Google just launched its latest Google Earth feature called “Voyager.” It will allow people to see interactive guided tours, 3D images and an “I’m feeling lucky” feature.
Google partnered up with storytellers, scientists, and nonprofit organizations to develop Voyager, which currently has over 50 available online tours and Google promised to add more on a weekly basis.
Voyager will give people the chance to explore sites they’ve heard of, as oppose to Google Earth’s previous features to see random places of the planet in the hopes of discovering something interesting.
Google Earth’s Voyager has over 50 available trips
Voyager features dozens of themed journeys across the globe, including “Museums around the world,” “Earth View,” and “Birds of Paradise.” Museums around the world is a tour that takes you to a Street View of 28 museums around the globe, including Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Street View takes you to museums from every continent in the world, along with a brief description of the museum and photo.
Earth View will allow people to see the most striking landscapes available on Google Earth. The feature even has a color palette, which sends you to a different location whenever you press a color. There’s an available option to download a wallpaper of the place visited and a Surprise Me mode that sends you to a random location.
Beautiful Birds of Paradise voyage includes clips from “Planet Earth” narrated by Sir David Attenborough.
“Colorful, extravagantly ornamented and extremely impressive, male birds of paradise develop amazing feathers and put on wonderful making displays,” says Attenborough in an opening video in Voyager’s Birds of paradise. “Found mostly in the island of New Guinea, they are among my favorites.”
The tour features five different locations where different birds of paradise are found, along with a clip with a description of the beautiful birds narrated by Attenborough. The “National Treasures” tour journeys through six habitats from BBC Earth, showing the unique wildlife in different ecosystems such as islands, mountains, jungles, deserts, grasslands, and cities.
Voyager even has a tour through Gombe National Park in Tanzania, to explore the location where Jane Goodall has spent most of her life conducting chimpanzee research. The tour discusses the chimpanzees and talks about conservation efforts. You can see pictures, and videos of the work Goodall has performed with the chimpanzees.
If you’re planning to take a trip, Google Earth can now provide you with trip itineraries designed to show you all the best places to visit in cities like London, Tokyo, and Mexico City.
Google Earth’s update also includes an “I’m lucky feature,” that when clicked on sends you to a random location or landmark along with descriptions of the site from Wikipedia. It has over 20,000 different locations which have been cured by the Google Earth team.
Furthermore, another new feature from the latest update includes a 3D button that shows any place on the globe from any angle. Now, users can also share postcards of particular views from Google Earth.
“When you find a view that leaves you breathless or inspires a fond memory, share a Postard of your exact view with your friends and family,” says Google Earth on the postcard latest feature. “They can click the link to jump right to where you were (virtually) standy.”
Google Earth is now available for anyone accessing from a computer with Google Chrome, as before you could only see the sites through a downloaded version of the tool. Voyager will be available soon for other computer browsers.
Google Earth has been criticized for invasion of privacy
Google Earth is a virtual globe, mapped and equipped with geographical information, which was originally developed by Keyhole, Inc., a CIA-funded company that Google acquired in 2004. The product was called EarthViewer 3D and was re-released as Google Earth in 2005, according to Wikipedia.
Several groups have criticized the platform for allegedly being an invasion of privacy and posing threats to national security. The platform had caused problems from governments around the world, such as the Israeli government, when Google Earth offered detailed images of classified areas in the country.
Google Earth has been blocked by Google in Sudan and Iran since 2007 due to U.S.’ export restrictions. Many citizens around the world have expressed their worries regarding aerial images showing their properties and residences. In the United Kingdom, people also claim that Google Earth leads to vandalism of private ownership, as graffitis of genitals have been drawn on the roof of several locations by vandals in the hope of seeing their artwork on Google Earth.
Source: Business Insider