(Via searchenginewatch.com)Google has added high-resolution satellite images to its Maps and Local search services,offering a birdseye view of millions of locations throughout the U.S. and Canada. Excerpts with edits & comments:
You can enter a U.S. or Canadian street address, or click the link above the search form to perform a local search or request driving directions.Run the search, and your result comes from the newly enhanced mapping system that Google unveiled in February 2005. If there's an image available, you'll see a new "Satellite" link in the upper right corner of the search result page. As with the new maps, you can drag the image around, zoom in or out and also overlay driving directions on the image. "It will allow you to use the nice Javascript UI that we introduced with Keyhole imagery," said John Hanke, General Manager of the Keyhole unit of Google. AOL's Mapquest offered satellite images with maps of locations in U.S. cities for some time, but quietly discontinued the service last year. Google's integration of satellite images with maps is far slicker than the offering from Mapquest,with much more up to date imagery thanks to Google's acquisition of Keyhole in October 2004.Keyhole continuously updates its database with the average age of imagery ranging from 18 to 24 months. Imagery can vary in age from as new as 2-3 months to as old as 2-3 years. Satellite images are also available now when you do a search with Google Local.An entirely different approach to finding and exploring satellite imagery is offered by TerraFly, a public service of Florida International University sponsored by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the United States Geological Survey, and IBM.TerraFly lets you search by coordinates, city, ZIP code, or address, and it displays aerial or satellite images of your specified location. Images offer options to overlay road names, places and Census information with aggregate annual income and population counts.
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