shuttle will be explored in the future.

“This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars,” said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin at Headquarters in Washington. “This innovative combination of information technology and space science will make NASA’s space exploration work accessible to everyone,” added Griffin.

“Partnering with NASA made perfect sense for Google, as it has a wealth of technical expertise and data that will be of great use to Google as we look to tackle many computing issues on behalf of our users,” said Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google. “We’re pleased to move forward to collaborate on a variety of technical challenges through the signing of the Space Act Agreement.” continue reading…

Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips. Fly from space to your neighborhood. Type in an address and zoom right in. Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions. Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings. Save and share your searches and favorites. Even add your own annotations.

Google Earth

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